Principles for Elementary and Secondary Education

Higher Education

Education Means a More Competitive America

Education is a parental right, a state and local responsibility, and a national strategic interest.

Maintaining America’s preeminence requires a world-class system of education, with high standards, in which all students can reach their potential. That requires considerable improvement over our current 70 percent high school graduation rate and six-year graduation rate of only 57 percent for colleges.

Education is essential to competitiveness, but it is more than just training for the work force of the future. It is through education that we ensure the transmission of a culture, a set of values we hold in common. It has prepared generations for responsible citizenship in a free society, and it must continue to do so. Our party is committed to restoring the civic mission of schools envisioned by the founders of the American public school system. Civic education, both in the classroom and through service learning, should be a cornerstone of American public education and should be central to future school reform efforts.

Principles for Elementary and Secondary Education

All children should have access to an excellent education that empowers them to secure their own freedom and contribute to the betterment of our society. We reaffirm the principles that have been the foundation of the nation’s educational progress toward that goal: accountability for student academic achievement; periodic testing on the fundamentals of learning, especially math and reading, history and geography; transparency, so parents and the general public know which schools best serve their students; and flexibility and freedom to innovate so schools and districts can best meet the needs of their students.

We advocate policies and methods that are proven and effective: building on the basics, especially phonics; ending social promotion; merit pay for good teachers; classroom discipline; parental involvement; and strong leadership by principals. We reject a one-size-fits-all approach and support parental options, including home schooling, and local innovations such as schools or classes for boys only or for girls only and alternative and innovative school schedules. We recognize and appreciate the importance of innovative education environments, particularly homeschooling, for stimulating academic achievement. We oppose over-reaching judicial decisions which deny children access to such environments. We support state efforts to build coordination between elementary and secondary education and higher education such as K-16 councils and dual credit programs.

To ensure that all students will have access to the mainstream of American life, we support the English First approach and oppose divisive programs that limit students’ future potential. All students must be literate in English, our common language, to participate in the promise of America.

Early Childhood Education

The family is the most powerful influence on a child’s ability to succeed. As such, parents are our children’s first and foremost teachers. We support family literacy, which improves the literacy, language, and life skills of both parents and children along with the continued improvement of early childhood programs, such as Head Start, from low-income families. We reaffirm our support for the child care tax credit that helps parents choose the care best for their family.

Giving Students the Best Teachers

For students to meet world class standards, they must have access to world class teachers, whether in person or through virtual public schools that can bring high-quality instruction into the classroom. School districts must have the authority to recruit, reward, and retain the best and brightest teachers, and principals must have the authority to select and assign teachers without regard to collective bargaining agreements. Because qualified teachers are often not available through traditional routes, we support local efforts to create an adjunct teacher corps of experts from higher education, business, and the military to fill in when needed.

Teachers must be protected against frivolous litigation and should be able to take reasonable actions to maintain discipline and order in the classroom. We encourage the private-public partnerships and mentoring that can make classroom time more meaningful to students by integrating it with learning beyond school walls. These efforts are crucial to lowering the drop-out rate and helping at-risk students realize their potential.

We encourage state efforts to ensure that personnel who interact with children pass thorough background checks and are held to the highest standards of conduct.

Partnerships between schools and businesses can be especially important in STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and math. The need to improve secondary education in those fields can be measured by the number of remedial courses now offered at the college level. Our country’s reliance upon foreign talent in those areas begins with insufficient emphasis upon them in the high school years. We applaud those who are changing that situation by giving young people real-world experience in the private sector and by providing students with rigorous technical and academic courses that give students the skills and knowledge necessary to be productive members in a competitive American workforce.  

Asserting Family Rights in Schooling

Parents should be able to decide the learning environment that is best for their child. We support choice in education for all families, especially those with children trapped in dangerous and failing schools, whether through charter schools, vouchers or tax credits for attending faith-based or other non-public schools, or the option of home schooling. We call for the vigilant enforcement of laws designed to protect family rights and privacy in education. We will energetically assert the right of students to engage in voluntary prayer in schools and to have equal access to school facilities for religious purposes. We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior. Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of-wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually. We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling, and related services for abortion and contraception. Schools should not ask children to answer offensive or intrusive personal non-academic questionnaires without parental consent. It is not the role of the teacher or school administration to recommend or require the use of psychotropic medications that must be prescribed by a physician.

