Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

The cost to educate one child in the United States averages approximately $11,000 per year for public education. That amount far exceeds the cost of most private schools. Parents should be given a "credit" in the amount of $11,000 to be applied to the school of their choice, whether public or private. Should we as a nation embrace the privatization of education we would see the creation of thousands of private schools, each with their own emphasis in different areas. Instead of the public "magnet" school system where there is limited capacity and only a chosen few able to attend, every private school could address the needs and desires of their community and provide an education focused on the learning styles the child (tactile, audio/visual, etc.) as well as the interests of the student (computer sciences, medical, engineering, arts/music, mechanics, business management & finance, etc.). While all schools should provide a basic program of English, Math, Science and History, K-12 schools would provide indepth training geared towards equipping students for college or to enter into a career.

When an average classroom of 25 students is bringing in $275,000 in revenue, private schools would be able to pay teachers up to $100,000 and still cover the overhead needed to run a profitable education center. As your elected Representative, I would propose legislation that would slash the annual federal budget for the Department of Education from its current level of funding (approximately $80 billion per year) to one billion, with those allocated funds going towards promoting privatization in all fifty states.

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