Dole Backs Education Basics

MINNEAPOLIS (AllPolitics, July 17) -- Proposing to return American education to basics that work, likely GOP nominee Robert Dole criticized President Bill Clinton for opposing school reforms. (224K WAV sound)

Dole called Clinton "the pliant pet of militant teachers unions" and said the president can't deliver on promises of education reform because he receives substantial campaign contributions from teachers groups that don't want change. (320K WAV sound)

Dole also stressed the importance of school choice, an issue well received by the audience of school voucher advocates gathered in a Catholic high school gym. (352K WAV sound) The GOP hopeful capitalized on the school choice issue as one where he and Clinton differ.

"There is no right more basic that the right of every parent in this country to choose which school their own child will attend," said Dole, adding the Clinton Administration "has done everything in its power to kill the school choice movement."

Clinton favors allowing parents to choose among public schools but opposes giving parents vouchers of tax money to send their children to private or religious schools. Aides said Dole would outline his school voucher plan Thursday in Milwaukee.

American Federation of Teachers President Albert Shanker immediately responded to Dole's attacks, saying the Republican should have done better homework before his speech.

"Evaluations of Milwaukee's voucher experiment show that voucher students do no better than comparable students in public school," said Shanker. "It is also questionable whether some of these voucher schemes are even constitutional, the Cleveland plan in particular."

School choice was just one component of Dole's "education consumers' warranty," designed to give parents more say in their children's schools. The warranty lists principles that Dole said would guide his education policies as president, including strict discipline codes and a return to proven education basics such as phonics.

Attacking the wave of political correctness that has swept through the school system, Dole called for replacing "global awareness" and "diversity" curricula with reading, writing and arithmetic.

"While students in Europe and Japan are learning math, science and language, our kids are learning to get in touch with their feelings," said Dole.

This has been carried too far, Dole said, by schools that no longer hold spelling bees because they say students who don't win suffer a loss of self-esteem. (256K WAV sound)

Dole Backs Education Basics

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