The growing concentration of income, wealth, and power in our country is the greatest threat to opportunity for our children and grandchildren..

Bernie Sanders is the candidate who takes the clearest stand against inequality and for working people.

He has consistently supported and voted for policies that would limit the power of big banks and Wall Street.

And his support comes, not from the millionaires and billionaires – or himself — but from small donors like most of us.

There hasn’t been enough discussion of either education or elders in either party this year. But Bernie Sanders clearly opposes corporate control of education.

Reducing income inequality is the most important thing we can do to close the achievement gap in education and to ensure that seniors have a secure future.

This week, the Globe asked each candidate for their “Big Idea.” Bernie Sanders said he would tax speculators to pay for fee college tuition. He would reform Social Security so that multimillionaires pay the same percent of their income as the middle class.

If families can support themselves and lift themselves out of poverty, that will do far more than any school-based policy to close the achievement gap. The only time the achievement gap shrank in the United States was during the War on Poverty.[1]

Massachusetts leads the nation in educational achievement as measured by the National Assessment of Education Progress. But we have the third biggest difference in scores between poor children and their peers.[2] 1/6 of our children live in poverty. There is an almost 90% correlation of MCAS scores with income. The lowest income students attend schools with the least adequate funding. The “lowest-performing” schools have the least adequate funding.

And when people work for minimum wage without benefits, they can’t save, they don’t have pensions, and Social Security is inadequate. If they struggle in their working years, what happens when they retire – or can’t get a job because of their age? Already less than a third of Massachusetts seniors are financially secure.[3]

Just by running, Bernie Sanders is making inequality an issue in the campaign. But talking isn’t enough. We need action. We need Bernie Sanders.