Carly Fiorina on Education Republican primary challenger and former CEO

School choice is the only way to fix education

Common Core limits choices; vouchers allow choices

A: Our education system is in trouble, but demonstrably, giving more money to the Department of Education, as we have been doing for almost 40 years, doesn't improve the state of education. Common Core has become a nationally driven set of bureaucratic standards that teach teachers how to teach, that teach children how to learn, and what we need is to provide more parental choice so that our kids anywhere they live have a real chance, and Common Core doesn't help us do that.

Q: So what should be done?

A: We know that the most important thing about a child's education is to have a great teacher in front of the classroom and a lot of choice and accountability with parents, whether that's at home or with vouchers or charters or parochial schools. And Common Core, unfortunately, limits parents' choices. It limits the creativity a teacher can apply in the classroom. So, it will over time limit our children's chances.

Opposes Common Core; shrink Dept. of Education

• January 2015.Common Core: "I don't think Common Core is a good idea. I don't support it."
• August 2010.No Child Left Behind: "No Child Left Behind helped us set high standards for our students, and many of our students have met and exceeded that bar."
• February 2015.The U.S. Department of Education: "The bigger our education department becomes, the worse our public education becomes. There's no connection between spending more money in our nation's capital and a better school system."
• August 2010.Data-driven reform: "Robust data systems help parents and teachers more accurately and effectively track how a student is learning so they can continually improve their teaching practices to ensure greater student success."

Supports competition and accountability in schools

• Feb. 2015.School choice: "Parents should be given choice, competition, and accountability in the classroom."
• Aug. 2010.The role of parents in education: "Parents play incredibly important roles in a child's education, and any successful education reform plan must embrace and encourage robust parental involvement."
• Nov. 2009.The importance of education and accountability: "The most important thing is to have a world-class 21st century education system. We need to start by insisting on really strong accountability measures in public schools."
• Aug. 2010.Recruiting teachers: "Recruiting and retaining highly effective teachers and principals helps ensure that our students are learning from the best."
• Feb. 2015.Free community college: "[Obama] is trying to distract us from the fact that we have too many failing high schools in this country by offering community college for free."

Supports No Child Left Behind & Race to the Top

Make sure that every parent has a choice

Synthesis of public school system and competitive vouchers

Let me tackle just one dimension of the debate: The private versus public school debate--free access for all versus a free-market voucher-driven system. The thesis on the table is: Keep the system the way it is--a vast system of public schools, some with strong performance, but many that are able to achieve only the lowest common denominator. The antithesis: Let competition reign, give all students vouchers, and let the strongest schools prosper--and the weakest ones perish.

Perhaps the synthesis would be far more than just a compromise--it allows us to build on the best of what we have, but instills new responsibility and accountability to the system as well.

Education crisis:we're behind on teaching skills & character

Dropped out of UCLA Law School at age 22

I came home one weekend to visit. I was in turmoil. As dramatic as it sounds, I had found an epiphany while taking a shower on Sunday morning. My body had been trying to tell me something with all those months of headaches. I suddenly realized I had no idea why I was in law school at all.

At 22, it finally dawned on me that my life couldn't be about pleasing my parents. My life was my own. I could do what I wanted. My headache disappeared. I got out of the shower and prepared to disappoint my parents.

To truly understand something, explain it to someone else

It was a very complicated solution to a complex problem: how to accelerate innovation and create sufficient competition in a vital industry while at the same time maintaining the existing quality of universal services that the entire country relied upon. I'd spent a great deal of time during 1983 explaining to our customers how this would actually work, from a technological, billing and regulatory perspective.

I spent enough time learning it myself and then explaining it to others that I really understood where the problems were going to be. In the process I'd learned what really good teachers know: if you want to truly understand something, try explaining it to someone else.

Supports less federal & more local control of education.

Faith2Action.org is "the nation's largest network of pro-family groups." They provide election resources for each state, including Voter Guides and Congressional Scorecards excerpted here. The Faith2Action survey summarizes candidate stances on the following topic: 'Less federal and more state / local control of education'