Independence Party of New York
Platform - Education

Strengthen the Family Structure: Education
The Current Condition:
The Solutions of the Independence Party:

Strengthen the Family Structure: Education

The Current Condition:

 The American educational system is the single most important force for upward mobility and economic prosperity 1n the United States. The improvement of the current system of education is a central objective of the Independence Party. Toward that overall mission, the Party has several specific objectives.

The Solutions of the Independence Party:

To Improve Productivity in Education in the United States and New York State:
  1. Support Capital lntensive Technologies: Create and fund research and development efforts aimed at bringing capital intensive technologies into classroom teaching, including computers, interactive video, educational softare, multi-media, etc.
  2. National Science Act for Americans: Create and fund a national science and technology act that will create educational funds for American citizens who study in the science, engineering, and mathematics fields.
  3. National Prize Program: Create a national prize program for the development of computer-based educational tools and materials for the schools.
  4. Schools as Community Centers: Provide funding to keep schools open on evenings, during weekends, and in the summers as community centers for our youth.
  5. Extension of Education: Extend the school year and the school day.

Increase the Choices Available to Parents and Their Children for Their Education:
  1. Enhanced Choice: Provide funding for children who wish to seek education outside of the district in which they reside.
  2. Enhance Competition: Allow parents to use public funding to send their children to qualified private schools.
  3. Early Education: Increase state and federal support for early education, particularly for children who come from impoverished backgrounds.

Make the Restoration of Order, Discipline, and Safety in the Classroom a High Priority, Even at the Expense of Isolating Students Who are Disruptive in the School:
  1. lncreased Authority: Grant principals and schools districts greater ability to expel unruly students.
  2. Weapon Suspension: Immediately suspend students who bring guns or knives to school.
  3. Special Educators: Recruit and train special teachers who are experts at controlling violence, and pay them a premium for their presence in the schools.

Increase Accountability to Parents and Citizens for the Performance of the Schools:
  1. Ease Dismissal Procedures: Streamline and ease state procedures for firing incompetent teachers.
  2. Performance Measures: Require in-class performance measures for all teachers, even after achieving tenure.
  3. Salary and Improvements: Link salary increases to measurable improvements in school performance.
  4. Bureaucratic Reduction: Reduce central bureaucratic control, including state control, over individual districts and individual schools; thereby reducing the ability of large scale state and local interests to dictate school policies.
The educatonal system in New York State is filled with fine people who want nothing more than to make the system work more efficiently and more effectively for our children. These people are hampered by a model of education where large scale bureaucratic control is exerted downward from the state, creating rigidity and inflexibility throughout the system. We believe that the children in the state would be much better off if parents had more influence and bureaucrats less influence in determining the education that our children receive. Continuous improvement should be the guiding light of educaton, but improvements determined by the needs of families, children and parents, and not the needs of the other interests in educaton. Education primarily exists to serve the needs and interests of the consumers, and not the needs and interests of the providers. The current organization of education in the state reverses this priority.
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