Peter on Education

[Peter]

Brookings, South Dakota

It was very much a tenet of campaign in my run for Governor that I placed Education at the forefront of my domestic agenda - and in this campaign I will do so again. There is no single task more important that the government and society as a whole undertakes than nuturing our young and realising their enormous potential.

As far as any domestic agenda that I will undertake goes, I will have three priorities:

Education,

Education,

and Education.

In government I will push for a large reform in the education of our children by calling on the Senate to pass legislation, as I did when Governor of the Mideast, that will effectively end the federal stranglehold on the way schools do business.

All federal funds presently appropriated to our Nation's schools will be devolved unto the lowest level, mostly the Local School Boards, staffed by dedicated parents who simply want to give their children the best chance in life. And to these parents, we will give one simple instruction: Follow a well balanced curriculum, employ good teachers, provide fantastic facilities and you won't be hearing from us.

The rest of the money will be sent to Regional and State level funds, such as the Mideast's Deprived Area and Special Educational Needs Fund - which will target areas of particular poverty to raise the standards of education, and will provide additional funding to schools that help kids with special needs. And when I say special needs, I don't just mean disabled children or children with dyslexia, but I also mean incredibly gifted children as well, because to me, thats a special need too - These children are literally going to be the leading lights of tomorrow's world and thus we must do all that is possible to foster them.

Some will say that this is the sunset on an era of big government in education: But its not, its a realisation that the most important thing that big government can do in this field is provide the money, those best able to spend it effectively are the agents of the government who work tirelessly and selflessly everyday in our classrooms.

Ladies and Gentleman, next month we have a solemn choice, together lets choose to start a revolution in education that will bring a new dawn to our classrooms.

[Platypus]

Nice policy.

[Colin]

One question Mr. Bell. What is your view on school vouchers?

[Peter]

Personally, I am opposed to the use of school vouchers in education, though somewhat paradoxically my policy is not.

My policy stipulates that control over how funding is used belongs at the lowest level, thus if a community decides to, it can use school vouchers - this is by no means a policy decision that should be taken by the Senate one way or the other, because as ever the needs of Alsby, WV and Tacoma, WA are somewhat different, and thus different solutions must be found in each case.

My personal opposition to school vouchers is based on a pragmatic judgement of what simply goes on on the ground: If school vouchers are only available to a few students in a school, then it will often do more harm than good because the effective operating costs of the school remain the same whilst it takes a drop in funding. Thus instituting school vouchers on a small scale is never feasible.

If you adopt them on a larger scale, you then create a large pool of students looking to leave the public education system to go into the private system. There are only ever going to be a finite number of places in any private schools locally available, thus you end up with a competition for these places, often resolved on the basis of educational ability. With this, many of the academically brilliant students are ciphoned into the private sector and soon after them, the best teachers, in search of the reward which comes from teaching bright students, soon follow.

This then leaves you with a system where the less gifted students are landed with the more mediocre teachers, and thus are often unable to realise whatever potential they might have.

In short, it creates an academic elite, where ability to get a good education is based on test scores. It ignores the vast swaiths of students who aren't brilliant at tests, but nonetheless each have their own potential, which with the best teachers, can be realised. A "market" approach to education just doesn't work because it fails to take account of the very real human aspects of education because a well educated citizenry cannot be bought off a shelf for a price but having one is nearly infinitely valuable to a society.

[jokerman]

Excellent speech, and good answer on vouchers.  This makes you my official second preference.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Great speech

[True Democrat]

You speak very eloquently.  Although your position on education isn't exactly like mine (I know everyone is trying to forget my education plan), you are still my first preference.

[King]

This would make a great Senate speech, but has a President ever done anything and receive credit for it?  Most Senators get all the praise for anything the President submits.

[TomC]

As a teacher, your speech really excited me! Getting the feds off our backs will enable us to truly teach kids and not merely test takers. Thank you for this vision!

[John Dibble]

Well, I have to agree with my opponent on education - I've said before that the feds need to get out of it, for the most part at least.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As a teacher, your speech really excited me! Getting the feds off our backs will enable us to truly teach kids and not merely test takers. Thank you for this vision!

You've just confirmed that you really *are* a teacher

[Peter]

This would make a great Senate speech, but has a President ever done anything and receive credit for it?  Most Senators get all the praise for anything the President submits.

I think a more apt question is whether anything the President has written has been passed by the Senate since the days of Kennedy?

I've given it a few minutes thought, and I'm drawing a blank. President's of late have been very wary of using the popular mandate given to them to help shape policy, I hope to reverse this trend by actively seeking out Senators who will shephard my vision of what our policy should be through the Senate.

[Bono]

This would make a great Senate speech, but has a President ever done anything and receive credit for it?  Most Senators get all the praise for anything the President submits.

I think a more apt question is whether anything the President has written has been passed by the Senate since the days of Kennedy?

I've given it a few minutes thought, and I'm drawing a blank. President's of late have been very wary of using the popular mandate given to them to help shape policy, I hope to reverse this trend by actively seeking out Senators who will shephard my vision of what our policy should be through the Senate.

Does that mean your policy will be for sheeple?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

PBrunsel did try once (a balanced budget thingy) but it didn't get very far.

[Gabu]

PBrunsel did try once (a balanced budget thingy) but it didn't get very far.

Well, sort of... it failed miserably the first time, but then we modified it based on the suggestions from voters in the public poll and tried again, and it passed.

[Colin]

This would make a great Senate speech, but has a President ever done anything and receive credit for it?  Most Senators get all the praise for anything the President submits.

I think a more apt question is whether anything the President has written has been passed by the Senate since the days of Kennedy?

I've given it a few minutes thought, and I'm drawing a blank. President's of late have been very wary of using the popular mandate given to them to help shape policy, I hope to reverse this trend by actively seeking out Senators who will shephard my vision of what our policy should be through the Senate.

Well the problem is the last two elected presidents never had much of a popular mandate as well as being either weak presidents or facing a diametrically opposed Senate. PBrunsel probably could have worked far better with the Senate we have now than with the one he found himself with during his four months and True Dem was thrown into the position.