Issues / Raising the Bar on Education

Reasons to agree

1. People need motivations.
2. We may have to pay our best teachers more to teach in our highest-need schools.
3. If you do well in other jobs, you get paid more. Why shouldn't good teachers get paid more?
4. It is hard to figure out who is a good employee in all jobs. Sometimes people get advanced in other jobs because they do better, but sometimes they get paid more because they kiss-up to their bosses. But over-all paying good employees more works pretty well.
5. Sure, it may be hard to determine who is a “good teacher” but everyone wants to teach art, or English, because these are touchy-feely, and fulfill human needs. We have a lack of qualified math and science teachers, so we should pay those who have math or science backgrounds more.

Beliefs:

School Choice:

1. Competition in Educational opportunities makes traditional public schools better 
2. Students in failing schools should be able to exercise school choice  
3. When parents and kids are free to choose their school everyone benefits. 
4. Students in failing schools should be able to exercise school choice. 

Merrit Pay: 

1. Good teachers should be rewarded for their hard work. 
2. Merit Pay for Teachers Higher Education Standards  

Vouchers 

1. Obama was wrong on the vouchers.

Achievement Gap

1. Closing the achievement gap in our schools is the civil rights issue of our time.

Federal Involvement:

1.  While there is a proper role for the federal government to play in Education, it is not in telling parents, teachers, kids and local authorities what to teach or how to run their schools.
2. There is a proper role for the federal government to play in Education. 
3. The federal government should not determine what schools teach or how they are ran.

Home School 

1. We should have a federal home schooling tax credit.

No Child Left Behind 

1. Helped stress the role of accountability in improving our schools.
2. Helped stress the role of high standards in improving our schools.
3. States that meet No Child Left Behind testing requirements should have additional flexibility in measuring student performance.

Charter Schools

1. Charter schools are good.
2. We should promote charter schools. 
3. We should promote public-private partnerships in education. 

Education 

1. Education is good.
2. We need to strengthen education in America.
3. We should emphasize math and science.

Retraining

1. We should improve worker retraining.

Politics and Schools  

1. Abstinence education