Education

Education is a vital national interest; it would be my #1 issue as a candidate. I’m a graduate of the Kentucky public school system and the University of Kentucky. In addition, I have six years of experience in higher education beyond the bachelor’s degree level, including four years of PhD level work in Political Science. My goal is to make Eastern Kentucky a model of education success; simply meeting national averages in standardized test scores or graduation rates isn’t good enough. You don’t become an NCAA champion by aiming to win as many games as your neighbors; you win by making it your goal to be a champion. In the same way, my goal for Eastern Kentucky education is to make us #1; #1 in Kentucky and #1 in America. I support making college tuition tax deductible and increasing federal funding to secondary schools by way of freezing property taxes used to fund education and matching them with federal dollars. This will provide needed funding to schools and give parents a significant tax break. I’d favor a test program of paying a salary to high school students who perform well enough in the classroom. One problem we have is young people from poor families leaving school as soon as they can to make ends meet at home; we can solve two problems at once by keeping students in school and adding income to those families.

Supporting education is simple economics. High school graduates earn more over a lifetime than non-graduates, and college graduates earn even more than high school graduates. There is no reason why our high school graduation rate should be anything less than 100%. There is no reason why we shouldn’t use every resource we have to help those graduates go to college. The future of Kentucky and our country depends on how well the next generation is prepared to handle the challenges they’ll face.