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.
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.
HEre’s a specific example of how Gingrich overthinks things.
He proposes pell grants for parents to pay for school of their choice. That infers that public schools will now get part of their funding through school choice. But schools are not free to do whatever they want, and while there are some things a school could do to be “more competitive”, a lot of it is age of building, the population of kids around the school, and the existing teacher base, which schools aren’t free to fire at will.
But at least it’s an idea. Then he proposes that if a parent home-schools, they get to keep the pell grants or get tax credits. Here’s the problem: not only does that give parents a financial incentive to home-school (there are parents who should never home-school, and they might well choose to deny their kids an education just to earn money). Worse, why do the parents of children get a tax break, and not the people who don’t even HAVE children?
Schools are generally paid for with property taxes. Those without kids complain they pay property taxes but don’t get any benefits. We take their money and use it to pay for schools. But it would be worse if you told them that the parents who DO have kids actually get money back for not using the schools. That’s like taking money from childless couples and handing it over to couples with children.
But that’s what happens with a big-idea mentality. You oversolve problems.