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Herman Cain on Education

Republican Businessman & Talk-Show Host


Get the federal government out of educating our kids

Q: What as president would you seriously do about a massive overreach of big government into the classroom?

CAIN: All of the programs at the federal level where there's strings attached, cut all the strings. We have got to encourage parents to take advantage of choices, but provide those choices and we must find ways to empower the students. This is how we are going to improve education, but primarily get the federal government out of trying to educate our kids at the local level.

Source: 2011 GOP Google debate in Orlando FL , Sep 22, 2011

No Child Left Behind has unfunded mandates

Q: [to Huntsman]: This week, the Obama administration announced that they would grant waivers to some failing public school systems that couldn't meet the standard of the No Child Left Behind program. If you were president, would you return to full enforcement of this Bush-era law?

HUNTSMAN: No Child Left Behind hasn't worked for this country. It ought to be done away with. We need to take education to the local level, where parents and local elected officials can determine the destiny of these schools. Nobody wants their schools to succeed more than local elected officials and their parents. We need choice. We need vouchers. We need more technology in the classroom.

Q: [to Cain]: Would you return to the full enforcement of NCLB?

CAIN: No. I believe in education starting at the local. No Child Left Behind had some faults. I don't believe in unfunded mandates. I believe that the federal government should be out of the business of trying to micromanage the education of our children.

Source: Iowa Straw Poll 2011 GOP debate in Ames Iowa , Aug 11, 2011

Expand school vouchers and charter schools

A critical component of improving education in our country is to decentralize the federal government's control over it. Children are best served when the teachers, parents and principals are making the day-to-day decisions, coupled with the leadership of local municipalities, school boards and states.

We can put kids first by offering school choice as a real option for educational competition. This means expanding school vouchers and charter schools. Such measures have proven time and time again to best serve the students, many of whom do not have the economic means of attending better schools.

Unbundling education means putting kids first. It means rewarding those teachers who enrich the lives of their students, and it means holding those accountable who do not. It means putting students before union interests, and it means keeping their development paramount. Unbundling education means offering parents choices for their children to create a truly competitive educational system.

Source: Campaign website, www.hermancain.com/ "Issues" , May 21, 2011

Vouchers in DC public schools made a better future for kids

D.C. Mayor Williams in 2003 helped initiate a system to provide more than 1,000 vouchers per year to poor children in the failing public school system. The voucher system, called the "Opportunity Scholarship Program," allows students from financially troubled homes to attend private schools. Williams received the expected outrage and criticism from the teachers' unions, but he knows that education and doing all he can to provide a better future for D.C.'s children is more important than politics.
Source: They Think You're Stupid, by Herman Cain, p. 41 , Jun 14, 2005

High school salutatorian; scholarship to Morehouse College

I was accepted by several historically black colleges, and was even offered scholarships to most of them, because of my rank as salutatorian (2nd highest grades). I certainly was not offered the scholarships based on my standardized test scores, because they were consistently mediocre, as were the scores of most of my classmates. I had decided to attend Morehouse College because it was affordable, and I could commute by bus from home. Morehouse also awarded me a first-year tuition scholarship.
Source: CEO of SELF, by Herman Cain, p. 9-10 , Aug 1, 2001

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Page last updated: Feb 23, 2012