Zeal For Truth

I am a teacher in the public school system with an M.Ed from the University of Oregon. Over the last several years, I have seriously studied the American educational system and worked in it as a kindergarten and first grade teacher. These are my thoughts on the educational policy statements made by some Republican Candidates for President. I wanted to include all candidates in this article, however after three weeks of researching and writing it, I have decided to publish it as is.

Parents and teachers alike should look closely at candidates statements on educational policy. Many candidates make “feel good” statements offering little or no solution as to how they actually plan to implement their grand ideas for improving the state of public education. Additionally, candidates often have track records in other areas that set a precedent that suggests how they might handle or implement their educational policies. It is also important to remember that most people view education in one of two ways:

Education is the role of the state: the government is ultimately responsible for educating children, and as such is also responsible for the quality and regulation of education across the board: public schools, private schools, home-school laws. Thus, because the state has total authority, secular state values supersede parental values.

Education is the role of parents: a child’s guardians or parents are ultimately responsible for educating children, and as such are also responsible for the quality and regulation of their children’s education regardless of if they attend private, public, or home schools. Thus, because the parents have total authority, parental values supersede secular state values.

Rudy Giuliani
Giuliani claims he wants to reform the public school system by allowing parental choice via vouchers or charter schools (which are publicly funded and thus government controlled schools). These are not subject to the same regulations as other public schools, and there are a number of problems with them. For example, most students are unable to enroll in such a school as there are long waiting lists and the state controls how many charter schools can be created.

• Real Actions: He recently created an “Educational Advisory Board” to work on school choice, although he claims that parents should be the ones making the choice on how to educate children. Creating an advisory board (such is the function of the Dept. of Education) is relatively harmless, although I fail to see how this board full of government people is a step towards parental choice and control (seems like creating more government bureaucracy to me.)
• Guiliani has proposed to open schools on weekends for remedial students to catch up. This idea sounds a little backwards, especially considering how poor the schools were to begin with in New York. If the schools were not working for children attending them Monday through Friday, how will sending them for an additional day using the same methods make a difference?
• He started a Charter Schools Initiative.
• Guiliani also sought greater power and control over Schools. This means greater government and less local control as the legislation would have given power over to mayors instead of school boards, yikes!
• Guiliani also created the Bilingual Education Task Force. This move also maintains the idea of reform coming down from the top levels of government, i.e. more centralized government control is the solution to failing schools. However, Giuliani does appear to at least be consistent in his statements.
• He views education as a “civil rights” issue. This is NCLB language by the way, but, I’ve got to hand it to him on opposing the teachers unions, that takes some guts. In all, Guiliani talks some semi-interesting talk, but his actions or attempted actions don’t always match up in the end.

Mike Huckabee
Huckabee wants to release “Weapons of Mass Instruction” in arts and sciences and believes schools should be judged by “results” (does not say what these results should be based upon, standardized tests or what?). He takes credit for raising test scores as governor and claims to support parental choice, to want more charter schools and wants a “clear distinction” between federal and state roles in NCLB.”States must be allowed to develop their own benchmarks,” according to Huckabee. However, he is either grossly misinformed or he is just repeating republican rhetoric because states currently DO set their own standards under NCLB (that promise won’t be hard to achieve). As such, he supports NCLB as it stands today, which has significantly increased the role of the federal government in regulating and controlling schools - minimizing local control. Ultimately, NCLB will lead to federalized government schools that offer a nationally standard curriculum. Huckabee also claims to strongly support homeschoolers. He recently answered many questions regarding his educational policy. Huckabee does not believe that vouchers are practical and prefers improving public schools instead.

• Real Actions: Passed the Omnibus Education Act 2003 in Arkansas which allowed the State to consolidate nearly 200 of the state’s 308 school districts as a way to afford a broader curriculum. This legislation effectively replaces local school boards and gives broader authority to the state.
• Created the Smart Start, Smart Step, and Next Step programs, which put state selected facilitators in schools to help guide the principal and teachers in their professional development. From what I understand, these programs increase state control of teacher development and school wide goals as opposed to a teacher/principal himself choosing how to further their education.
• He helped revise Arkansas’ public Charter School law in 1999. Charter schools are promoted as school choice, however, they are in fact a “faux choice” because of limited enrollment opportunities as well as the fact that they are public schools and cannot opt out of state control and state laws.
• He supported the creation of Teacher-of-the-Year legislation which makes the teacher an ex-officio member of the state Board of Education and allows the teacher to travel across the state training others during the school year. Yes, that makes sense, if you have a good teacher, by all means pull them from the classroom to do state sponsored bureaucratic activities.
• Huckabee raised teacher salaries and public school funds at the expense of taxpayers. Now, that’s nice but it is certainly not small government, nor is it supportive of true school choice as it simply reinforces the government monopoly on education.
• Based on these kinds of actions, it’s really no surprise that the NEA has endorsed him. I happen to belong to this teacher’s union (as mandated by my state) and I know for a fact that this union believes that education is the role of the state, and is anti-homeschooling, anti-school choice and vouchers.
• Huckabee signed and allowed Arkansas state legislature to pass new laws that were more restrictive for homeschooling families.
• Huckabee opposed a legislative proposal by the Murphy Commission (a think-tank he started) to reform the education system and start a voucher system in the state of Arkansas. Huckabee may “believe” that parents should be able to make a choice, however, he certainly does not act on that belief.

