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Sunday, September 24, 2000
By Rachel Smolkin, Post-Gazette National Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Neither Pat Buchanan, running for president as a Reform Party candidate, nor Ralph Nader, the Green Party's candidate, has made education the major issue that Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore have. But they both have staked out positions.
Education
Buchanan favors abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, promoting vouchers for private and religious schools, and passing a constitutional amendment that permits prayer in public schools.
Nader calls for repairing schools, improving teacher quality and salaries, ensuring school safety, and providing more funding to inner-city schools, although he hasn't offered detailed plans.
Buchanan decries "Washington bureaucrats" and wants to give parents more control over education. He pledges to end "leftist schemes," such as the school-to-work programs and the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which supports states and communities in raising academic standards.
Former President George Bush, father of the GOP candidate, initially pushed for the legislation, which was later signed into law by President Clinton.
Buchanan also pledges more support for parents who home-school their children, supports tax-free education savings accounts, opposes national testing and standards, and would end what he describes as "politically correct" programs.
He vows to reject "multicultural curricula that denigrate our history and teach our children to identify themselves as hyphenated Americans rather than as citizens of one nation under God."
Nader's education agenda endorses a civics curriculum. He believes that children should learn about history, reading, writing and math in terms of the world around them, "starting with their own community's history and their own community's problems and challenges."
