(Newswire.net — November 3, 2016) — The election for president is nearing a close, and people are trying to figure out who to vote for. The country has never been more confused or divided over candidates who seem to be coming from very opposite directions. This year’s election will be less about staying true to a party and more about choosing who’s stances most closely align with your own. For those who want to make a more informed decision, it’s important to understand policies the primary candidates stand behind. One of the most hotly debated stances is education.
Educational policies cover everything from kindergarten all the way through college. Politics have a surprising influence on the way we approach educating both children and adults. Some parties are pushing for free education. Others are pushing for more standardized testing before attending college, encouraging the need for greater preparation for tests including the SAT.
Opinions vary widely and could have a profound impact on future education. With election week just around the corner, it’s important to know exactly who you’re voting for and how their stances could affect current educational systems.
Here are the top candidates and what they’re advocating in vocational institutions.
Donald Trump
Trump believes that students should pay for college, but hopes there will be a reduction in government profit. When students take out loans, Trump wants to see a reduction in interest rates, which would make the burden lighter on students.
At the K-12 level, Trump wants to see the removal of Common Core, which introduces a new way for students to learn. The goal of Common Core was to keep students on the same level across the nation, but there has been a lot of criticism here. Ultimately, Trump wants to restore education to the local and state level and remove the power from the federal government.
He’ll also be working on reducing spending in the department of education. Removing Common Core would reduce costs exponentially, but there are other ways he’d like to lessen government spending. He’s pointed out that we spend more on education than any other country in the world, but we’re only about 26th in the world as far as quality education goes. He proposes cutting spending in the educational systems to see if that will improve the quality of education for students.
Hillary Clinton
Clinton is much more invested in the issue of education than Donald Trump, who focuses his political reach on other areas. Clinton has plans to launch a nationwide campaign to elevate the teaching profession. She’d like to see teachers get paid more and the profession of teaching become a more celebrated occupation.
Clinton would also like to increase federal regulation in school districts. She supports the use of Common Core and the No Child Left Behind Act. She believes that with better resources, the nation can rebuild its school systems and create a more standardized form of education throughout the nation. She’d like to focus most of her efforts on low-income areas where public schools are deteriorating.
Within the K-12 spectrum, Clinton would like to improve the balance of standardized testing, working to develop fairer tests to advance the progress of students and to help schools perform better. She believes that spending more in the education department to support teachers and offer better resources is the solution to this problem.
Like many of her counterparts, Clinton also supports more affordable and available colleges and universities. Though she hasn’t pushed for entirely free college, she says she plans to help every student graduate debt free when attending public colleges or universities. She wants to create a proviso that will enable people under a certain income to obtain free education.
As you can see, the educational stances of both candidates are completely opposite. Trump wants to see less emphasis and spending on education while Clinton wants to pour more resources into the system to make it more available for everyone.
This is just one of the many issues people should carefully consider before hitting the voting booths next week.