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Newt Gingrich's Proposed American Solutions #5: A 21st Century Learning System
“We must envision a 21st century system of lifetime learning more flexible, more productive, more individualized and more capable than any bureaucracy could achieve.” – Newt Gingrich
The Gingrich Education Plan:
The continued growth of American jobs and American prosperity in a knowledge-based, internet-connected, globally-competitive world will be determined by quality of America's schools. If America is going to remain competitive with China and India in the 21st century, then we must commit to improving education, especially in math and science, and moving from a bureaucrat-dominated status quo to an innovative system that emphasizes accountability, transparency, and parental choice:
- Empower parents to pick the right school for their child. Parents had the right to choose the school that is best for their child, and should never be trapped in a failing school against their will.
- Institute a Pell Grant-style system for Kindergarten through 12th Grade. Per-pupil school district funding should go into each child’s backpack, and follow them to the school their parents wish to attend. Parents who home school their children should receive a tax credit or be allowed to keep the Pell Grant.
- Require transparency and accountability about achievement. Each state must set a rigorous standard that allows every student everywhere to master the skills they will need to be competitive, and develop a process for grading the effectiveness of every school.
- Implement a “no limits” charter system.
- All of the money allocated for student education goes directly to the school.
- The school manages its own staff, whereby it is exempt from laws regarding tenure, and need not unionize.
- The school defines its own curriculum, in line with the state standards and assessments. Students in charters are not exempt from state assessments. The schools are not exempt from reporting requirements, nor should they be.
- State law allows the school to "franchise" its model without limitation. That means they need not apply for a new school every time they can build a new one. If they have the demand, they must be able to serve it.
- The state has NO CAPS on the number of charter schools that can be approved, and the process for approving charter schools is smooth and efficient.
- All of the money allocated for student education goes directly to the school.
- Establish a pay for performance system. States and school governing boards should lift all existing prohibitions that prevent a principal from evaluating teachers based in part on student achievement.
- Welcome business talent in our communities into the classroom. Every state should open their systems up to part-time teachers so that retired physicists, neighborhood pharmacists, or local accountants could teach one or two hours a day and bring knowledge to the classroom, and business-like adult expectations to the students. And programs like Teach For America should be encouraged and not limited.
- Restore American history and values into the classroom. America is a learned civilization and every American, including immigrants, should learn American history and the principles of American self-government, productivity and prosperity. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1820: "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Every student must learn to read and much of what they read should reinforce American civilization.
- Protect the rights of home-schooled children by ensuring they have the same access to taxpayer funded, extra-curricular educational opportunities as any public school student.
- Encourage states to think outside outdated boundaries of education. States have developed very innovative models:
- Students who graduate early should get the cost of the years they skip as an automatic scholarship, following the model of Governor Daniels’s program in Indiana.
- Every state should have a work-study college that enables students to graduate debt free, following the model of the College of the Ozarks in Missouri.
- Individualized, 24/7 learning should be universally available online, with the Florida Virtual School (over 120,000 students for K-12) as a model.
- Students who graduate early should get the cost of the years they skip as an automatic scholarship, following the model of Governor Daniels’s program in Indiana.
- Shrink the federal Department of Education and return power to states and communities. The Department's only role will be to collect research and data, and help find new and innovative approaches to then be adopted voluntarily at the local level.
Comment
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Comment by Tony Norris on March 29, 2012 at 12:57pm -
I don't agree at all. 30 years ago, the teachers and administrators told our parents to stay away. That they knew how to educate kids. They did a horrible job and now those kids are parents and you expect them to help out. Sorry, your predecessors brainwashed them into the same ignorant mush heads who voted for Obama. Thanks to their education, they are almost unqualified to help. Moreover, the enormous bloated governments your predecessors fought for and taught our parents to vote for have doubled taxes on all levels so that the mothers who would be there to help are all out working in order to pay the onerous taxes. And the quality of education is still almost dead last in the industrialized world. Sheep are easy to bamboozle.
The answer is tuition tax credits. Let everyone with any ambition and drive - black white hispanic, take their kids out of the failing public education system. That way we would have enough successful, well educated. people to outvote the mush headed products of the public education system and America would stand a chance for survival. After the lying liberal media, the biggest enemy of the US is the public school system.
