Posted on 02/16/2012 6:55:15 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Campaigning in Idaho on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum suggested that he is opposed to a public school system overseen by the government.
"We didn't have government-run schools for a long time in this country, for the majority of the time in this country," he said. "We had private education. We had local education. Parents actually controlled the education of their children. What a great idea that is."
Santorum's campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an explanation of whether he was calling for an end to public schooling as it now exists. But the former Pennsylvania senator has previously made his antagonism known. Campaigning in March, Santorum took a shot at public schools.
"Just call them what they are," he said. "Public schools? That's a nice way of putting it. These are government-run schools."
Santorum makes a point of his support for home schooling. All of his children have been home schooled, and he has even suggested he would home school in the White House, a situation that he said "would certainly be a shock to the establishment."
The Hill newspaper mined Santorum's 2005 book It Takes a Family for his views on schooling. In that book, Santorum called "mass education" an "aberration."
"Never before and never again after their years of mass education will any person live and work in such a radically narrow, age-segregated environment," wrote Santorum. "It's amazing that so many kids turn out to be fairly normal, considering the weird socialization they get in public schools."
He added: "In a home school, by contrast, children interact in a rich and complex way with adults and children of other ages all the time. In general, they are better-adjusted, more at ease with adults, more capable of conversation, more able to notice when a younger child needs help or comfort, and in general a lot better socialized than their mass-schooled peers."
Santorum has not always home schooled his children, however. When Santorum was serving in the Senate, he decided to effectively move his family to Virginia - a situation that would cause political problems for the then-Pennsylvania senator.
Santorum did not enroll his kids in local Pennsylvania schools, and he did not home school them: Instead, he enrolled five of them in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. The "cyber" school is considered a public school, as Mother Jones notes, where students have to meet state requirements. It also provides free computers and other perks, and the Penn Hills school district ended up shelling out $38,000 per year for the Santorum children.
Santorum reportedly ended up withdrawing his children from the school. He did not repay the district, though the state ultimately paid the district $55,000 to cover the tuition fees.
Now that is totally insulting on your part. While I'll take your advice and try and come up with some audio of the Nobel Peace Prize morning, please don't patronize me as if my opinion of Santorum is based on any damned thing the press has said. It is not. It is from 20 years of observing the man myself.
The Maine story is astonishing. RP almost certainly won, and they simply declared Mittens the winner to keep his campaign alive.
The Maine story is astonishing. RP almost certainly won, and they simply declared Mittens the winner to keep his campaign alive.
CBS is REALLY on the warpath for god Barack today.
Honor system -- no skimming, no skipping one and lingering on the other. Please take the challenge and read every single word of BOTH, fair shake. Take the time -- you owe it to your country and to America's children.
Santorum is 100% correct on this. Government run schools have failed the students, their parents and the taxpayers. More politicians and pundits should have the courage to speak out on this and tell it like it is.
I'd like to see an end to all government run schools.
>>Now that is totally insulting on your part.<<
My apology if you felt insulted.
That morning, I sat waiting to cross children at our local school and listened to Rick. I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself.
While I was actually not stating that your total opinion was spoonfed by the MSM, you have to admit that ANY drop of sunshine from anyone with an R after his name is hidden like a horcrux in Harry Potter.
When Santorum and Glenn Beck get together it’s fun too!
Which president put his kids into the local dc school? Did any?
Homeschooling is private schooling.
I’m all for abolishing fed control of k-12 education. Period. Look. It isn’t working.
Taxpayers here pay $12,000 a year to educate every kid. I pay far less than $1000 a year per kid to homeschool and we get a lot of cool stuff. To have a homeschooling family in the WH would be awesome.
Have you seen this doofus explain that parents don’t know what’s best for their kids? Only educators can serve them in their best interest....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M30FIL82vuQ
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get that 12,000 a year to educate our own?
Geez, we blow 400.00 a year on Switched on Schoolhouse and it is good for both kids. That extra 11,600 can buy a lot of printer paper and ink!
Santorum with Chrissy Wallace showed that he has quite the sense of humor and kind of a sly smart one. I find him very genuine and likable without any hiding.
I did away with it long ago. My kids have never seen the inside of a public school. It doesn't take legislation to do away with public schools, it takes conservatives who are willing to choose an alternative.
With due respect, RS could make a bodily noise and you would respond that it was smart and funny.
(personally, I’d vote for a ziplock bag over Obama)
I'd rather he'd left off the second part, but hey, I'd JUMP at having that kind of axe taken to the Federal Dept. of Education.
Wouldn't you?
... Santorum's webpage doesn't mention the Dept. of Ed. at all, unless I missed it.
Granted, we could sure do a lot worse than Santorum. I'd vote for him over Obama. But here's the deal ... we could also do a lot better than Santorum.
Godspeed Newt Gingrich.
He’s framing it in a way that will put off the uninformed. This guy will get hammered in the General with these overly simplistic remarks.
Public schools were once decent, and many still are. Rick should underscore the infestation of Leftism that destroying the virtues of PE.
Come on, Santorum, get a clue.
You may get your chance.
“It may be that the homeschooling community has a candidate to rally around and support.”
Which amounts to maybe two percent of the population, who vote conservative anyway.
This ping list is for articles of interest to homeschoolers. I hold both the Homeschool Ping List and the Another Reason to Homeschool Ping List. Please freepmail me to let me know if you would like to be added or removed from either list, or both.
The keyword for the FREE REPUBLIC HOMESCHOOLERS’ FORUM is frhf.
OK, I have done what you asked. But just looking at the names on the links reveals what always annoys me about Newt Gingrich (since this seems to be a thread where we all get to talk about what personally annoys us about candidates).
Specifically, Santorum had this long, inviting name: “restoring america’s greatness through educational freedom and opportunity”. Without reading a word of it, I think “who could be against that? I love greatness, I love educational freedom, I love opportunity.
Gingrich?: “A 21st Century Learning System”. OK. Policy Wonk time. More “making our lives better through better government programs”.
In the details, Gingrich has some good stuff, Santorum has some good stuff. Santorum starts with parental freedom, Gingrich from reforming government.
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