Education

I am a strong supporter of public education. I have children in public schools and am a product of the public system as well. However, I believe we will lose the education battle in this country unless we start treating education as a gift rather than an entitlement, increase parental involvement through the education process, and bring local control back to the schools – eliminating Federal and State involvement.

I realize it isn’t possible to have every kind of school in every town, but I do believe there ought to be choices in education since a “one size fits all” approach doesn’t work. Public, private, religious and charter schools should all be options, as well as homeschooling. The parents and child must decide what is best and the local governments’ role should be one of support. For example, for more than 100 years Vermont and Maine have utilized town tuitioning, which uses intergovernmental vouchers to put the choice of school into parents’ hands. Decades of success have proven it is possible.