Reviewing the Federal Role in Primary and Secondary Education

Although the Constitution assigns the federal government no role in local education, Washington’s authority over the nation’s schools has increased dramatically. In less than a decade, annual federal funding has shot up 41 percent to almost $25 billion, while the regulatory burden on state and local governments has risen by about 6.7 million hours – and added $141 million in costs – during that time. We call for a review of Department of Education programs and administration to identify and eliminate ineffective programs, to respect the role of states, and to better meet state needs.

To get our schools back to the basics of learning, we support initiatives to block-grant more Department of Education funding to the states, with requirements for state-level standards, assessments, and public reporting to ensure transparency. Local educators must be free to end ineffective programs and reallocate resources where they are most needed. 

Maintaining our Commitment to IDEA

Because a federal mandate on the states must include the promised federal funding, we will fulfill the promise of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to cover 40 percent of the costs incurred because of that legislation. We urge preventive efforts in early childhood, especially assistance in gaining pre-reading skills, to help many youngsters move beyond the need for IDEA’s protections.

Higher Education

Our country’s system of higher education – public and private, secular and religious, large and small institutions – is unique for its excellence, its diversity, and its accessibility. Learning is a safeguard of liberty. Post-secondary education not only increases the earnings of individuals but advances economic development. Our colleges and universities drive much of the research that keeps America competitive. We must ensure that our higher education system meet the needs of the 21st century student and economy and remain innovative and accessible.

Meeting College Costs

Students and their parents face formidable challenges in planning for college as costs continue to outpace inflation. Higher education seems immune from market controls and the law of supply and demand. We commend those institutions which are directing a greater proportion of their endowment revenues toward tuition relief.

The Republican vision for expanding access to higher education has led to two major advances, Education Savings Accounts and Section 529 accounts, by which millions of families now save for college. While federal student loans and grants have opened doors to learning for untold numbers of low- and middle-income students, the overall financial aid system, with its daunting forms and confused rationales, is nothing less than Byzantine. It must be simplified. We call for a presidential commission to undertake that task and to review the role of government regulations and policies in the tuition spiral. We affirm our support for the public-private partnership that now offers students and their families a vibrant marketplace in selecting their student loan provider.

Innovation Will Lead to Lifelong Learning

The challenge to American higher education is to make sure students can access education in whatever forms they want. As mobility increases in all aspects of American life, student mobility, from school to school and from campus to campus, will require new approaches to admissions, evaluations, and credentialing. Distance learning propelled by an expanding telecommunications sector and especially broadband, is certain to grow in importance – whether through public or private institutions – and federal law should not discriminate against the latter. Lifelong learning will continue to transform the demographics of higher education, bringing older students and real-world experience to campus.  

Community Colleges Continue to Play a Crucial Role

Community colleges are central to the future of higher education, especially as they build bridges between the world of work and the classroom. Many of our returning veterans find community colleges to be welcoming environments where they can develop specific skills for use in the civilian workforce. As the first responders to economic development and retraining of workers, these schools fulfill our national commitment of an affordable and readily accessible education for all. 

Special Challenges in Higher Education

Free speech on college campuses is to be celebrated, but there should be no place in academia for anti-Semitism or racism of any kind. We oppose the hiring, firing, tenure, and promotion practices at universities that discriminate on the basis of political or ideological belief. When federal taxes are used to support such practices, it is inexcusable. We affirm the right of students and faculty to express their views in the face of the leftist dogmatism that dominates many institutions. To preserve the integrity and independence of the nation’s colleges, we will continue to ensure alternatives to ideological accrediting systems.

Because some of the nation’s leading universities create or tolerate a hostile atmosphere toward the ROTC, we will rigorously enforce the provision of law, unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court, which denies those institutions federal research grants unless their military students have the full rights and privileges of other students. That must include the right to engage in ROTC activities on their own campus, rather than being segregated elsewhere.

The 2008 Platform Committee received public input through a website.  Ultimately more than 13,000 comments were received and considered.  The following is a sampling of those comments:

(Ken Kay, P21 - Tucson, AZ)

(Nicholas - Las Vegas, NV)

(America Forward And - New York, NY)

(Frances - Brighton, CO)
I have heard reports of schools that have been turned over to private enterprise and the result has been very sucessful. I believe that parents that choose to send their children to private schools or home teach their children should be granted a deduction on their income tax. I bellieve that private and home school children should have to be tested on a yearly basis with the same testing required by the public schools to maintain the tax credit. That would create a supply and demand in the public school system. Each would be competeing for excelence to maintain their tax credit or student funding.

