The Educational Platforms of the Leading Republican Presidential Candidates

Yesterday we took a peek at the platforms of the leading Democratic presidential candidates. Today we examine the Republicans, looking at the top four candidates based on last week’s Rasmussen polls.

Rudolph Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani, the Mayor of New York from 1994-2001 and current Republican front runner, served as an associate attorney general under President Reagan from 1981-83. The former mayor has made national security his issue and has offered little when it comes to education.

Giuliani calls the No Child Left Behind Act a marginal success yet has offered no specific changes he would make. A strong proponent of “school choice,” Giuliani indicates a desire to expand this concept yet here again he has offered no specific proposals.

Backing the free market approach, Giuliani believes that promoting competition and creating options for parents is the best way to encourage schools to address teacher tenure, accountability, and incentive pay. As the mayor of New York City, Giuliani championed privately funded scholarship programs for public school students to enroll in a private school of the student’s choice.

Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee,
the Governor of Arkansas from 1996-2007 and a Southern Baptist minister, has been climbing each week in the polls. In regards to the No Child Left Behind Act, Huckabee appears to be firmly behind the current law as it raises student achievement, respects states’ right to define standards for student learning, measures students’ success in meeting those standards and has a process for intervening in low-performing schools.

A proponent of the arts, Huckabee, as Arkansas governor, signed into law the requirement that schools offer 40 minutes a week of music and arts education to all students in grades 1-6.

Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney,
Governor of Massachusetts from 2003-07, previously served as the President and chief executive officer of the Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. The son of a former presidential candidate, Romney failed to unseat incumbent Edward M. Kennedy as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from Massachusetts in 1994.

Like Huckabee, Romney indicates his support for the No Child Left Behind Act calling the “testing of our kids a good thing.” Romney, however, indicates he favors additional school choice options for students in poorly performing public schools including the creation and/or expansion of charter schools and private school vouchers.

Romney’s views regarding immigration have led to his speaking out against bilingual education. The former governor of Massachusetts is in favor of students being placed in English-only classes.

As a candidate for president Romney would support a federal program similar to the one he started in Massachusetts that enables top-performing students to get free instate tuition at public colleges and universities. He also seeks to tie aspects of federal aid granted to students to contributions that student would make to the country.

Fred Thompson,
Fred Thompson,
the U.S. senator from Tennessee from 1995-2003 is best known for his acting role in the NBC series “Law & Order.” Thompson voted for the No Child Left Behind law in 2001 and is a strong proponent of the use of test scores to determine school quality but indicates that the law simply is not working. Thompson favors testing to “promote accountability and to share innovations in education at all levels.”

Another proponent of school choice, Thompson proposes the review of all federal education programs for their cost-effectiveness. The former Senator supports federal vouchers for private school tuition as well as charter schools as alternatives to regular public schools.

John McCain
John McCain,
the U.S. senator from Arizona from 1987 to present was a candidate for 2000 Republican presidential nomination. A U.S. naval officer and fighter pilot who was captured and held prisoner for five and a half years during the Vietnam War, McCain offers great experience regarding the war on terror and foreign policy.

The Senator voted for the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 but has called for changes regarding the testing of students with disabilities as well as those who do not speak English.

In his 2000 presidential campaign McCain proposed spending $5.4 billion on a three-year national voucher experiment and spending $1 billion annually on tax breaks for teachers rated “excellent” by their states.

Next up, OpenEducation.net offers its endorsement.