2008 GOP Platform for Education

Our nations schools are failing from coast to coast for a variety of reasons. The primary reason is parental responsibility. But as legislating good parenting is impossible, this is one problem that I am not going to address in my proposed platform for education.

First, we have to focus the education on developmental learning, not agendas. For example our schools are indoctrinating young people with stories of eminent global destruction and not teaching them the Bill of Rights. I once heard a great thought on Global Warming..

"the arrogance to say that the temperature and global climate as of today is Earth's ideal setting is astonishing".

Twenty years ago it was global cooling. How about before teaching global warming we teach our kids the difference between Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin. Then how to measure temperature properly and the number of variables it would take to achieve an accurate global forecast. If we taught them that, they could test our theories. And we wouldn't want that. Somehow we have to get the schools focus back on teaching our kids to succeed.

The federal department of education should be eliminated and 85% of the funds distributed to the 50 states based on population size. Then the other 15% should produce 1 study per year ranking the fifty state education systems. Let the people decide where to live and how their kids are educated. The states will compete, try new ideas like vouchers, and less tax dollars will be wasted on bureaucratic nonsense. The states, cities, and schools that are rated the highest will be flooded with new workers looking for the best opportunity for their children. Plus these locations will thrive because educated people make better citizens. With 50 test laboratories all focused on achieving the best quality education, the country will adapt and use the best methods to teach our kids.

The second problem with education in today's America is the teacher's union and job mentality. There are many amazing teachers who deserve our admiration and thanks. However our schools are filled with other types of teachers who see teaching as a job that includes summers off, no performance evaluations, guaranteed pay raises, and amazing benefits. This type of teacher uses the same lesson each year, endless videos and media, and spends very little of his/her free time planning lessons or helping struggling students. I went to high school 15 years ago and at that time I had 3 good teachers for every 7 bad. From stories I hear, I imagine that has got worse and not better. Pay scales in schools have to be changed from tenure based to performance and difficulty based. A teacher working with 45 students in the most dangerous and under-funded programs need to make more than the suburban teacher with 25 students and unlimited supplies.

Finally, the Government can only guarantee educational opportunity. It cannot legislate that every citizen accomplish being educated. Ultimately that responsibility lies on the individual, the family, the church, his neighbors and our society at large.






This post is one element of the Grassroots Conservative Republican Platform 2008. To contribute to this effort, please comment on this post and help shape this platform. Send the link to your friends and lets take our party back to the conservative principals that lead President Reagan and that were the key to President Bush's victory in the election of 2000.