(Kenneth - Columbia, SC)
Testing students is something that needs to be done. However, the results from these tests mean nothing unless teachers can use them to make corrections to the teaching methods. Tests in my state are taken at the end of the school year and released at the beginning of the next year. This type of testing does nothing for the students or teachers. The object of these tests should be to ensure that our students are learning the content.

(Jim - Des Moines, IA)
Too many of our young people today are clueless when it comes to US History and basic economics. If you don't know the history of our great country how can you love and defend it? As to economics, I know the educational system has done a poor job when I hear people say that the best way to get oil prices down is with price controls! Absolutely the worst thing that you could do. Price controls have never worked and in fact only serve to make the situation worse.

(Annie - Medford, OR)  
I'm tremendously concerned about California requiring Home Schooling parents to now have a teaching degree. It appears that the reasoning behind such a requirement is to eliminate a families ability to train up a child with a Biblical World View. It obviously has nothing to do with whether or not the parents are qualified to teach as all home school children are required to take state testing and evaluation each year. I hope that this is not being taken lightly as our public education surely is not affording any of our children the opportunity to even examine a Biblical World View. It is vital that the State and Public School systems NOT be allowed control over the minds of our children and young adults. Thank you so much for all that you are doing in behalf of the American Family. Sincerely, Annie Sorensen

(Ira - St. Louis, MO)
The GOP should focus on enabling wider access to private schools and homeschooling. Government-run schools have failed in practice and are a bad idea in principle (they have always been at grave risk of becoming indoctrination centers). The GOP should underscore its commitment to univeral education, and that its support for private schools and homeschooling ensures the competition that inevitably leads to improved performance.

(Bob - North Las Vegas, NV)
There should always be a competitive alternative to the public school system. That means a private school alternative. I believe in a voucher program. School aged children should be required to attend a private or public school classroom environment. I am essentially opposed to home schooling. I believe it is usually in the best interest of the child and the nation, for children to be engaged in the multi educational and multi social interactions that take place in the school world.

(Joy - Cash, TX)
I believe we should support both wind and solar energy development. As T.Boone Pickens has shown, wind is a viable source and with the ability to store electricity just on the horizon, we should surely support development in this area. As the American people are tasked to develop solar and wind projects in this generation, the affordability will follow. This type of energy, wind and solar could very well be our greatest humanitarian effort for the future of our country and other countries .If T.Boone is outsourcing away from oil, we must be running low. Find better ways with wind and solar and create more jobs in the process.

(James - Snowflake, AZ)
The federal Government needs to withhold any current monetary assistance to colleges and universities not allowing recruitment activities on their campuses. On another issue, all colleges and universities now receiving Federal monetary assistance should be required to publish in their brochures whether or not they uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights.

(Derek - Alexandria, VA)
Shouldn't there be a way to tie federal aid to schools to the level of their endowments? It seems that universities increase tuition while simultaneously increasing endowments and, as a result, the middle class gets squeezed tighter and tighter.

(Eva - Victoria, TX)             
I want more affordable tuition for American citizens for colleges and universities. We need to invest more into the American youth and promoting secondary education for everyone to improved their way of life.  I am against “in state” tuition for illegal's or non citzens. I again believe it is wrong to reward people who break the laws and are here illegally. There are middle class Americans who can not afford the college and university tuition but are still trying to work hard to send their kids to college...why are we not helping them?  If we had more affordable college choices and tuition maybe then more Americans would go to or even go back to college.  Our economy depends a lot on the education of our youth and society. Make it affordable. 

(David - Honolulu, HI)
Should the government continue to test students in reading and math? Yes, we need to be able to find the schools that are failing with an objective national test. This means the test should only be multiple choice, because grading essays is by its very nature subjective. There must also be national testing for teachers in the topics they teach. Failure should lead to loss of certification and dismissal. How do we attract high quality teachers? By allowing them to remove problem children to reform schools. Once the discipline problem is solved quality people will consider teaching. Are schools' priorities in order? No. The only priorities that the public schools should have are to make a safe quiet environment conducive to learning, and to teach math, science, English, history, foreign languages, music, and physical education. As they are obviously incapable of teaching morality and ethics they should be banned from doing so, except in the most general terms of explaining the code of conduct based on the last 7 of the 10 commandments. That is why a private or parochial school is a better idea for most children.  What is the proper federal role in state and local educational systems?  The states have obviously failed in the area of education and the federal government must ensure that both the student and teacher performance are up to national standards in all states. Funding of education is a state responsibility.