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Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee believes in dismissing incompetent teachers and imposing "reasonable" waiting periods for teachers to obtain tenure while improving incentives for great teachers to take jobs in poorly performing schools, including student loan forgiveness and bonuses.
He seeks broader school choice and supports home schooling and creating more charter schools.
Huckabee has said that standards for the No Child Left Behind Act should be left to the states.
He also supports the following ideas:
- Huckabee supports offering art and music education to students up through high school.
- Offer students personalized learning:
- Each student works with teachers, parents and the community to develop a customized curriculum.
- The student then takes core classes, but also turns hobbies or passions into credits toward graduation. "A student who takes karate gets gym credit. A student who plays in a rock band gets music credit. A student intern at a newspaper gets English credit," Huckabee's official Web site explains.
No record of votes on education is available. |
"In addition, I want to provide our children what I call the 'weapons of mass instruction' -- art and music -- the secret, effective weapons that will help us to be competitive and creative. It is crucial that children flex both the left and right sides of the brain. We all know the cliché of thinking outside the box: I want our children to be so creative that they think outside the cardboard factory. Art and music are as important as math and science because the dreamers and visionaries among us take the rough straw of an idea and spin it into the gold of new businesses and jobs. It is as important to identify and encourage children with artistic talent as it is those with athletic ability. Our future economy depends on a creative generation." 
