Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

We should not shackle the education of our children to the minute funding we receive from federal government. The best government is local government and when it comes to education, parents are and should be the doorkeepers for their child's education. Parents have a right to choose their child's education; whether it be public, private or homeschooling.

I know the highest percentage of our students will be educated in public schools, and I have a passion to work to make it the best it can be for every student in our district and across our state. Expert academic instruction is critical and the reason I strongly support professional development opportunities for teachers as part of the strategy to ensure excellence in our schools.

The mission of every school in our state can be accomplished when decision making power is closest to the local school level. It is there that administrators and teachers can ensure students are engaged in an educational climate where parents are involved, their concerns are heard and students' academic needs are most easily met. When decision making power is at the local level, teachers will once again be able to focus instruction time on the needs of their students rather than the current skewed focus driven by federally mandated Common Core State Standards and SBAC achievement testing.

School boards and administrators need to be the driving force that empowers the current environment in which the curriculum and instruction time is geared for "teaching to the test".

We are seeing concerns of the teacher shortage as well, and granted there is some, but after observing the discussions in our local schools and hearing from parents across our region I have wondered why we do not see teaching for the high and honored vocation it should be. I firmly believe teaching is and should be an honored vocation, a higher calling if you will, yet we shackle our professional educators with federal overreach.

As an educated society we also cannot neglect the tremendous importance of instruction in ethics and morals in our children. Character development matters and is marked by honesty, self-control, decency, respect, and compassion.

We need common sense and local control, not Common Core!

I will support all efforts to remove the Smarter Balance Consortium, which administers the Common Core Standardized tests, as this is simply a rewrite of old federal policies that do not work.

As your State Senator, I will be committed to the importance of education and will strongly support reform that brings decision making power back to the local level.

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