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Speech for Mitt Romney on
Education Reform
by Joe Elie
We face a new generation of challenges as a nation: the
terrorist threat of global jihad, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, nuclear weapons proliferation, the rising cost
of health care, energy, and entitlements -- and the fact
that it will be impossible for us to meet any challenge in
the future without well-educated citizens. Nothing is more
important to the long-term success of the United States than
to raise our kids and grandkids with the knowledge, skills,
and virtues necessary for them to become successful,
independent, and self-reliant -- because the American people are
the source of America's strength.
Public education is a
matter of national security. It is at once a national and a local issue.
And if our best days are yet before us, our public schools
need to be greatly improved because the quality of education
has been deteriorating
for decades. If America's strength flows from its people, then its
people must be educated.
Our current education crisis is a
threat to the Republic. Our schools are failing our children. Many graduate from
high school without mastering the fundamentals of reading
and math. Our students are often without
trained teachers, adequate supplies, and safe,
well-maintained facilities. Our system of public education was
once the envy of the world, but today we're
struggling just to keep pace with the
world. And in the competitive global
economy, we can't afford to merely catch up with the leaders. We
must set the standard.
Ironically, we aren't meeting the needs of today's
students despite our new age teaching methods and the
marvels of modern technology. The internet, the computer,
and the pocket
calculator are great tools, but America's children were better educated in the days of
the one-room school house. Experts believe the high school degree of 50 or
75 years ago is the equivalent of the
college degree
today.
I believe intelligence is simply the ability to learn.
And our kids are certainly intelligent, that's why it's such
a shame that our schools are letting them down. The minds of
too many of our children are confined by the circumstances
of their environment -- their imaginations imprisoned by an
ignorance of their own potential. Too many become adults
separated from success only by an inability to see what they
might accomplish -- their vision and ambition obscured by a
fog of uncertainty. When done right, education is a journey
of self-discovery, an examination of what one might resolve
to be, and
an exploration of life's mysteries -- combining an awareness
of the
inward-looking dictum 'Know Thyself' of Socrates with
Aristotle's outward-looking metaphysical concept of the 'Prime Mover.'
Democracy had its genesis in ancient Greece. And the
Greeks understood the relationship between
education and freedom. The stoic philosopher Epictetus said "Only the educated are
free." As Americans, we value freedom above all else;
but the
bottom line is we've been depriving our children of the
freedom to live the American dream. American children
deserve to be free from the bonds of ignorance. They
deserve the freedom to make the right choices personally,
professionally, and on behalf of their country as citizens.
It is their birthright as Americans.
Ideally, a child's first classroom is the home and the
first teachers are mom and dad. The most significant roles I
have played are that of husband and father because there is
no more important work than within the four walls of the
American home. Every child deserves a father and a mother.
And every child deserves a great teacher. I'm sure all of
you remember one particular teacher that gave so much
energy, enthusiasm, and passion to the job that you were
inspired. Remember how that teacher challenged you?
Remember standing at the board working on the calculus
problem? Remember the long essay questions in English,
civics, or history class? You worked hard because your
teacher worked hard. You cared because your teacher cared.
And you didn't want to disappoint your teacher. Beyond
calculus, English, civics, or history -- that teacher taught you a valuable life lesson -- working hard pays off and brings a tremendous amount of
personal satisfaction. These teachers
still exist today, but the system is rigged against them.
For many students, school itself must offer the sanctuary
of home with principals and teachers acting as surrogate
parents. Troubled by divorce, poverty, drugs, and violence,
many kids are fighting for their survival. The nation's
public schools can help free them from their plight. In poor districts,
however, many young teachers arrive full of enthusiasm and
idealism only to leave disillusioned. And it is in these
impoverished areas
where public schools need the most help. Inequities and wide
disparities of achievement should not exist between
districts. Unequal educational
opportunity is the civil rights issue of our time. To address this achievement gap, I support
the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. No
Child Left Behind demonstrated to a degree that local
control can work in conjunction with national standards and
testing. No Child Left Behind has added accountability and
is addressing the gap between affluent and poor communities.