Public schools ban the bible but welcome condoms and valueless sex education. Virtually no public school kids understand the constitution or why it was written as it was. How can we expect them to defend it? They spend 12 years being brainwashed by liberals. How can we expect them to ever think for themselves?
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Comment by NICOLE on March 29, 2012 at 12:28pm
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I am a high school teacher currenlty,and I do agree that there are some "issues" with the public school system and their methods of assessments and acountability, however there are alot of people responsible for this "broken" system. Beginning with parents. linda schrodel, As a teacher I always struggle with parents not being ACTIVE in thier child's education. As a teacher I see your child for 90 minutes. I can not do it ALL in only 90 MINUTES. It is my job to educate not be EVERYTHING. How is it a child can go to the fifth grade and not be able to read and the parents not know.....that means that the teachers are not the ONLY person to blame!!!!!! In order to fix this issue we all have to work together to ensure that EVERY child is successful!!!!! I love my job and I love my students, however I can not do it all for all 70 of them. Parents, communities, teachers and the "village" all need to pull together to fix the education system as it is today!
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Comment by Ashleigh Gibson on January 29, 2012 at 7:39am -
I am a teacher and aspiring administrator in public schools. My passion is public education because I have been a part of a school system who is dedicated to doing what is best for students. One thing that many politicians seem to miss, because they are not invested in the day to day of education as teachers are, is that accountability IS important, but there is a better way than standardized testing. Standardized tests put pressures on teachers and students, puts limitations on the creativity of teachers and students, decreases what you seem to think will make us competitive, which is time to focus on those 21st century skills that students of today need. The answer seems to be, "Let's have them take the standardized test on computers." I am in search of a candidate who looks at educators as professionals and is truly invested in learning about what REALLY happens in schools, so that they can make INFORMED decisions about what is best for our students. Increased spending on standardized testing is NOT the answer.
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Comment by Sheri Hiers on January 23, 2012 at 11:23am -
I am a teacher who wants to see less emphasis given to the state standardized testing.
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Comment by linda schrodel on January 19, 2012 at 4:16pm
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I am a homeschool mom using FLVS for one reason only. Our public schools are broken. My daughter managed to sail right through to 5th grade in the public school system getting A's and B's before I found out she was not able to read or do math on no better than a 2nd grade level. That's a public school problem. I would get rid of the Department of Education completely. I have been homeschooling now for 3 years and I can tell you I know exactly what she is getting in her courses. She is truly now an A and B student in the 8th grade. I like all your ideas about homeschooling but would like to offer some more ideas. I believe that if a homeschooler would like to use a system like Rosetta Stone to learn a language it should count as a high school credit so long as they pass. I am against having to pay school taxes for a school I have no use for, unless of course we are allowed to use the school or electives and social activities. I love the credit idea we do have school expenses.
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Comment by Carl W. Seastrand on January 13, 2012 at 2:01pm -
How about a 0% interest on a federal student loans if the student provides community service for every year of school. Kids are being burdened with an overwelming amount of debt when they get out of school. If they are not paying interest they probably have money to take care of themselves and won't need government assistance.
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Comment by Tony Norris on December 15, 2011 at 4:16pm
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This all sounds nice, but where does the constitution allow it? I'm all for tuition ta credits. It would improve even the public schools that would suddenly have to compete for students. But I fear that eventually the liberals will add enough strings to any program to slowly drain any alternative schools of their independence as they did to all the nations Catholic colleges. The power of the purse is the power to control. the states can and should allow tuition tax credits. A 10 year pilot federal program would demonstrate how tuition tax credits would revolutionize education while drastically cutting costs. But the end has to be the elimination of the Federal program and its replacement with similar program in each state. Otherwise, the liberals will slowly destroy the nations private schools just as they have destroyed the public schools. You can vote with your feet to flee tyranny in New York. But you cannot vote with your feet when the Federal government has total control
Explore Newt Gingrich's Contract With America
Part 1: Legislative Proposals
Unleash America’s Full Energy Production Potential
Save Medicare and Social Security
Control the Border by January 1, 2014
Revitalize Our National Security System
Maximize the Speed and Impact of Medical Breakthroughs
Restore the Proper Role of the Judicial Branch
Part 2: Day One Executive Orders
Eliminate the thirty-nine White House "Czar" positions
"Mexico City Policy" of Respect for Life
Restore conscience clause protections for Healthcare Workers
Respect Each Sovereign Nation’s Choice of its Capital
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