As illiteracy permeates US schools, the Biden administration prioritizes allocating $900 million for green school buses
Even though the number of children in the United States who lack literacy remains high, the Biden administration is allocating over $900 million in federal funds to school districts around the country in order to help them decarbonize their fleets of buses.
The White House announced on Wednesday that 530 school districts would get over $900 million in grants to replace thousands of outdated, gas-powered school buses with “cleaner” electric ones.
The Biden administration’s goal of switching to zero emission vehicles is aided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2023 Clean School Bus Program rebate program, which assists school districts in buying nearly 3,400 clean school buses, 92% of which are electric.
According to EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, new school buses boost manufacturing employment and enhance air quality.
“President Biden believes every child deserves the opportunity to lead a healthy life and breathe clean air, and his Investing in America agenda is designed to deliver just that,” Regan stated. “With today’s latest round of funding, we are transforming the nation’s school bus fleet to better protect our most precious cargo — our kids — saving school districts money, improving air quality, and bolstering American manufacturing all at the same time.”
The President Biden administration is pushing for improved public school infrastructure and less pollution from outdated buses, which includes the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program.
The Biden administration is pushing for improvements to school infrastructure at a time when American kids are having difficulty with literacy inside of classrooms.
The results of the biannual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests consistently indicate that two thirds of fourth grade students in the United States cannot read proficiently.
40% of students are “essentially nonreaders,” according to the NAEP.
In spite of the startlingly high percentage of illiterate youngsters, the United States spends billions of dollars annually on public education.
The National Center of Educational Statistics (NCES) estimates that $870 billion was spent on public primary and secondary education in the US in 2019–20. The prices for the 2021–2022 academic year did not change.
According to the NCES, the United States spends, on average, $17,013 for each public school student enrolling in the autumn of that academic year.
