The Huffington Post: on Education

Antonio Villaraigosa: Mayoral control of 22 poorly performing schools

Also, his added focus on graduating students helped the district reverse its drop out rate, he said. "In 2005, there were only 48 percent of kids graduating," Villaraigosa said. "Last year, it was 64 percent. Almost two-thirds of the students."

Barack Obama: We need a sense of urgency about improving education system

A: Well, I think it’s doing very well for some. But it’s not doing very well for all. So, No Child Left Behind has been false advertising. And there doesn’t seem to be a sense of urgency about improving the education system. It is a sense of urgency that we’ve got to restore if we’re going to be able to remain competitive in this new global economy. So, a couple of steps that I think we have to take. Across the board we’re going to have to recruit a generation of new teachers. We’re going to have to pay our teachers more, we going to have to give them more professional development, and we’re also going to have to work with them rather than against them to improve standards. We’ve got to improve early childhood education, because that’s the area where we can probably most effectively achieve the achievement gap that exists right now.

Bill Richardson: Start earlier with preschool for every child under 4

A: The debate should be the fact that our high-school curriculums are not competitive. We are 29th in the world when it comes to science and math scores in K through 12. The debate should be not just emphasizing science and math, but art in the schools, civics. Revise high-school curriculums. We gotta start earlier with preschool, early childhood, for every child under 4. Full-day kindergarten. We have got to pay our teachers better. I’d have a minimum wage for teachers. We’ve got to scrap this No Child Left Behind, which is a one-size-fits-all testing that is hurting disabled kids, gifted kids, English-learning kids, that humiliates schools that are not doing well. If a school isn’t doing well, what you do is you help that school. And finally, I would have a national goal that in 15 years, America will be No. 1 in science and math, because that’s competitiveness.

Bobby Jindal: Teach kids the best science; but no comment on evolution

Bobby Jindal: Local control instead of Common Core

Jindal takes the latter stance in the name of greater "local control" of education--which would presumably allow Louisiana schools to teach his version of acceptable "science."

Chris Dodd: Advocate for free community-college education

A: I’m an advocate of a free community-college education, and I do that by offering a match to any state that will equal 50% of that cost. I’ll match that here. In order to release that initial portal of higher education becomes available. To talk about a free education for everyone, regardless of choice they make between private and public institutions, may be difficult, but certainly expanding Pell Grants here, providing more work-study programs, Americorps, I’ve advocated a million slots, not 150,000 that we have today, where educational benefits become a part of that. I’d provide a sliding scale of incentives, so if you choose careers that are not as lucrative as others are, that your payback of loans would be calibrated to those choices rather than insisting upon everyone paying the same amount back. And college costs are going up all the time. So I’m an advocate for indexing as well.

Dennis Kucinich: End No Child Left Behind; end testing as be-all & end-all

A: My election will mean the end of No Child Left Behind as a way of achieving the education of our children, because the fact of the matter is, No Child Left Behind has made testing the end-all and be-all of education. Of course, you have to have tests, but you to realize that some school districts, the students have already started out behind. We have to make education a priority, but all this debate about education and testing is almost beside the point. We only spend a fraction of the money on education that we spend on arms buildups. Under a Kucinich administration, education becomes one of the top domestic priorities. We put money into it. We cause the government to be vitally involved in it. And we make sure our children have the love of knowledge. All this stuff about test-taking, we make children good little test-takers under No Child Left Behind. It’s the wrong approach to education.

Hillary Clinton: We have not yet reached consensus on education reform

A: I don't think it has. In the debates that we've had, education is an afterthought. But when I go out and campaign all over the country, it's really on the minds of people. And I've outlined a very vigorous education agenda starting with universal prekindergarten, changing No Child Left Behind, making college affordable, finding programs for training and apprenticeship for kids who don't go to college.

Q: Why has education not come along as fast as other societal changes?

A: I think it's a combination of a lot of factors. Everybody is an expert on education because we all went to school. And therefore, local control means that there are millions upon millions of opinions in America about what we should do. I don't think we have reached a consensus that reflects the reality today. Our public school system worked so well for America for so long. We've got to make sure it works as well for our future.

Hillary Clinton: AR Ed Reform taught that there is a place for testing

A: I believe in accountability. In 1983, I led the effort in Arkansas to improve our schools, and I do think there is a place for testing. But we should not look at our children as though they are little, walking tests, and we've gone way overboard. So I would like to see us do assessments, but understand we need a broad, rich curriculum that honors the spark of learning in every child.

