Talk To Buddy: Education Reform

Statement

Question: Sasheena, Buckeye
I am a high school math teacher. This coming school year, the effect of the economy has resulted in class sizes increasing from 30 last year to 50 this year. How will YOU help to improve our educational system, and thus our future generations. I'm concerned that efforts to privatize education devalues educators and lowers the bar. Make me want to vote for you!

Buddy's Answer:
Sasheena, I appreciate your question about education and I appreciate the fact that you yourself are a math teacher. Thanks for both. I attended and graduated from public schools in Bossier City, Louisiana. I went to Harvard at 16 and graduated in economics and government from Harvard at 20. I finished my formal education with a Master's Degree from the Harvard Business School three years later. We must do better in educating our young people. Ignorance is a powerful enemy of a free society. First, we must focus OUTSIDE of Washington, D.C., just the opposite of what we are now doing. Best practices in education are to conduct schools where parents and grandparents can visit the classroom. This means LOCALLY - run school, not Washington, D.C. run schools! This means classrooms OPEN to parents and grandparents. This means a teacher who can actually teach and is paid like a professional and has a support staff--perhaps shared with several other teachers. Teachers must be tested, tenure must be modified, excellence must be rewarded in significant pay and work conditions improvement, principals must lead, and teacher unions cannot run the schools. High school graduation is the single most important act in a student's life in terms of adding economic value and net worth. We now rank 11th among all nations in high school graduation rates (South Korea is first). Competition and choice are two powerful antidotes to flab and irrelevance. The students need excellent teachers, and competition and choice improve their chances. Just that simple. I will change the Federal Department of Education to a data collector of what works: why and where. The schools will be run locally (best practices) with a steady, accurate flow of accurate information on SUCCESS. I will make a strong case for parents to support competition and choice. I will develop a nation that has a rising number of job opportunities for high school and college graduates by deregulating small businesses, by allowing clean drilling of oil and gas to create 1 to 3 million new jobs in America, by defending American manufacturing jobs from UNFAIR TRADE from China and elsewhere (child labor, prison labor), and improving basic economic conditions. (Less borrowing, sealed borders with a fair, legal green-card system for legal immigration, nation building at home rather than overseas, etc.). Remember that I am not a lawyer, but rather a successful businessman and community banker. We will get the finances of our country cleaned up and start growing. Remember what President John Kennedy said 50 years ago, "A rising tide lifts all boats." I plan on generating a rising tide, just as I did in Louisiana while Governor and took the worst unemployment in America (12 percent) to one of the best (6 percent) in 4-years. This is why I run. Politics as usual is not going to turn us around, because the special interest own Washington with their big checks and lobbyists money. I refuse to take it. I have set a $100 limit and will accept no PAC money. I want exactly the same thing you do: a President Free to Lead a Rising America. I'm a public school man, but global competition demands we MUST do better than the status quo. We MUST. We WILL!

Thanks, Buddy Roemer

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