ISSUE
IMPROVING EDUCATION & CAREER TRAINING
Greg is fighting for an education system that keeps its promise.
Education should be a right in this country, not a privilege reserved for families who can afford it. But for too many working families, the promise has been broken at every stage. Child care costs too much before a child ever reaches kindergarten. Public schools are asked to do more with less. Teachers are praised, then underpaid and stretched thin. Students are told education is the path to a better life, then pushed toward debt or a narrow set of options that do not fit every person’s future.
Greg Stanton has a plan to make that promise real for Arizona families: affordable early childhood education, fully funded public schools, respected educators and real pathways into good-paying work. As the son of educators and a father of two, Greg knows strong schools can change the direction of a child’s life and that investing in education means investing in Arizona’s future.
Greg’s plan centers around four primary principles:
Every child deserves a strong start and a fair shot. That starts with affordable child care, universal pre-K, and Head Start so children enter school ready to learn and parents can keep working while raising a family. When they get older, our children deserve fully funded classrooms, strong Title I support, full funding for students with disabilities, mental health care, after-school programs, wraparound services, and universal school meals.
Public money belongs in public schools. Greg firmly believes that public money should be used to strengthen public education, not private school voucher schemes or corporations looking to profit off students. It should also be used to rebuild and modernize school buildings so children are not learning in classrooms with unsafe water, polluted air, extreme heat, outdated systems, or unhealthy conditions.
Educators deserve more than praise. Greg’s parents and siblings chose education as their public calling, and so he feels strongly we should raise teacher pay, invest in the educator pipeline, and make it possible for talented people to stay in the classroom instead of being driven out by burnout and low wages.
Education should open doors after high school without trapping people in debt. That’s why Greg is working to make college more affordable with more short-term Pell Grants, stronger community college pathways, more modern career and technical education, and fully-funded workforce programs that help people gain skills without taking on debt. He also opposes cuts to Job Corps and other programs that give young people a real path into skilled trades and stable careers.
The promise of education should be straightforward: children get a strong start, public schools have the resources to help students thrive, educators are treated with dignity, and every Arizonan has a real path to a good job without being priced out, left behind or told there is only one way to succeed.
KEY ENDORSEMENT
Arizona Education Association / National Education Association
Greg’s record
Forced the Trump Administration to release more than $110 million in frozen education funding for Arizona schools after leading the delegation push to stop the funding blockade.
Fought the Trump Administration’s freeze of $118 million in K-12 funding for Arizona, including money schools rely on for teachers, student support, afterschool programs and English language learning.
Helped protect afterschool and summer learning programs by pushing the administration to release frozen 21st Century Community Learning Center funds.
Backed short-term Pell Grants so students can use federal aid for job-focused training programs that lead directly to good-paying careers, not just traditional four-year degrees.
Defended Job Corps and Arizona’s workforce training pipeline, including two Arizona centers serving more than 650 students preparing for trades and other in-demand careers.
Introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen the air traffic controller workforce and address a dangerous staffing shortage that threatens aviation safety.
Pushed to protect Arizona’s research economy by opposing proposed cuts to National Science Foundation and NIH funding that support ASU, the University of Arizona, and Northern Arizona University, and by advocating for continued federal investment in STEM education and university-based research.
Opposed Republican proposals to eliminate or weaken the Department of Education, including efforts to cut federal funding for Title I schools and special education programs that serve low-income students and students with disabilities in Arizona.