Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

I oppose national standards like Common Core. Parents, teachers, local school boards, and the Missouri legislature should determine what standards our children must achieve, what subject matter is taught, and how that subject matter is taught. Those standards should be high, they should emphasize traditional learning and discipline, and they should be readily transferable to any other part of the United States, but they should not be dictated to the people of Missouri from the federal government or by corporate interests which seek to outsource worker training to the public school system.

Our education system should recognize that people are more than economic units. Education is the key to unlocking much of the beauty and mystery of the world we live in. Children need exposure to science, literature, poetry, music, and the useful arts. As modern technology offers the difficult to resist pull of instant gratification we must ensure that children are exposed to the great works of culture and civilization so that they are truly able to choose which kinds of interests they want to pursue in life. Without exposure to all the many different areas of human activity children are left with small horizons and culturally impoverished lives.

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