Fiorina pushes school choice in Iowa

by Bradford Richardson - 12/19/15 11:15 AM ET

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina on Friday made an impassioned case for an education system where decisions are made on the local level or by parents themselves.

The former business executive has said that if elected, she would take money out of the federal Department of Education and put it in the hands of more localized decision makers.

{mosads}“There are several ways we could do that, including block grants,” she said at a rally in Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register.

“But first we have to go back to zero-based budgeting, so we can examine every dollar in the federal government, cut any dollar and move any dollar, including moving money from the Education Department to the states.”

Fiorina pointed to a savings accounts program in Nevada, which gives parents funding to send their children to nonpublic schools, as an example of subsidiarity in education.

“Our states are our labs of democracy, and the experiment that Nevada is running is an interesting one because when parents have choices, students succeed,” she said. “We need to put the power into parents’ hands, into communities’ hands and give them the choice as to what to do with their education.

“But I won’t dictate from the federal government that program or any other,” she added. “Direction has to come from the communities.”

The Republican presidential hopeful stopped short of calling for the abolition of the Department of Education, a move favored by fellow GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

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