Invest in Minds. Invest in America.

The United States once had the best-educated workforce in the world. That is no longer true. American students rank 36th in math and 13th in reading among OECD countries. Teacher shortages are at record levels. Public school funding varies wildly by ZIP code — creating a system where the quality of your education depends on where you were born.

Higher education has become a debt machine. The average student loan balance exceeds $32,000. Total student debt in the United States surpasses $1.8 trillion. An entire generation is starting adult life in a financial hole that delays homeownership, family formation, and wealth building — the very things that define the middle class.

And the people we trust to educate our children — teachers — are among the most underpaid professionals in the country. The average public school teacher salary is roughly $48,000 to start, which in many states and metro areas is barely a living wage. We ask teachers to shape the future of the nation and pay them like we don't mean it.

Republicans are right that the federal Department of Education has grown too large, too bureaucratic, and too disconnected from the communities it's supposed to serve. Education works best when decisions are made closer to students, not farther away. Local control matters.

Democrats are right that education is a public good and that access to quality schooling should not depend on your parents' income or your neighborhood's property tax base. Public investment in education is an investment in the country's future.

We agree with both. And we're willing to pay for it.

The Mesocratic Party supports free public education from Pre-K through a bachelor's degree at any public university in America. We support a dramatic increase in teacher pay at every level. And we support shrinking the Department of Education while strengthening state-run schools.

Teacher Pay

The Mesocratic Party supports a national average starting teacher salary of $100,000 — more than double the current average of $48,000. The federal government funds the difference through the 15% Plan's $253 billion annual education surplus. Every state benefits. Every teacher benefits. The multiplier is applied uniformly: a state where teachers currently start at $36,000 sees that rise to $75,000. A state at $58,000 sees $121,000.

We want teaching to be one of the most desirable professions in the country. The only way to get there is to pay accordingly.

When you raise teacher pay, you attract better candidates and retain your best talent. When you attract better candidates and retain your best talent, you improve outcomes. When you improve outcomes, you build a stronger workforce, a stronger economy, and a stronger country. It's not complicated. It's just underfunded.

Shrink the Department of Education. Strengthen state schools.

The federal government's role in education should be funding, accountability, and support — not micromanagement. The Department of Education should be smaller, leaner, and focused on three things:

1. Distributing federal education funding to states based on transparent, outcome-based formulas.
2. Setting minimum national standards (not curricula) for literacy, numeracy, and graduation rates.
3. Ensuring civil rights compliance in all publicly funded schools.

Everything else — curriculum, hiring, school operations, and local policy — stays with the states and school districts.

Free Public College

The Mesocratic Party supports eliminating tuition at public universities for all American students. This is not a radical idea. It's how public education already works from kindergarten through 12th grade. We're extending the same principle four more years.

Tuition-free education at any public college or university in the student's home state. Room, board, and living expenses are the student's responsibility (via work, family, or existing aid programs). This is about eliminating the tuition barrier, not creating a free ride. Private universities are unaffected. This is a public investment in public institutions.

Teacher pay, free public college, and a leaner Department of Education are not three separate policies. They're one investment with one goal: make American education the best in the world again.

Pay teachers what the job is worth, and you attract the best talent. Remove the tuition barrier, and you unleash a generation of workers, entrepreneurs, and innovators who start their careers without debt. Shrink the bureaucracy and push decisions to the states, and you get schools that actually reflect their communities.

The 15% Plan funds all of it. A single flat tax that generates $667 billion in new annual revenue — $253 billion of which goes directly to teacher pay, $65 billion to free public college tuition. No new taxes. No new bureaucracy. Just a tax code that finally pays for the things it should have been paying for all along.

If you're a parent: your child can attend any public university in your state, tuition-free.

If you're a teacher: you're finally paid what you're worth — and under the 15% Plan, a teacher earning $65,000 with one child pays federal income tax on just $15,000. With two children, you pay nothing.

If you're a student: you start your adult life without a $32,000 anchor around your neck.

If you're a taxpayer: you're investing in the workforce, the economy, and the country's future.

The best investment America can make is in its own people. Pay the teachers. Free the students. Watch what happens.