The opponents of my budget propose taking $200 million out of our classrooms and instead spending it on a larger school employee pay raise. Our focus should be on making sure our children come first.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In a time of tight budgets, difficult choices have to be made. We must make sure our very limited resources are spent on priorities. I believe we should have no higher priority than investing in our children's classrooms and in their future.
Instead of just giving lip service to improving our schools, I will actually put the kids first and the teachers union behind in giving our kids better teachers, better options and better choices for a better future.
We need to increase education budgets.
I believe that those closest to the children should be making the decisions about how funds should be spent, what the curriculum should look like, and what's the best way to help our students.
I strongly believe that more money needs to be spent in the classroom.
Part of Washington keeping its promises is a focus on directing more dollars into our local classrooms.
We should empower teachers to do their job by cutting wasteful spending and crippling bureaucracy, not classroom resources our educators and students need.
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.
Instead of unfairly demonizing teachers, we should be working with them to find solutions to the problems in our schools and make sure every child gets an outstanding public education.
I haven't met one parent or one teacher in Missouri who thinks we should balance the budget by taking money from kids' classrooms.