Editor's Note:
CNN anchor Van Jones is the founder and board member of Dream Corps, a national nonprofit organization working at the intersection of criminal justice reform, the green economy, and technology equity to create a better future for all.
Nisha Anand is the executive director of Dream Corps.
The opinions expressed in this comment are yours.
See more opinion at cnne.com/opinion
(CNN) -
If former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump want to speak convincingly to the American people in their first debate on Tuesday, they must pay attention to something disturbing and beautiful that is happening across the country.
As children return to school, teachers, students, and parents come together to create and implement a wide range of back-to-school solutions.
More than 56 million children across the country face classrooms with physical distancing, half weeks and online learning.
Her parents and teachers are also overwhelmed.
The troubling consensus across America is that school is not doing well.
Everybody is fighting.
But some children are struggling even harder, especially those in black, brown, and low-income communities.
And everyone is grappling with what feels like a lack of leadership when it comes to schools.
If we were advising candidates, we would be yelling about this at every meeting.
There are so many problems facing this country.
Education is where everyone meets: the pandemic, racial disparities (especially in employment and education), and our increasingly high-tech economy.
This makes school challenging for everyone and simply impossible for many.
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The candidate who best addresses this crisis in education next Tuesday will find millions of parents listening carefully.
In a partisan era, it could be a rare opportunity to change the votes.
That brings us to the beautiful part of this situation: all the ideas and the American spirit that can be displayed.
For example, #BackToSchoolSolutions, a broad coalition and movement that we are a part of, held a national day of action on September 12.
It was not a national day of denunciation.
It was a national day of solutions.
Most of these are solutions that we can all support, no matter who we plan to vote for on November 3.
A smart candidate would jump on the big national ideas, while praising the ingenuity of parents and teachers.
Along those lines, here are some solutions that we'd like to hear from candidates for support on Tuesday:
1. Broadband for all:
According to a recent study, 42 million people across the country lack adequate access to broadband, with Black, Latino, and Indian households suffering disproportionately.
Almost 60% of parents in low-income households fear that their children will have trouble completing their homework in a digital learning environment due to a lack of home WiFi or proper learning devices.
We cannot allow an entire generation to be left behind, denied access to tools and resources, and excluded from high-tech careers.
Congress must ensure that all households in the United States have Internet access in the next stimulus bill, through a tax credit for broadband access, funding for computers and routers, and a moratorium on power outages. Internet service providers.
2. Covid-19 testing for everyone:
A team of health experts analyzed the numbers and found that the US needs to conduct 193 million tests each month to safely open schools, according to a report from the Rockefeller Foundation.
The report makes an important distinction between high-precision tests that take 12 hours or more to get results and lower-precision tests, but with fast results.
Imperfect rapid-result tests could still be helpful in quickly assessing school risks, even if they are insufficient for hospitals.
The report also makes clear how much we need to do, praising the federal government for recent actions, but concluding that federal efforts "do not yet amount to a nationwide testing strategy."
Cases are already increasing in areas where college students returned to campus, making it clear that more needs to be done.
Rather than leaving the states to their own devices, we need a national free testing strategy, backed by significant federal funding to expand our production and testing infrastructure.
3. National Tutoring Initiative:
Studies show that tutoring can dramatically improve student outcomes.
But generally, this labor- and resource-intensive intervention has only been accessible to the wealthiest families.
Due to the pandemic, there are now proposals on the table to expand AmeriCorps and other programs to provide tutoring for students in need.
This solution is so promising that countries like the Netherlands and the UK are already funding national mentoring initiatives.
In Tennessee, former Governor Bill Haslam and his wife started the Tennessee Tutoring Corps, which aimed to help children left behind due to COVID-19 while increasing job opportunities for recent college graduates.
This back-to-school crisis is not something any of us would choose.
But it is an opportunity to reshape our education system and make it one where the neighborhood you live in does not dictate the quality of your education and the opportunities in your future.
Some parts of education policy can be hot political issues.
But we can all agree that children should be able to continue learning during a pandemic, without putting the health of those around them at risk, and without some children being left behind because of race or zip code.
We need to start with the solutions that will make it happen and build consensus around them.
We are proud that people are coming together to help their communities.
The American people are already stepping up and will continue to do so.
People can continue to share our #BackToSchoolSolutions and have honest and ongoing dialogues across the city, state, and parties.
But now is the time for our state and national leaders to step up as well.
We do not lack solutions or the spirit of problem solving.
We simply lack leadership.
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