Zak Ringelstein is a teacher, entrepreneur, and the Democratic nominee for the U.S Senate in Maine. Given his background, public education is a key part of his platform. Recently, he proposed a policy he calls “The $60,000 Federal Minimum Teacher Salary.” He says it’s his equivalent of “Medicare for All” for education and a way to further his goal to take back the country for working people. The concept is radical: have the Feds foot the bill for teacher salaries, relieving state and local governments, and creating a $60k minimum. Zak says he wants to reorient America’s budget priorities towards people and away from “stockholder profit and war.”

“I spent the majority of my career as a public school teacher, and there’s no more important job in America if we are really talking about leveling the playing field and getting people a foothold on the economic ladder of opportunity,” Zak told Millennial Politics. “It’s about giving everyone a chance to pursue the American dream.”

New Priorities

“There’s been a war on the American public school teacher and there’s been a war by the Betsy DeVos’ of the world who stand to profit. It’s a sickness that we have: we have a federal war and prison budget but we don’t have an education and healthcare budget. We haven’t tackled public schools well enough, and I think it’s about time we do.

“The last three administrations have been complicit in the assault on public school teachers, and there’s a lot of misunderstanding on what the charter school movement is doing, and it’s time we take a closer look. Much has changed since the movement started and not for the good.”

“Fraction of Our War Budget”

“I went down to the border to deliver toys, and I got arrested. One of the things I noted was the number of correctional officers. The stats are horrific: we are spending money four to one, inmates to correctional officers, four to one. But the student-teacher ratio in public schools is 16 to one on average. Then you look at our war budget: we’re spending almost a trillion dollars per year on our military with a whole lot of waste, and by the way, we just added 82 billion dollars to that budget. A fun fact: that would literally pay for the price-tag of tuition-free colleges.

“Now, for the Federal government to pay teachers $60,000 a year, it would be about a quarter of the military budget, just a fraction of our war budget. To put it in another way: it would be about one-tenth of the cost of Trump’s recent tax bill.

“This would in effect, take the burden off local and state taxes to cover teacher salaries because the federal government would bear the entirety of the $60,000 cost for all 3.2 million teachers and the state and local governments would cover their benefits. In many ways, this would level the playing field between wealthier districts and districts with less money. When my team and I were looking at the numbers we were pretty shocked, when you compare it to the war budget and the money we’re giving to the ultra-wealthy through that tax bill. Solving this is the most important thing we can do right, and it’s really hard to make an argument against it.”

Building the Next Generation

“There’s been a calculated attempt in this country, a decision, to intentionally leave people out and prevent people from obtaining levels of education. As the richest country in the world that’s simply not acceptable. There is a calculated corporate and one percent takeover of the government, and we know exactly what they’re doing and don’t think for a second our public schools are any exception from this rule.

“We’ve got a truly revolving door of people who are making the rules and making a lot of money off the policy they are creating for these big education monopolies. And that needs to end. And in many ways, that’s the impetus for our campaign. The thing about this policy is it’s only right to invest in the people who are taking care of our kids and building the next generation.”

You can read more about Zak’s plan here. You can listen to our interview with Zak on the Millennial Politics Podcast on iTunes or in your browser below: