Newt Gingrich on Education Former Republican Representative (GA-6) and Speaker of the House

Sub-sections under Education:
• Charters and Vouchers
• College
• Grade School
• School Prayer
• Voting Record
• Other issues under Education

Dramatically shrink the federal Department of Education

JOHNSON: I am going to promise to advocate the abolishment of the federal Department of Education.

GINGRICH: I think you need very profound reform of education at the state level. You need to dramatically shrink the federal Department of Education, get rid of virtually all of its regulations. And the truth is, I believe we'd be far better off if most states adopted a program of the equivalent of Pell Grants for K-through-12, so that parents could choose where their child went to school, whether it was public, or private, or home-schooling, and parents could be involved. Florida has a virtual school program that is worth the entire country studying as an example

I liked charter school programs in Obama's Race to the Top

GINGRICH: I liked very much the fact that it talked about charter schools. It's the one place I found to agree with President Obama. If every parent in America had a choice of the school their child went to, if that school had to report its scores, if there was a real opportunity, you'd have a dramatic improvement. My personal preference would be to have a Pell Grant for K-12 so that every parent could pick, with their child, any school they wanted to send them to, public or private, and enable them to have the choice. I don't think you're ever going to reform the current bureaucracies. And the president, I thought, was showing some courage in taking on the teacher's union to some extent and offering charter schools, and I wanted, frankly, to encourage more development towards choice.

Let parents choose public, private, parochial, or homeschool

Except in cases of demonstrable neglect or abuse, lawmakers and judges must enact and enforce policies that support the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children and choose the educational model that best suits the child's needs, whether public school, private or parochial school, or homeschooling.

More learning options: community college-run charter schools

Consider also that the Detroit public school system will spend $7,469 per pupil. The Detroit school system doesn't fail for lack of money. They fail because success if not the priority. If you measure the Detroit system by whether the checks arrive for the bureaucrats each month no matter how badly they are doing, then it has 100% success rate.

The young people of Detroit need more learning options, but government stands in their way. Michigan community colleges, for example, are prevented by state law from chartering schools in city districts. A charter school is simply a public school freed from the bureaucracy's rules and willing to hold itself accountable for producing results. And guess what? They work.

Offer coupons to send kids to schools that work best

But real change requires real change, not new rhetoric while doing more o the same old thing. Propping up the failed past at the expense of future generations leads to prison and poverty for too many of our children.

In city after city across the country, education bureaucrats and unions make it quite clear that they put the union's interests ahead of the children.

America’s high schools are obsolete

The collapse of math and science education in the US and the relative decline of investment in basic research is an enormous strategic threat to American national security. There is a grave danger that the US will find itself collapsing in scientific and technological capabilities in our lifetime.

This is among the most important decisions our generation will make about our country’s future and our children’s future. For the last twenty years, we have tried to improve education while accepting the fundamental principles of a failed system, guarded by the education bureaucrats and teachers unions. We must now transform math and science education or fall behind. It really is that simple.

Pay kids as incentive to learn math and science

We should therefore conduct a pilot project to see if this approach can be successful. And we should begin by targeting a poor inner city district where the potential for sending a strong signal is perhaps strongest.

Replace multiculturalism with patriotic education

It is absolutely necessary to establish a firm foundation of patriotic education upon which further knowledge can be built; otherwise, Americans will lack understanding of American values & how important & great it is to be an American.

It is important to understand what makes America so unique and why generations of diverse people immigrated to this great land for freedom and opportunity. If Americans do not appreciate America, then how can they be ready and willing to defend her?

Reference to God in Pledge of Allegiance is not ceremonial

Earning by Learning: pay students $2 per summer book

Support charters; insist on change for failing schools

Private scholarships for students at hopeless schools

Adopt vouchers to break unionized monopoly of inner city

The Wisconsin legislature adopted a voucher system that allows inner-city children to attend private schools at state expense. The Wisconsin teachers' union and the traditional liberals fought bitterly, but Republicans led a broad bipartisan coalition that seeks to break the public-school monopoly and find new ways to educate poor children.

From home schooling to vouchers, from a drastic overhaul of the present system to allowing private companies to take over whole school distracts-- we simply have to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that poor children can participate in the Information Age. There is no other strategy that will give them a full opportunity to pursue happiness.

Voucherize inner-city programs from schools to groceries

"I think we ought to voucherize every program in the inner city with cash payments to parents allowing them to decide where and what to purchase, be it an elementary school, health care, or groceries." Some in his audience thought he was exaggerating to make a point. In a later interview, he was willing to go even further. "Suppose you need to get children away from failed teachers. What if we called on the home-schoolers in Maryland and Virginia to come to D.C. for a massive home schooling program, teaching parents how to teach their children."

Gingrich's education stances compared to Ron Paul's

Gingrich vs. Paul on Social Issues

• Abortion Funding
• Abortion Morality
• Judicial Activism
• Welfare State
• Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell
• Defense of Marriage Act
• Churches and Same-Sex Marriage
• Affirmative Action
• College Loans
• Department of Education
• School Prayer
• Homeschooling
• School Vouchers
• Tea Party
• Principles of Liberty

College students should work and graduate with no debt

GINGRICH: The student loan program began when Lyndon Johnson announced it, I think, with a $15 million program. It's an absurdity. What does it do? It expands the ability of students to stay in college longer because they don't see the cost. It actually means they take fewer hours per semester on average. It takes longer for them to get through school. It allows them to tolerate tuitions going up absurdly. Now, let me give you a contrast that's very startling. The College of the Ozarks is a work-study college. You have to work 20 hours a week during the year to pay tuition and books. Now, that is a model so different, it will be culture shock for the students of America to learn we actually expect them to go to class, study, get out quickly, charge as little as possible, and emerge debt free by doing the right things for 4 years.

Waive interest on student loans for math & science grads

It is an objective reality that we are not producing enough educated 18-year olds capable of sustaining this society in the 21st century.

The depth of this problem dictates that we must be bold in finding a solution. This includes serious considerations of notions like waiving interest on student loans for undergraduates that major in math or science.

We must rethink how we educate our children in math and science. In my judgment it is harder than most other kinds of learning. There are many reasons in a wealthy society that people at the margins do not go into math or science. One is the fact that there is no immediate advantage to majoring in something that is harder and requires more work.

We should go beyond force-feeding numbers and theories to a level of discovery where a child wonders what the answers are and goes in search of them for the excitement of it.

End college tenure; focus on students over teachers

Most tenured positions in higher education are now held by passionate advocates of the anti-Vietnam War movement. These former radicals have now become the comfortable, all-purpose "deconstructionists" of American culture.

If the average taxpayer had a list of the 10 weirdest courses their tax money was funding at their state university, they would ask for a refund. It's not just that their money is being wasted. It is being used to subsidize bizarre and destructive versions of reality.

College faculties are not Supreme Court justices. They are simply employees, and they should be subject to the same economic pressures as everyone else.

Make universities about Western values, not quaint artifacts

I hope the next three Democratic presidential campaigns are run by people conversant with the Kennedy School. Only the Stanford Faculty have been more aggressive in trying to prove they can be more out of touch with the American people than the Kennedy School.

Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler would have admired some of the elite campuses where certain words can get a student expelled.
--The Boston Globe. August 11, 1991

Introduce competition among schools and teachers

These ideas are designed to stimulate thinking beyond the timid “let’s do more of the same” that has greeted every call for rethinking math and science education.

Encourage private sector in math and science education

Graduates willing to stay in math and science fields should pay zero interest on their student loans until their incomes reach four times the national average income. This would encourage students to stay in these needed fields and continue to pursue knowledge.

School prayer ban shows secular socialists oppose God

Traditional America values hard work, entrepreneurship, innovation, and merit-based upward mobility. But the secular-socialist machine rewards its members, punishes "overachievers," kills job by over-taxing small businesses, and even exploits your death to tax the savings you hope to pass on to your children and grandchildren.

Traditional America was based on a profound belief that "we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights." But secular socialists are so opposed to God in public life that they can't tolerate school prayer or even allow a cross to stand in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

Since 1963 school prayer ban, teen pregnancy & drugs are up

• Drug addiction is up.
• Teenage pregnancy is up.
• Drinking is up.
• Violence is up.
• Rape in schools is up.
• Assaults on teachers are up.
• The display of disrespectful attitudes is up.

Don't ban Bibles from public schools

To protect religious liberty in education we should adhere to the following:
• Since it is the prerogative of parents to choose the instruction that is best for their child, we must preserve the homeschooling option.
• School districts should be allowed to offer optional religious instruction including Bible study. Providing this option in no way constitutes an establishment of religion.
• Parents should be free to choose the school of their choice, including religious schools. They should be given an education credit coupon (a Pell Grant for K-12) allowing them more options to choose a school that best fits their own values.
• Parents must have the right to choose which value instruction their child receives and therefore must be able to opt out without qualification.
• US history classes should study the influences of religion on the Founders and other historical figures.
• Religious texts, including Bibles and scriptures, should not be banned in public schools.

Removing God from Pledge of Allegiance assaults our identity

How can the judiciary, including the Supreme Court, overrule the culture & maintain its moral authority? It can’t. The Supreme Court begins each day with the proclamation “God save the United States and this honorable Court.” This phrase was not adopted as a ceremonial phrase of no meaning: it was adopted because justices in the 1820s actually wanted to call on God to save the US & the Court

Removing “God” from Pledge assaults our identity

Teach evolution as science; intelligent design as philosophy

A: It started as a passion for animals and grew into an interest in paleontology and how life evolved.

Q: Do you view evolution as "just a theory" or as the best explanation for how we came to be?

A: Evolution certainly seems to express the closest understanding we can now have. But it's changing too. The current tree of life is not anything like a 19th-century Darwinian tree.

Q: What about teaching intelligent design in schools?

A: I believe evolution should be taught as science, and intelligent design should be taught as philosophy.

Q: Do you think the ruling in the Dover, Pennsylvania, case was appropriate?

A: I do not know enough about the Dover case to critique the judge's decision, but I am generally cautious about unelected judges establishing community standards--that is the duty of elected officials.

Re-center America on the Creator

To have a successful future, we will:
• Re-center America on the Creator from Whom all our liberties come.
• We will insist on a judiciary that understands the centrality of God in American history and reasserts the legitimacy of recognizing the Creator in public life.
• Establish patriotic education for our children and patriotic immigration for new Americans.
• Work to include every American in a system of patriotic stewardship.
• Insist on congressional reform.

Constitutional amendment to protect right to school prayer

The idea that most religious people are "radical," as they are all too often portrayed in the media, is wrong. The overwhelming majority are mainstream, not extreme. They should not be treated as second-class citizens who may practice their faith in private but never in the public square. People of faith--of all faiths--have played important roles in the progress of the country and the development of our culture. Indeed, our culture is based on traditional American values, derived from our Judeo-Christian heritage, handed down to us, generation after generation.

Voluntary school prayer creates bond between you and Creator

I had a very bright student in the class who said, "Do you really think voluntary school prayer matters that much? Why does it matter? You really think 30 seconds matter?" And I suddenly realized the reason it matters is it establishes at the beginning of the day the concept of a hierarchy. That the teacher is an intermediary between the Creator who is endowing is with our unalienable rights and us.

If there is a Creator and your rights are endowed by the Creator, then there is a direct bond between you and the Creator. Now this is not a violation of church and state. They're not teaching you to be a Catholic or to be Jewish or Muslim or Baptist. They're teaching you basic principles of morality and basic principles of relating to personal strength as an act of faith in a Creator.

1963 Supreme Court school prayer ban was just wrong

In 1963, the Supreme Court banned organized school prayer. "Why was the 1963 decision wrong? It was wrong as law because it misread the Constitution. I'm not a lawyer, but I am a historian. As an historian, I will just tell you flatly the meaning of the Constitution was simple. It was not to drive religion out of public life. It was to ensure that there would be no organized religion subsidized directly by the state and imposed on others. They're just wrong & they ought to say that."

The Oct. 1994 lecture on school prayer is one of Gingrich's most powerful speeches. I suspect most listeners heard it as a cry of faith, in God, and in a Republic built on the idea of God

Voluntary school prayer really does matter

Our liberal national elite doesn't believe in religion.
--Mother Jones 1984

For a generation, the values which were written into the Declaration of Independence. have been eroding; we have carried money saying "In God We Trust," while politicians and the ACLU have driven God out of our public life and institutions.
--Newt's book, "Window of Opportunity"

1984: All-night Congressional vigil on school prayer vote

Voted YES on giving federal aid only to schools allowing voluntary prayer.

Make employee educational assistance tax-deductible.

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to restore and make permanent the income tax exclusion of amounts paid under employer-provided educational assistance programs for employees.

Supports a Constitutional Amendment for school prayer.

H.J.RES.52 (2001), H.J.RES.66 (1999), S.J.RES. 1, H.J.RES.12, H. J. RES. 108, & H. J. RES. 55:

Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any State to participate in prayer . Neither the United States nor any State shall compose the words of any prayer to be said in public schools.

To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any State shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion.

Proposed Legislation:
• H.J.RES.52, School Prayer Amendment, 6/13/2001 (Murtha)
• H.J.RES.12, School Prayer Amendment, 2/7/2001 (Emerson)
• S.J.RES.1, School Prayer Amendment, 1/22/2001 (Thurmond)
• H.J.RES.108, Voluntary School Prayer Amendment, 9/21/2000 (Graham)
• H.J.RES.55, Voluntary School Prayer Amendment, 2/13/1997 (Stearnes, Hall, Watts)
• H.J.RES.78, Amendment Restoring Religious Freedom, 5/8/1997 (Istook, et. al.)