The demand that school finances be transferred away from local school districts to the state and/or federal government has been a long-time favorite of the educationist lobbies.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The money in the schools overpowers the principles of the purpose.
As you look around the country there are still a significant number of states where their whole school debate is over school funding and we've been focused on the quality debate for most of the '90s.
As more government functions are privatized, we find political leaders defunding the public school system, shifting government funds to the private, for-profit school industry.
For too long, we financed our schools in a way that has systematically left large segments of our population behind.
Our public school system is our country's biggest and most inefficient monopoly, yet it keeps demanding more and more money.
It just felt like the right thing to do to give back to a state school and public school. I'm a really big fan of public education.
During my time as a state legislator, I've pushed for significant investment in public school districts. In Congress, I would look forward to increasing federal public investment in education through initiatives like Race to the Top.
If I was a state, I would like to see education left to the schools themselves, but I don't want the federal government involved in education. I think that it ends up setting standards that cost you time and money and don't make any difference in education. I want to stop that.
I haven't met one parent or one teacher in Missouri who thinks we should balance the budget by taking money from kids' classrooms.
On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.