GOP primary debate on Univision: on Education

Duncan Hunter: Replace old credentialing with inspiration

A: What we have to do in this country is to take away all this old credentialing. We’ve got to bring in aerospace engineers & pilots & mathematicians & scientists & business-people, and we have to bring in people who can inspire kids at a young age to reach for the stars, and then convince them to work hard enough to get there. Inspiration, that’s how we increase our capability in education.

Fred Thompson: Use bully pulpit to support vouchers & homeschooling

A: First of all, I think we need to recognize where the responsibility lies. It would be easy enough for someone running for president to say: I have a several-point plan to fix our education problem. It’s not going to happen. And it shouldn’t happen from the Oval Office. We spend about 9% of education dollars now at the federal level. The responsibility historically and properly is at the state and local level. I think, however, we can do things that would support choice, do things that would support vouchers, do things that would support homeschooling, and recognize that we need to speak the truth. One of the advantages of being in the Oval Office is having a bully pulpit. And the fact of the matter is, if families would stay together, if fathers would raise their children, especially young men when they get into troublesome ages, we would solve a good part of the education problem in this country.

John McCain: Charters, homeschooling, & vouchers are key to success

A: Choice and competition is the key to success in education in America. That means charter schools, that means home schooling, it means vouchers, it means rewarding good teachers and finding bad teachers another line of work. It means rewarding good performing schools, and it really means in some cases putting bad performing schools out of business. I want every American parent to have a choice, a choice as to how they want their child educated, and I guarantee you the competition will dramatically increase the level of education in America. And I applaud our former Governor [Jeb] Bush for the great job he’s done on education in Florida and America.

Mike Huckabee: Focus on what’s good for students, not good for school

A: I think Hispanics want the same thing everybody wants. They want jobs. They want education. They want to know that they’re going to be able to live with freedom. As we look at issues like education we’ll understand that while the dropout rate from high school is 30% among all populations, it’s 50% among Hispanics. We’ve got to change that by creating personalized education that focuses on perpetuating what’s good for students, not just making what’s good for the school . There’s also issues and disparities between diabetes and other issues of health. So I think, if our policies reflect lifting people up, we’ll get the vote.

Mike Huckabee: Weapons of Mass Instruction: more science AND more arts

A: An education is empowerment. The lack of it leads us to incredible, just all kinds of obstacles in our path. And we always talk about we need more math and science. But one of the reasons we have kids failing is not because they’re dumb, it’s they’re bored. They’re bored with a curriculum that doesn’t touch them. We have schools that are about perpetuating the schools, not helping the students. I propose launching Weapons of Mass Instruction, making sure that we are launching not only the math and science, but music and art programs that touch the right side of the brain, and not only educate the left side of the student’s brain. Because without a creative economy and a creative student, you have a bored student, and that’s one of the reasons we see so many of them dropping out.

Mitt Romney: Identify failing schools; push choice & English immersion

A: Well, we’ve got a pretty good model. If you look at my state, even before I got there, other governors and legislatures worked real hard to improve education. And they did a number of things that made a big difference. One is, they started testing our kids to see who was succeeding, making sure that failing schools were identified and then turning them around. They fought for school choice. When I became governor, I had to protect school choice because the legislature tried to stop it. And then we also fought for English immersion. We wanted our kids coming to school to learn English from the very beginning. We care about the quality of education. I want to pay better teachers more money. Teachers are underpaid, but I want to evaluate our teachers and see which ones are the best and which ones are not.

Mitt Romney: Principles: choice; parental involvement; merit scholarships

And let me tell how our kids are doing. Every two years, we test the kids across the country, the NAPE exam. Massachusetts kids came out number one in English in fourth and eighth grade, number one in math. In all four tests, our kids came out number one in the nation. These principles of choice, parental involvement, encouraging high standards, scholarships for our best kids -- these turn our schools into the kind of magnets that they can be for the entire nation.

Rudy Giuliani: All parents want more control & choice over kids’ schooling

A: I don’t see any risk at all. Hispanic Americans are Americans, just as much as all other Americans. They have the same values, the same interests. I learned that being mayor of the largest Hispanic city in the US. I learned we have very common values. Hispanics have a tremendous interest in giving more freedom back to people, giving people more of a chance to decide on the education of their child. That’s why I think school choice would be a very good thing to do for Hispanics, for Hispanic parents, for all parents. The decision on where the child goes to school should primarily be made by the parent, and the parent should decide what school the child goes to, not the government bureaucrat. That’s one of many things that really unites what Hispanics want and need and what all parents want and need, which is more control over their child’s education. And that’s something that I would fight very hard to bring about.

Rudy Giuliani: Revolutionize public education by allowing for choice

A: I’m the product of a Catholic education from the day I started in kindergarten until the day I got out of college. And it was my parents’ choice. It was hard for them to afford it. I was fortunate enough to get scholarships along the way to help. But the reality is, that’s really the answer. We can revolutionize public education in this country by allowing for choice. Why do we have the best higher education in the world and K-12 that’s under great stress? Because higher education is based on choice. The government doesn’t force you to go there. We should empower parents by giving them the money, giving them scholarships, giving them vouchers, let them choose a public school, a private school, a parochial school, a charter school, homeschooling. Let’s give the power to the parents, rather than to the government bureaucrats. And we will turn around education within three years.

Rudy Giuliani: FactCheck: No, Hispanic K-12 test scores are rising