I have been watching with interest the Presidential race. Biden has other things to worry about and Senator Sanders has decided that he is not going to be critical of Mrs. Clinton. Or maybe he is starting today. We will see.
Mr. Trump seems to be leading, after a fashion, the pack of Republicans. And that is a complete description of that party’s current state. Dr. Carson is popular but seems remote.
As for my own presidential campaign, some things I think are needed to fix the schools.
1. Leave colleges alone. There are plenty of sources of information in the market for people to make the choice of which college to attend, whether it provides good value, etc. We need to decrease the taxpayer participation in paying for college and encourage private funding through true scholarships. Work hard and show you can do the work, get tuition reduction, books, etc.
2. Improve language instruction. All high school graduates should be able to read, write, and converse in (at least) two languages. Any two.
3. All young people in the middle school time frame should get some training in basic hand tools, wood and metal working, electrical fundamentals, auto fundamentals, clothing construction, fabric selection, sewing, and especially cooking a healthy meal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner using a microwave, conventional oven, and stovetop.
4. Young people should get instruction in household operations including budgeting, maintenance, bill paying, and retirement planning.
5. The items in 4 should become part of the curriculum for the mathematics and language training. The items in 3 should be reinforced through the study of science, history and social studies coursework.
That would be the focus of my common core.
