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Education: A Chance for Every Child
Education is much more than schooling. It is
the whole range of activities by which families and
communities transmit to a younger generation,
not just knowledge and skills, but ethical and
behavioral norms and traditions. It is the handing
over of a cultural identity. That is why American
education has, for the last several decades, been
the focus of constant controversy, as centralizing
forces from outside the family
and community have sought
to remake education in order
to remake America. They have
done immense damage. The
federal government should not
be a partner in that effort, as
the Constitution gives it no role
in education. At the heart of
the American Experiment lies
the greatest political expression
of human dignity: The self-evident
truth that “all men are
created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty,
and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
That truth rejects the dark view of the individual as
human capital — a possession for the creation of
another’s wealth.
Parents are a child’s first and foremost
educators, and have primary responsibility for
the education of their children. Parents have a
right to direct their children’s education, care,
and upbringing. We support a constitutional
amendment to protect that right from interference
by states, the federal government, or international
bodies such as the United Nations. We reject a one-size-fits-all
approach to education and support a
broad range of choices for parents and children at
the state and local level. We likewise repeat our longstanding
opposition to the imposition of national
standards and assessments, encourage the parents and educators who are implementing alternatives
to Common Core, and congratulate the states which
have successfully repealed it. Their education reform
movement calls for choice-based, parent-driven
accountability at every stage of schooling. It affirms
higher expectations for all students and rejects the
crippling bigotry of low expectations. It recognizes
the wisdom of local control of our schools and it
wisely sees consumer rights in education — choice
— as the most important driving force for renewing
education. It rejects excessive testing and “teaching
to the test” and supports the need for strong
assessments to serve as a tool so teachers can tailor
teaching to meet student needs.
We applaud America’s
great teachers, who should
be protected against frivolous
lawsuits and should be able
to take reasonable actions to
maintain discipline and order in
the classroom. Administrators
need flexibility to innovate
and to hold accountable
all those responsible for
student performance. A good
understanding of the Bible
being indispensable for the
development of an educated
citizenry, we encourage state
legislatures to offer the Bible
in a literature curriculum as
an elective in America’s high
schools. We urge school districts to make use of
teaching talent in the business community, STEM
fields, and the military, especially among our
returning veterans. Rigid tenure systems should
be replaced with a merit-based approach in order
to attract the best talent to the classroom. All
personnel who interact with school children should
pass background checks and be held to the highest
standards of personal conduct.
Academic Excellence for All
Maintaining American preeminence requires
a world-class system of education in which all
students can reach their potential. Republicans are
leading the effort to create it. Since 1965, the federal
government, through more than 100 programs in the Department of Education, has spent $2 trillion
on elementary and secondary education with little
substantial improvement in academic achievement
or high school graduation rates. The United States
spends an average of more than $12,000 per pupil
per year in public schools, for a total of more than
$620 billion. That represents more than 4 percent of
GDP devoted to K-12 education in 2011-2012. Of that
amount, federal spending amounted to more than
$57 billion. Clearly, if money were the solution, our
schools would be problem-free.
More money alone does not necessarily equal
better performance. After years of trial and error,
we know the policies and methods that have
actually made a difference in student advancement:
Choice in education; building on the basics;
STEM subjects and phonics; career and technical
education; ending social promotions; merit pay
for good teachers; classroom discipline; parental
involvement; and strong leadership by principals,
superintendents, and locally elected school boards.
Because technology has become an essential tool
of learning, it must be a key element in our efforts
to provide every child equal access and opportunity.
We strongly encourage instruction in American
history and civics by using the original documents
of our founding fathers.
Choice in Education
We support options for learning, including
home-schooling, career and technical education,
private or parochial schools, magnet schools,
charter schools, online learning, and early-college
high schools. We especially support the innovative
financing mechanisms that make options available
to all children: education savings accounts (ESAs),
vouchers, and tuition tax credits. Empowering
families to access the learning environments that will
best help their children to realize their full potential
is one of the greatest civil rights challenges of our
time. A young person’s ability to succeed in school
must be based on his or her God-given talent and
motivation, not an address, ZIP code, or economic
status. We propose that the bulk of federal money
through Title I for low-income children and through
IDEA for children with special needs should follow
the child to whatever school the family thinks will
work best for them.
In sum, on the one hand enormous amounts
of money are being spent for K-12 public education
with overall results that do not justify that spending
level. On the other hand, the common experience
of families, teachers, and administrators forms the
basis of what does work in education. In Congress
and in the states, Republicans are bridging the
gap between those two realities. Congressional
Republicans are leading the way forward with major
reform legislation advancing the concept of block
grants and repealing numerous federal regulations
which have interfered with state and local control
of public schools. Their Workplace Innovation
and Opportunity Act — modernizing workforce
programs, repealing mandates, and advancing
employment for persons with disabilities — is
now law. Their legislation to require transparency
in unfunded mandates imposed upon our schools
is advancing. Their D.C. Opportunity Scholarship
Program should be expanded as a model for
the rest of the country. We deplore the efforts
of Congressional Democrats and the current
President to eliminate this successful program for
disadvantaged students in order to placate the
leaders of the teachers’ unions.