Mitt Romney
Romney claims he wants to improve American schools by closing the “achievement gap,” and sees it as a civil rights issue. Says he believes in a “proper role” for the federal government in education, which includes “improving” NCLB by focusing even more on individual children’s improvement, and will give more states that meet their own standards flexible measuring. This merely continues the current system, seeing as how each state makes up and changes their own standards yearly. And what exactly does he mean by flexible measuring? Claims he supports school choice, but does not layout a plan for how he will promote it. This seems doubtful as he also greatly supports NCLB, which leads towards greater federalization of schools He says he plans to create a tax credit for homeschoolers and claims he will implement performance-based pay for teachers.

• Real Actions: According to the candidate’s website, Romney increased the number of charter schools in Massachusetts, and created a state-sponsored scholarship program offered to the highest performing public school high school graduates. While he was governor, his state was the first to meet the NAEP math and reading test results in two grades.!
• He supported state legislation that would have added 1,000 new math and science teachers to public schools and would have required AP classes in math and science, and would have provided laptops to all middle and high schoolers (I would love to see the taxpayers bill for this one!).
• He has changed his stance from eliminating the Dept. of Ed to supporting increased federal involvement in schools and NCLB. Might I suggest that his position is now consistent in reinforcing the role of education being the role of the state and that he is a BIG believer in state mandated testing.

John McCain
McCain doesn’t outline any positions on education on his official campaign website this year. Perhaps, he likes things just the way they are now? However, you can read a bunch of his statements such as merit-based pay for teachers on education here.

• Real Actions: He co-sponsored the following senate bills deal with regulating public education and/or increasing funds based on various criteria to public schools. As such, these bills reinforce the idea that the federal government is ultimately responsible for the education of children.
• Education A-Plus bill , 1989
• Co-sponsored the Educational Excellence Act, 1990
• Supported Dropout Prevention Programs legislation, 1998
• Supported amendment focusing on the unique dropout problems facing Hispanic students.
• Supported the Reading Excellence Act.
• Co-sponsored the Child Nutrition Act
• Sponsored the Ed-ACT bill.
• Voted in support of NCLB. NCLB increased federal government control of local public schools. As such, McCain is a clear supporter of increasing government control of education.

Ron Paul
Paul claims to support giving educational control back to parents. Paul wants to dismantle the Department of Education and return it’s function to the states. He says he will reconstruct the school system by allowing parents and teachers tax credits. He also claims to want to reform the funding of public schools by funding them with local tax dollars, “where waste is minimized and accountability is greatest.” Paul supports parental and local control of education, and strongly supports home schoolers rights. He also supports guaranteeing parity for home school diplomas and advancing equal scholarship consideration for students entering college from a home school environment. Paul’s statements are strongly in support of parental rights and the role of education belonging to that of the parent and not to the state.

• Real Actions:voted against NCLB. This should get more attention, because even when it was popular, he stood against increasing federal control of education.
• Paul introduced the Family Freedom Education Act in 2001. This is some of the best educational legislation I’ve ever read, if you haven’t read this you should!
• Introduced and sponsored Education Professional Development Tax Credit Act of 2007
• H.R. 1060 Professional Educators Tax Relief Act of 2007
• H.R. 1059 Teacher Tax Cut Act of 2007, (Apparently, he recognizes the amount of personal monies that the state mandates teachers pay for professional development in order to keep their licenses).
• Sponsored H.R. 1058: Hope Plus Scholarship Act of 2007
• H.R. 1057 Education Improvement Tax Cut Act
• H.R. 193: Make College Affordable Act of 2007. I’ve been thinking these tax cuts over and how they might actually work. Tax cuts may actually be the best option for giving parents school choice. More parents would be able to afford private school if they knew that they could write it off. However, Paul doesn’t limit this to private schools, but also wants to include home school families in this as well. Additionally, this fixes the problem with vouchers and keeps the federal government out of private schools. Of course, the tax credits or cuts would need to be pretty substantial. This is an idea that I need to look into more. However, what is clear is that Paul actually does what he says he will do.

It is important to note that despite many attempted reforms, public schools are failing. They will continue to fail no matter how high the standard, how many tests are implemented, and how many times they change the administration, because they eliminate parental choice and put it in the hands of bureaucrats. More people should seriously consider who truly has the right to inform and guide a child’s education. Is education the role of the state? Or is education the role of parents?