America is plagued by failing schools despite the fact
that we spend more than $500 billion on K thru 12 education
every year. Government at the local, state, and federal
levels has attempted to improve public education by
increasing funding, implementing standards and testing, and
requiring the credentialing of teachers; but much more
reform is necessary. Our schools succeeded when principals,
teachers, and parents had control of the classroom and when
curricula and textbooks were objective. But the teachers
unions have wrested control away -- and now the test scores
of our students are lagging behind many of the
industrialized nations, particularly in math and science.
There
is little accountability, little innovation, and little
hope. Some years ago, we lowered expectations and began to tolerate mediocrity and
failure in our students. We grew more concerned with
their self-esteem rather than whether or not they were
actually learning the rudimentary skills necessary for
acquiring knowledge - reading, writing, and arithmetic.
We supported the notion that children can learn as well from one
another than they can from a teacher. We tolerated the problem of
grade inflation and social promotion. We encouraged the idea
that children shouldn't have too much homework and that
parents should always help them with what little they do
have rather than only providing help when needed. We
chose not to discipline students for being disruptive in
the classroom. Teachers unions do not allow us to
address these problems. The unions have the money from
mandatory
dues and the organization to fight reform. They are an entrenched special interest
group that has little interest in the academic performance
of students. The fundamental problem with our system of
public education is that the American
people do not control the schools, the unions do. We must free
our children from the tyranny of the teachers unions.
Accepting the status quo means accepting failure.
Failing public schools also contribute to the coarsening
of our civilization. What our children are not learning
in school they are learning from popular culture. As we
know, those aren't always the best lessons to learn at
such a young and impressionable age. Those lessons lead
to bad decisions down the road. In some instances, our
politically correct culture has infected the classroom.
In the historic town of Lexington, Massachusetts, the
local school superintendent decreed that 2nd graders should
be forced to read a book about two homosexual men as a part
of inculcating tolerance. When parents objected, their
voices were not heard. There wasn't much tolerance of their
objections. Why does
homosexuality need to be part of the grade school curriculum
at a time when the values of our nation's founders are
largely being ignored?
Parents have alternatives to failing schools such as charter
schools, private schools, and home schooling, but alternatives shouldn't be
the absolute necessities they are in many school systems
today. This is why I’m advocating for a ‘back to basics’
approach that seeks to instill character in our children and
includes testing to ensure they are learning. We must limit
union control in order to hold superintendents and their
administrators accountable for how students in their school
districts perform. We need smaller districts, smaller
schools, smaller class sizes, and more qualified teachers.
We must retain the best teachers by paying higher salaries. We must ensure that the money we’re
spending makes a difference in the lives of the students by
making it to the
classroom. And, of course, some
children have special needs, which can't be ignored.
Milton Friedman, the eminent economist, wrote an essay
more than 50 years ago on the need for public school
vouchers. Friedman observed that the public schools
desperately needed an injection of what’s found in the
American business model -- competition. School choice
through a voucher system would allow parents to shop for
the best schools. America’s universities and colleges --
public and private -- are among the best in the world
because students have a choice as to where to spend
their tuition money. They must compete for students. As
a result, there is hardly one university, one college,
or one community college, that doesn’t produce an
educated graduate. Those who benefit from the status quo
have fought school vouchers; but where school
vouchers are now available, there has been dramatic
improvement in the performance of both teachers and
students. The present model is not only broken, it is
wrong-headed and un-American. There’s no incentive to
change. School choice provides that incentive.
The Reason Foundation in California late last year released a report
detailing a similar reform that would go a long way toward
improving our public schools. Reason believes that school
funding should follow each child to the school of their
parents' choice, forcing schools to compete for students and
their money. Failing schools must improve
or close.
Reason recommends this reform be combined with a
'weighted-student formula,' which
gives schools more money for taking students with special
needs or limited English proficiency. The results are
already in. San Francisco has been using this model for
six years and is California's highest performing urban district.
Because
parents are choosing the best San Francisco schools, 5
failing schools were closed in 2005 due to low enrollment.
Now other cities in California are following San Francisco's
example, including Oakland.
