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Issue: Education
Date: April 3, 2004
Author: Ken Larsen
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I want to thank you again for agreeing to participate in our virtual debate.
The first question is listed below.
QUESTION #1:
Education has consistently been viewed as the top issue of this election.
Several candidates have stated they view the current educational
organization as administratively top-heavy. Some cite barriers to entry for
educators as a significant problem, and some seem content to simply throw
money at education in hopes it will perform better. A recent report stated
tax credits and school choice are least among public concerns about
education. In your mind, what are the top challenges to educational success
in Utah, and what specific plans do you have to overcome them?
Tom Gregory
Contributing Editor, UtahPolitics.org
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EDUCATION
First, my disclaimer. As a candidate in the Personal Choice Party, my views
are my own and I accept full responsibility for them. The party makes no
group decisions about specific issues and nobody speaks for the Personal
Choice Party.
Rather than respond to the premise that education belongs to government, and
that my job as Governor will be to manage education effectively and
efficiently, let me, instead, address the premise.
The name of our party is the Personal Choice Party. When it comes to
education, I think that means Parental Choice. I think parents should have
as much choice, authority and responsibility as possible for the education
of their children. The education of our children is far too important to
trust to a one-size-fits-all government program run by government
bureaucrats with virtually no accountability to the parents and no motive to
compete with the school down the street. Our educational system is
hopelessly lagging behind other businesses because the free-enterprize
profit motive is absent. The sooner we transform Utah education into the
hands of private educators, the better off we will all be, especially our
children and their teachers.
Brigham Young, founder of Utah, stated emphatically that he would never
allow a child of his to receive an education from anyone who did not share
his beliefs and values. I believe, if he were alive today, he would do
everything he could to keep his children out of the government schools. The
reason can be seen easily enough with the current public debates over the
Pledge. What business is it of the government to decide whether or not my
child will be encouraged each day to recite the Pledge? What business is it
of the government to decide whether or not one belief system or another
shall be presented? In a system of choice, parents would simply send their
children to a school that preached, or at least tolerated, their beliefs, or
non-beliefs.
The Pledge is just one glaring example. Dozens of other issues concerning
personal beliefs force me to conclude that government cannot provide public
education without violating the Founding principle of separation of church
and state so clearly mandated in our National and State Constitutions. I
realize our State Constitution mandates government education. But Article X
in our State Constitution violates the equal protection clause in the 14th
Amendment. And, since the National Constitution is the supreme law of the
land, the public education provision in our State Constitution should be
repealed.
I will work to make the transition as peaceful and orderly as possible. I
have many ideas regarding education for the poor and how to deal with other
problems. I'm sure others have even better ideas that a private system would
soon discover and implement.
Education is far too important to trust to the government.
Ken Larsen, Candidate for Governor
Personal Choice Party
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