Education Reform

Education reform is an important to WebmasterVote.org for many reasons. We believe that the productivity of our workforce will falter without an improved education system. Our country needs an education system that teaches our children how to think, not what to think. We believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove that many educators around the country are indoctrinating our children rather than teaching our children. Most reasonable people will acknowledge that our education system, at a minimum, needs some serious reform and possibly should be completely overhauled.

The candidates running for president in this election cycle have differing opinions on what exactly the problems are and how to go about fixing those problems. This article may not be the appropriate place to go into great depth on each of the candidates' positions on education reform, but we will detail the criteria that was used in grading each of the candidates on their education reform plans.

1. We believe that education systems function best when controlled at the local level. Although there the federal government has a role in education, its role should be a diminished role in the overall education structure from its current level, as well as turn more control over to the states and local school districts.

2. No Child Left Behind needs to be reformed and/or improved. Although No Child Left Behind has played a role in creating accountability and stressing improvement in our schools, it was forced down the throats of the states and local school districts without providing adequate flexibility to meet student needs.

3. Our schools need to tailor their curriculum to help students excel in jobs in our new, high-tech economy. English, math, science, and technology based classes are essential in the future education of our children. The future of America's competitiveness in the internet technology industry will greatly depend on the quality of education our children receive.

4. To help facilitate the success of our education system, parents should be offered choices in their child's education. Vouchers, school choice, and expanding the number of charter schools are all critical elements in providing parents enough choice while ensuring their child receives a quality education.

5. School teachers should be compensated on a merit based pay system. Teachers who excel at teaching and achieve great results with their students should be compensated better than teachers who are not good teachers and don't help their students succeed.

These are just a few of the items that we feel are important to the debate on education reform. And although the debate on education reform largely focuses on money, we believe that politicians need to find innovative new ways to help solve the education crisis in our country.