To ensure that all students have access to
the mainstream of American life, we support
the English First approach and oppose divisive
programs that limit students’ ability to advance in
American society. We renew our call for replacing
“family planning” programs for teens with sexual
risk avoidance education that sets abstinence
until marriage as the responsible and respected
standard of behavior. That approach — the only
one always effective against premarital pregnancy
and sexually-transmitted disease — empowers
teens to achieve optimal health outcomes. We
oppose school-based clinics that provide referral
or counseling for abortion and contraception and
believe that federal funds should not be used in
mandatory or universal mental health, psychiatric,
or socio-emotional screening programs. The federal
government has pushed states to collect and share
vast amounts of personal student and family data,
including the collection of social and emotional
data. Much of this data is collected without parental
consent or notice. This is wholly incompatible with
the American Experiment and our inalienable rights.
Title IX
We emphatically support the original, authentic
meaning of Title IX of the Education Amendments
of 1972. It affirmed that “no person in the United
States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be
subjected to discrimination under any education
program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance.” That language opened up for girls and
women a world of opportunities that had too often
been denied to them. That same provision of law
is now being used by bureaucrats — and by the
current President of the United States — to impose
a social and cultural revolution upon the American
people by wrongly redefining sex discrimination
to include sexual orientation or other categories.
Their agenda has nothing to do with individual
rights; it has everything to do with power. They
are determined to reshape our schools — and our
entire society — to fit the mold of an ideology alien
to America’s history and traditions. Their edict to
the states concerning restrooms, locker rooms, and
other facilities is at once illegal, dangerous, and
ignores privacy issues. We salute the several states
which have filed suit against it.
Sexual assault is a terrible crime. We commend
the good-faith efforts by law enforcement,
educational institutions, and their partners to
address that crime responsibly. Whenever reported,
it must be promptly investigated by civil authorities
and prosecuted in a courtroom, not a faculty lounge.
Questions of guilt or innocence must be decided
by a judge and jury, with guilt determined beyond
a reasonable doubt. Those convicted of sexual
assault should be punished to the full extent of the
law. The Administration’s distortion of Title IX to
micromanage the way colleges and universities deal
with allegations of abuse contravenes our country’s
legal traditions and must be halted before it further
muddles this complex issue and prevents the proper
authorities from investigating and prosecuting
sexual assault effectively with due process.
Improving Higher Education
Our colleges, universities, and trade schools,
large and small, public and private, form the world’s
greatest assemblage of learning. They drive much of
the research that keeps America competitive and, by admitting large numbers of foreign students,
convey our values and culture to the world. Their
excellence is undermined by an ideological bias
deeply entrenched within the current university
system. Whatever the solution may be in private
institutions, in state schools the trustees have a
responsibility to the taxpayers to ensure that their
enormous investment is not abused for political
indoctrination. We call on state officials to preserve
our public colleges, universities, and trade schools
as places of learning and the exchange of ideas, not
zones of intellectual intolerance or “safe zones,” as
if college students need protection from the free
exchange of ideas. A student’s First Amendment
rights do not end at the schoolhouse gates.
Colleges, universities, and trade schools must not
infringe on their freedom of speech and association
in the name of political correctness. We condemn
the campus-based BDS (Boycott, Divestment,
and Sanctions) campaign against Israel. It is anti-Semitism
and should be denounced by advocates
of academic freedom.
College Costs
The cost of a college education has long been
on an unsustainable trajectory, rising year by year
far ahead of inflation. Nationwide, student debt now
exceeds credit card debt with average debt levels
per student totaling roughly $27,000. Delinquency
rates on student loans are now as high as they were
on subprime mortgages during the housing crisis.
Over half of recent college grads are unemployed
or underemployed, working at jobs for which their
expensive educations gave them no preparation.
We need new systems of learning to compete with
traditional four-year schools: Technical institutions,
online universities, life-long learning, and work-based
learning in the private sector. Public policy
should advance their affordability, innovation, and
transparency and should recognize that a four-year
degree from a brick-and-mortar institution is not the
only path toward a prosperous and fulfilling career.
The federal government should not be in the
business of originating student loans. In order
to bring down college costs and give students
access to a multitude of financing options, private
sector participation in student financing should be
restored. Any regulation that increases college costs must be challenged to balance its worth against its
negative economic impact on students and their
families.
In order to encourage new modes of higher
education delivery to enter the market, accreditation
should be decoupled from federal financing, and
states should be empowered to allow a wide array
of accrediting and credentialing bodies to operate.
This model would foster innovation, bring private
industry into the credentialing market, and give
students the ability to customize their college
experience.[4][5]
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Pence on education