Joe Biden: $3000 tax credit for college for anyone earning under $150K

A: Absolutely, positively, unequivocally. As president, that's what I would push for. The idea that 12 years of public education is sufficient in the 21st century is ridiculous. I have a thing called a college access program. I would allow every single solitary family making up to $150,000 to be able to have a refundable tax credit of $3,000 per student. Everyone under $50,000 now qualifies for a Pell Grant. I would change them from $4,300 to $6,300 plus the refundable tax credit. It would mean every child in America, every qualified person in America, under an income under $50,000 would have $9,300 to go to any state university in their state in America for four years. But we have to change our mind-set here, and lead with early education, with pre-Head Start and Head Start. The whole Biden plan for starting early and college as well, that whole plan costs less than $18 billion a year.

John Edwards: Make community colleges & public universities free

A: What I proposed is something called College For Everyone. The idea is for any young person who commits to work while they're in college, a minimum of 10 hours a week, we pay for their tuition and books. We've actually put a similar model in place, in Green County, a relatively poor county in eastern North Carolina. About 70% of the kids were signed up.

Q: You're proposing free college for everybody for four years for a four-year program, not just community college for two years and not just the first year?

A: The other requirement is since private colleges and universities cost so much, this is what I propose requires either a public community college or public university.

Q: But it's four years?

A: Yes, sir. But I wanted to be clear that what we've done in Green County is not just the first year.

John Edwards: Think of education as a birth-to-death experience in America

A: Yes, I believe we do. I think that we tend to think of education as K through 12, maybe college and in some rare cases, graduate school. We should think of education as a birth-to-death experience in America. That means we get the kids as early as we possibly can. [Then, for college], we know if you graduate from college this year that the information you learned, a huge amount will be outdated in 5 or 10 years. So we need an infrastructure for continuing education after high school, college, or graduate school, whichever is the last part of your formal education. So we continue to learn. Now, we have an ad hoc system, where we leave it to individuals or their employers the enormous responsibility of ensuring that 50-year-old workers in America are up-to-date and best trained, best educated they can possibly be. I think we have to develop a national infrastructure for making sure people continue to learn as they age.

Ken Buck: Federal research, but no federal requirements or funding

Ken spoke about how our educational system is not presently providing what we need for our economy and our country. That we need more scientists and engineers, but that it needs to be accomplished locally. He doesn't blame teachers at all for what's going on. He sees the core problem that parents have not been involved enough. Ken discussed the fundamental need for a parent (usually the mom) to be fully involved in the child's education.

Mike Gravel: Extend school day and extend school year

A: Well, we're failing our children, and let me give the figure, how bad it is. 30%, one-third of our children, do not graduate from high school, and that's a good number. I've been in parts of the country where it's 40%. We're failing? Of course, we're failing. How can we not fail when we make the No. 1 priority in this country the military-industrial complex? We're spending more money on our defense than all of the rest of the world put together. There's no money left to make what should be the No. 1 priority, and that's education. In Japan, children go to school at 7 in the morning and end at 5. In the US, they get off at 3. In the US, we have all summer off. That's no way to compete & succeed. We need to get off of this agricultural-educational-designed system we have. Teachers want to get paid? Well, let them work year-round like the rest of the people. We need to have super teachers, and we need competition in education.

Mike Gravel: Our school stats fail because we're stuck in triumphalism

A: Well, you do that with leadership. Not just presidential leadership, but empowering the American people so they can make laws. Clearly, the Congress & the president in the las 50 years haven't been able to do it, because education is not the top priority, and it needs to be. It is in other countries, and it shows. We are going downhill as a nation. We refuse to accept this. We're stuck in triumphalism, thinking we're the greatest in the world. Well, boy, start looking at educational statistics around the world and you'll see we're far from the greatest in the world, and we're going downhill. When a third of your children do not graduate from high school, it means that these people are destined to suffer subeconomic existence. No, we are failing, and it's our leadership that's failing, and the American people, if they had the power to make laws in partnership with representative government, they could correct this.

Mike Gravel: GovWatch: Yes, Americans are getting fatter, but not dumber

To be fair to Gravel, he made this incendiary claim in response to a question citing that obesity had risen to an "all- time high," SAT scores have declined, and 38% of fourth graders cannot read at basic level. Challenged to "tell Americans that they're getting fatter and dumber," Gravel obliged. But is the underlying data correct?

The Facts: According to the CDC, the incidence of obesity among adults increased from 15% in 1980 to nearly 33% in 2004, so there's no controversy there. The "dumber" part is much more controversial. Average SAT scores have declined a little over the last two years, but that's because more students are taking the test. A better indicator of the educational skills of the overall student population is the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which concludes that math skills have been rising steadily since 1982.

Oprah Winfrey: Changing the way people think starts with education