In Massachusetts, we instituted the John & Abigail Adams
merit scholarship that gave all graduating high school students
in the top quarter of their class free tuition to any Massachusetts public college. We
ended bilingual education with a ballot question because in
America people need to speak English if they're going to be
successful. And we prevented a moratorium on charter schools
with a veto. We demonstrated a commitment to education that
is showed measurable success. I was pleased to get the
nation's report card as governor that tests 4th and 8th
graders in English and math. Massachusetts students scored
#1 in English and Math in the 4th grade. And they scored #1
in English and math in the 8th grade. This was the first
time a state scored #1 in all four measures.
School curricula should emphasize math and science because we
are most in need of scientists and engineers, and I have
proposed that 30,000 mathematicians and scientists enter the
public school system. American history is
also an important subject. We don't know where
we're going as a nation if we don't know where we've been.
Textbook publishers must understand that our
children should not only study the nefarious aspects of our
history. They need to tell the whole story. Let's
be sure we give our children the irrefutable facts - the first
being the United States is the greatest country in
history because it has done more to advance and defend
the cause of freedom at home and around the world.
Instituting reforms in order to deal with a bad
situation is an American trait. We cannot continue to
tolerate mediocrity and failure. There are quite a few
immediate actions in addition to the Reason Foundation ideas that would quickly begin to remedy the
problem nationwide if we can get them by the unions. Principals should be accountable
for their school's performance and have the power to
make hiring and firing decisions. Teachers should have
control of their classrooms and be able to dismiss
disruptive students. Teacher tenure should be
abolished because no one in successful organizations is ever
guaranteed a job for life. The credentialing process in
technical subjects should
be less restrictive so that young college graduates can move
directly into teaching. To sum it up, we need a combination
of high standards, rigorous testing, empowered principals
and teachers,
merit scholarships, English immersion, and school choice.
Public schools could also utilize the private sector to
help administrators analyze test data and manage
revenues and expenditures. School administration in the
larger districts is daunting. There is a tremendous
amount of waste and inefficiency. Contracting with
private companies could help schools budget
better, monitor teacher and student accountability,
provide tutoring, and develop tests to
measure achievement. Schools would operate in a more
cost effective manner.
America's tradition of public education began in
Franklin, Massachusetts with the birth of Horace Mann.
Mann's family was very poor, but he used the local library to educate himself. His innate
love of learning allowed him to graduate from Brown
University as valedictorian and become a
successful lawyer. As a school committee
member, state representative, state senator, and secretary
of the first state Board of Education, he worked tirelessly
to advance his idea for a free compulsory school system that
educated students both academically and morally. Not surprisingly,
supporters of the status quo at the time tried to stop him,
but he convinced enough people that his reforms were
beneficial. His common school model was adopted nationwide
by the 1870's
and helped assimilate our burgeoning immigrant population. Mann
later served as a member of Congress. Horace Mann imagined a
better way of doing things and became a remarkable leader
and education visionary. For his efforts, Mann today
is remembered as the father of public education in the United
States. I believe we must return to the essence of his early model. One man created our system,
and certainly all of us can work together to reform it in
his memory and spirit.
Conservatism means staying true to the principles that
made this country great. In public
education and in society-at-large, we have strayed from
these principles. Our founders gave us a great nation
governed by a Constitution that granted individual liberty
by limiting government power. "A Republic, if you can keep it." Benjamin Franklin said. And
our forbears kept it strong. We must do the same -- and public
education is critical. An informed and well-educated population would be
reflected in the discourse of our political leaders and in our media. It
would change our society for the better. If we can accomplish
the reforms that are
necessary to restore greatness to our public schools, our
children will have the freedom to make the most of the
American dream and the opportunities our nation provides. Individuals achieving the American dream is good for
America. It's the best measure of our success as a nation.
An education is a covenant -- a promise -- that each
generation keeps with the next, providing children with the
knowledge, skills, and virtues to lead successful and
fulfilling lives. Educating a child is an act of love. And
in America, those who combine hard work with a love of
learning cannot fail. So let's act together to love our
children by honoring this covenant. Let's restore our system
of public education to greatness and instill in our children
the uniquely American values of freedom, independence, and
self-reliance. Our future depends on it.
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