My Presidential Platform (employment, salaries, security, campaign)

[Yeledaf]

To provide an alternative to the unsatisfactory choice of candidates presented by each both political parties, and the unrealistic independent candidates, I have decided to offer myself as a consensus-seeking alternative. I am opening my official Presidential campaign today. Here is my first campaign plank.

I invite your comments. I welcome your support.


Presidential Campaign Paper # 1
Education and Affirmative Action

Education must become America’s primary domestic priority. Too many children – especially those from minority and/or disadvantaged backgrounds, are not receiving an appropriate education, and are stigmatized as under-achievers. The teaching profession no longer attracts our best and brightest young people. Bureaucracies – on the federal, state, and district level, along with teachers unions based on labor movement practices – stifle innovation and shelter incompetence. Inertia and a pedagogical model based on bygone eras trap many of our children in a system designed to serve a calendar and an agrarian/ industrial economy that no longer exists.

To address these dilemmas, I propose the enactment of the Federal Reform of Education Enactment ("FREE"), designed to assist states to do the following:

A. Public School Education

1. Identify a single source of state funding for educational support (e.g., state lottery net earnings) , thus making school funding resources transparent and predictable.

2. Provide state support to district funding in proportion to a district’s resources, thus ensuring equal funding levels.

3. Immediately double teachers’ salaries at all levels of experience and education.

4. Eliminate licensing requirements for teachers based on undergraduate educational coursework. Instead, permit anyone holding a university degree to apply for a public school teaching license, after taking a psychological exam, a security background check, and a competency test in the area(s) to be taught, or in the case of elementary schools, in any academic discipline.

5. Eliminate teachers’ unions as governing bodies in the employment, discipline, or tenure of teachers. Encourage professional associations whose goals are focused on curricular and instructional excellence.

6. Permit districts to experiment with school calendars, hours, and schedules, establishing guidelines which best address the educational needs of the students of a particular geographical region.

B. Affirmative Action

1. Immediately provide full federal funding for the Head Start Program for all pre-school children,
with major initiatives in the area of disadvantaged and minority children.

2. In addition to salary, provide tax-free retroactive payment to new teachers who elect to teach in designated “High-Care” school districts (e.g., inner-city, low-income, Native American Indian reservations, Appalachian), up to the entire cost of an individual’s undergraduate educational expense, from a minimum of $20,000 up to a maximum total of $60,000, to be repaid over six years . Teachers who elect to continue teaching in a High Care district will receive an additional Dependent Tax Credit on their Federal Income Tax for as long as they do so.

3. Permit 18-25 year-olds to elect High Care District tutoring or teaching as their two-year National Service commitment (NOTE: National Service to be the topic of a forthcoming Campaign Paper). For each year served, participants will receive, in addition to their stipend, a voucher for one year of undergraduate or graduate study at the institution of their choice, up to a maximum of five years.

[fishmonger]

Can't really disagree with much of that, teachers' unions may be too powerful but I think they're necessary to maintain some level of job security and decent pay... the kids should come first but teachers are people too, you know?