Last week, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) cosponsored a bill that would eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. One candidate who is seeking to replace Books in Congress said he would continue that fight if elected.
Tuesday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” AL-5 congressional candidate Paul Sanford discussed why he wants to put an end to the U.S. Department of Education.
“If it’s not mentioned that it’s the role of the federal government in the Constitution, it’s supposed to be left to the states,” he said.
Sanford said getting rid of it would go a long way in cutting the size of the federal government.
“I think if you do that,” he explained, “you could save a tremendous amount of money at the federal level from the administrative side.”
The candidate believes there’s a better way for the federal government to help fund education in this country.
“Rather than the federal government sending the state dollars for education with multiple strings attached,” he continued, “whether it’s under the disguise of No Child Left Behind, Common Core, CRT, or whatever new methodology or theory they dream up to socially augment our children, they usually tie the dollars to that, and if we get rid of the Department of Education then we could just block-grant all that money back to the states and then we could use that the way we see fit in each one of our communities.”
Sanford responded to critics who think eliminating that department would hurt educational standards in Alabama and across the country.
“It’s not going to hurt state level education,” he argued, “because frankly the federal Department of Education offers very little guidance other than trying to manipulate where you spend the money and how you spend the money. It’s not based on curriculum, it’s not based on standards, it’s usually based on some sort of social and emotional program they got going on in the school system.”
He also reiterated that he’s a believer in school choice.
“I don’t think you need a movement at the federal level for to offer school choice,” he said, “what you need is the federal government to get out of the way of school choice at the state level, and part of that is releasing those dollars back to the state and taking the strings away that they always tie to them.”
The former state senator said it’s time to stop the federal government from pushing its radical agenda in our public schools.
“It’s less about educating and more about indoctrinating our children and students in the system and that’s what he need to get away from,” he said. “We want free thinkers, we want people that understand what freedom of choice is, and we need to make sure that that’s ingrained into the school systems and that needs to happen at a local level not a national level.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
