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Education
- Change to an elected school board in Montclair See my views on an elected school board
- Provide every child with the opportunity to receive a quality education.
- Improve our schools by encouraging competition.
- Institute a voucher system so that a lack of financial means never precludes a child from a quality education.
- Learn more about your local school system. (see below for local school data)
Educating our children is one of the most critical functions of government. But the federal government's function is not to actually do the educating. Its function is to enable and encourage individuals and local governments to set up programs to give our children a top-notch education. In many places, we are succeeding, giving our children a marvelous education. Our Colleges and Universities are the best in the world. We can be proud of this.
Though many of our schools are top-notch, we need to provide a thorough education for every person in America, not just those who can afford it or who happen to live in a strong school district. Parents should be given the choice of where to send their children. It is my firm belief that parents, not government bureaucrats, know where their children should be educated. Only by letting parents decide whether or not a school is performing will we weed out the bad schools and allow the good schools to grow.
We can accomplish this by simply giving every parent a voucher for a certain number of dollars that can be given to an accredited school by the parent to pay for the cost of education. This gives full control of where a child goes to school to the parent and child. They do not need a bureaucrat to tell them where to send their child. They are not forced to send their child to a failing school. They are not forced to send their child to a school that has an educational philosophy that disagrees with the parent's values.
After the 2008 campaign, I decided to work on improving education. After reading Milton Friedman's ideas, I have decided we should at a very minimum try school choice as defined by the voucher system.
At the same time we need to be aware of what is happening in our local school districts. I plan on gathering information and posting it on my web site for anyone's use. Below are links to the Montclair School Budget, the Montclair BOE salary data, and the West Orange BOE salary data.
I have found that in Montclair there are 6636 students enrolled in the school system with a total budget of $110,428,311 which yields a cost per pupil of $16,640.79.
Montclair is also in the process of voting on whether or not we want an elected school board or an appointed school board. Montclair is one of the few towns that still has an appointed school board.
If you have any updated information on information from any other school districts, please send it to me.
Further Reading:
School Choice: 2006 Progress Report
Ten Principles of School Choice
Montclair Board of Education Budget
Montclair Board of Education Salaries
West Orange Board of Education Salaries
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