Tom Tancredo on Education

Tancradeo is a former public school teacher and the Secretary of Education’s Regional Representative for the West. He opposes federal government intervention in education and thus opposed NCLB. Tancredo favors vouchers and tax credits for home schooling. He wants to increase local control and routing of federal education dollars to classrooms and away from bureaucrats.

Tancredo supports fully funding the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). He believes that schools should have greater flexibility in spending education dollars as they see fit. He want to give parents the option of placing their children in bilingual education programs.

Bilingual education

Tancredo wants to implement programs that have standard criteria in place for the entrance and exit from bilingual education programs based on whether a student has the English skills necessary for success in the mainstream classrooms. He also wants to include instructional components to ensure that students can learn English using the most efficient and effective approaches as possible. Tancredo believes that we must limit the amount of time that students are enrolled in bilingual programs to three years.