Romney’s Education Agenda

Governor Mitt Romney, who will most likely be the Republican Party nominee, talked about his education agenda at the Latino Coalition’s Economic Summit. His ideas include using funds from Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to give parents the opportunity to use these funds (approximately $30 billion) for use in charter schools, online course, tutoring, and private education. He plans to expand the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and lessen Federal micromanagement of schools. The nominee believes that state and local municipalities know better what their schools need than does the Federal government and that what helps students move forward are good teachers, not smaller classes.  According to Romney, we need to “hire the best and brightest to be teachers, pay them properly, make sure you have school choice, test your kids to see if they are meeting the standards that need to be met, and make sure that the parents are in charge. As President, I will stand up to the National Teachers’ Unions...”

How to Make School Relevant

Students at Ariel Community Academy, a K-8 School, on the South Side of Chicago, focus on financial literacy beginning in Grade 1. They are learning to think critically as they study personal finance in Grade 1, economics and personal finance in Grade 2, and monetary policy and what makes money work in Grade 3. Starting in Grade 4, teachers decide what will make the curriculum most relevant for their students as their cross-curricular studies focus on financial literacy.  Ariel Community Academy is a Title I school where the staff believes the financial literacy curriculum will assist Ariel’s students in breaking through the cycle of poverty. The program helps students learn critical life skills such as decision-making and planning. As a result, it has propelled Ariel’s test scores and the graduation rates and college matriculation rates of its former students above other students in both Chicago and Illinois.