I don't care a witt who's in power, the Dems or the Repubs. Government has NO place in education nor in stealing everyone's money (at the point of a gun, if you will) to support their involvement.
I think not...from his speeches during the campaign:
"At last count, the federal government had 760 different education programs operating within 39 different agencies, boards and commissions. Each was launched as a step toward reform. But the actual results are usually a mystery, because no one measures them. The only thing we know for sure is that federal money comes with a lot of regulations and paperwork. By one estimate, this consumes about 50 million hours each year – the equivalent of 25,000 full-time employees just to process forms.
The problem here is that failure never turns to wisdom. New layers of federal mandates and procedures have been added to the old, until their original purpose is long forgotten. It is a sad story. High hopes, low achievement. Grand plans, unmet goals.
My administration will do things differently.
We do not have a national school board, and do not need one. A president is not a federal principal, and I will not be one.
The federal government must be humble enough to stay out of the day-to-day operation of local schools, wise enough to give states and school districts more authority and freedom, and strong enough to require proven performance in return. When we spend federal money, we want results – especially when it comes to disadvantaged children.
Today, I want to outline three reforms to help ensure that no child is left behind:
We will start by funding only what works in education – only those methods and ideas that prove their power to close the achievement gap. We need good, reliable, scientific information on the best methods of teaching. What the federal government sponsors, however, is often sloppy and trendy, focusing on self-esteem over basic skills. My administration will require every federal program – in teacher training, curriculum research, school safety – to prove results. If it can’t, we will shift that money into a program that is using it wisely. No federal education program will be reauthorized merely because it has existed for years. It is more important to do good than to feel good.
"Education bills are often rituals of symbolic spending without real accountability – like pumping gas into a flooded engine. For decades, fashionable ideas have been turned into programs, with little knowledge of their benefits for students and teachers. And even the obvious failures seldom disappear.
This is a perfect example of government that is big – and weak. Of government that is grasping – and impotent.
Let me share an example. The Department of Education recently streamlined the grant application process for states. The old procedure involved 487 different steps, taking an average of 26 weeks. So, a few years ago, the best minds of the administration got together and "reinvented" the grant process. Now it takes a mere 216 steps, and the wait is 20 weeks.
If this is reinventing government, it makes you wonder how this administration was ever skilled enough and efficient enough to create the Internet. I don’t want to tinker with the machinery of the federal role in education. I want to redefine that role entirely.
I strongly believe in local control of schools and curriculum. I have consistently placed my faith in states and schools and parents and teachers – and that faith, in Texas, has been rewarded.
First, I will fundamentally change the relationship of the states and federal government in education. Now we have a system of excessive regulation and no standards. In my administration, we will have minimal regulation and high standards.
As president, I will begin by taking most of the 60 different categories of federal education grants and paring them down to five: improving achievement among disadvantaged children; promoting fluency in English; training and recruiting teachers; encouraging character and school safety; and promoting innovation and parental choice. Within these divisions, states will have maximum flexibility to determine their priorities.
They will only be asked to certify that their funds are being used for the specific purposes intended – and the federal red tape ends there.
This will spread authority to levels of government that people can touch. And it will reduce paperwork – allowing schools to spend less on filing forms and more on what matters: teachers’ salaries and children themselves.
In return, we will ask that every state have a real accountability system – meaning that they test every child, every year, in grades three through eight, on the basics of reading and math; broadly disclose those results by school, including on the Internet; and have clear consequences for success and failure. States will pick their own tests, and the federal government will share the costs of administering them.
States can choose tests off-the-shelf, like Arizona; adapt tests like California; or contract for new tests like Texas. Over time, if a state’s results are improving, it will be rewarded with extra money – a total of $500 million in awards over five years. If scores are stagnant or dropping, the administrative portion of their federal funding – about 5 percent – will be diverted to a fund for charter schools.
We will praise and reward success – and shine a spotlight of shame on failure.
What I am proposing today is a fresh start for the federal role in education. A pact of principle. Freedom in exchange for achievement. Latitude in return for results. Local control with one national goal: excellence for every child.
I am opposed to national tests, written by the federal government. If Washington can control the content of tests, it can dictate the content of state curricula – a role our central government should not play.
Not sure if the links still work, they were from the GWB campaign website, I just had them on file from the campaign, but if you plug the titles into a search engine, I am sure you can find copies on the www.