Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had released dozens of policy plans before tackling K-12 education, making her the last leading Democratic primary contender to do so.
But on Monday, the candidate who speaks frequently about her time as a public-school teacher offered her long-awaited proposal: a characteristically dense white paper that promises to quadruple federal funding for schools that serve low-income students, and to pump tens of billions of new dollars per year into desegregation, special education, bilingual programs and mental health support, while increasing federal oversight of racial and gender discrimination in schools.
The plan would be paid for by Ms. Warren’s signature wealth tax on net worth over $50 million. To encourage states to spend more on low-income students, those that fund poor and rich schools more equally would be awarded new federal dollars. And it proposes a mix of housing and educational strategies to racially integrate schools, such as inclusive zoning to make it easier to build affordable housing in areas with quality schools, and magnet schools to draw students outside their neighborhoods.
Many of these policies enjoy wide support among Democrats. But the Warren campaign also chose a clear side in the party’s long-running education war by vowing to end “high-stakes testing” and federal funding for opening new charter schools, and to ban for-profit charters, which make up about 15 percent of the sector.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont issued a similar proposal on charters in May. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed, and most are not unionized.
Like Mr. Sanders, Ms. Warren offers little to the bipartisan group of school reformers who fought, under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, to support the charter school movement and to hold schools and teachers accountable for student test scores.
Those policies have become less popular in recent years, as a coalition of parent activists and restive teachers protested, saying they drew tax dollars away from traditional schools and put pressure on educators to spend too much time preparing students for exams.
In his own education plan, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. did not mention charter schools or testing, a sign, perhaps, of the sensitivity of those subjects among Democrats. Mr. Biden proposed tripling federal funding for low-income schools and, like Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, supported bringing health services into schools.
Democrats for Education Reform, a group that supports charters and tougher accountability for teachers and schools, has met with most of the leading candidates. Charles Barone, the group’s chief policy officer, said that while he welcomed big new investments in education, including in teacher pay, he was disappointed that the primary contenders had not tackled specific problems such as weaknesses in how educators are trained to teach children to read.
“There is a political tension between spreading the money around and trying to make strategic investments in certain areas,” he said. “There’s a lot of meat and potatoes, but not a lot of spinach-eating getting proposed.”
Before she entered politics, Ms. Warren suggested a program allowing parents to choose any public school for their children, regardless of where the family lived.
That vision aligned with many in the charter school movement, who see their schools as lifelines for families who cannot afford private school tuition or a home in a coveted school zone.
But in 2016, Ms. Warren, then in her first term as a senator from Massachusetts, spoke out against a ballot referendum that would have raised the cap on the number of charters that could open each year in her home state. She acknowledged that many Massachusetts charter schools were high-performing, but said that opening too many additional charters could reduce funding for traditional public schools.
Ms. Warren and her Democratic rivals are vying for endorsements from teachers’ unions, which generally oppose the expansion of the charter sector. “The focus is on making sure every single neighborhood public school is a great school,” said Bharat Ramamurti, an economic policy adviser to Ms. Warren.
The unions have experienced a burst of energy and public support over the past two years, as teachers in a string of states and cities mounted walkouts in favor of higher pay and more school funding, and against competition from charters.
Teachers in Chicago, the nation’s third-largest school district, are now on strike, and Ms. Warren has offered her support. She has proposed policies that would make it easier for unions to organize teachers and other workers, and easier for employees to strike.
On teacher pay, Ms. Warren’s plan promises new federal funding but does not offer as much detail as a proposal by Senator Kamala Harris of California, which supports an average teacher raise of $13,500 per year, with more money for teachers in low-income schools.
“We have to get a little edgier than just, ‘Pay teachers more,’” said Paul Reville, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former Massachusetts secretary of education. He suggested that in addition to a broad anti-poverty agenda, candidates should support a longer school day and year, with afternoon and summer enrichment activities that could help children from low-income families keep up with more affluent peers.
“We have millions of children who are being grossly underprepared for the 21st-century labor market, to say nothing of citizenship in a complex democracy,” he said.
Ms. Warren has steadily gained momentum in the Democratic primary contest, and she now stands as a front-runner alongside Mr. Biden. Last week’s debate, in which she was the target of a barrage of attacks from other candidates, was indicative of her perceived strength in the race.
On the campaign trail, Ms. Warren often tells crowds that she had dreamed of becoming a public-school teacher ever since the second grade, recounting how she lost her job after her first year as a special needs teacher because she became pregnant. She has said she would appoint a former public-school teacher as education secretary and, six months ago, Ms. Warren released a higher education plan that calls for canceling student loan debt and eliminating tuition at public colleges. She has also proposed expanding access to free preschool and capping child care expenses at 7 percent of parents’ income, with free child care for low-income families.