After pushing homeschooling, Santorum takes on higher education

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Former Sen. Rick Santorum may no longer be the frontrunner in the GOP presidential contest, but he is still the just one to take fabricated education a major consequence in his campaign.

A week after he pushed homeschooling equally the preferred option for parents, Sen Rick Santorum took on the higher didactics organization as well, asserting among other things that the reason President Obama has been promoting greater college attendance is considering of his want to indoctrinate them into liberal values.

On ABC's "This Calendar week with George Stephanopoulos" he labelled President Obama a "snob" for pushing college attendance, and colleges equally "indoctrination mills."

I sympathise why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because of their indoctrination mills, absolutely. The indoctrination that is going on at the university level is a impairment to our country."

President Obama responded with the post-obit statement:

 When I speak about higher educational activity, we are not just talking near a four-year caste. We are talking near somebody going to a community higher and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring someone walking through the door handling a million-dollar piece of equipment….And they tin't get in at that place unless they have some basic grooming beyond what they received in high school.

Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post's The Fact Checker, awarded Santorum "4 Pinocchios" for the "significant factual errors and/or obvious contradictions" in Santorum's statements.

Here are some of the flaws in Santorum's higher instruction discourse:

On Stephanopoulos' show, he cited a written report he said showed that "62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it," but indicated it may be out of date. "I doubtable it may fifty-fifty exist worse," he said.

Just the report that he was apparently referring to, a 2007 paper titled "How Corrosive Is College to Religious Faith and Practice?"  showed just the reverse picture.

"Contrary to our own and others' expectations, however, young adults who never enrolled in college are before long the least religious young Americans," the newspaper establish.

Citing longitudinal surveys, the newspaper also asserted that 64 per centum of colleges students attended church building less regularly than when they arrived, compared to 76 per centum of those who never attended college.

Contrary to Santorum'southward assertion, there is no testify that President Obama ever said "he wants everybody in America to go to college.

In fact, in his showtime State of the Union address, he said the following:

 And so this evening, I ask every American to commit to at least 1 year or more of higher teaching or career training. This can exist customs college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. Simply any the training may be, every American will need to get more a high school diploma. And dropping out of high schoolhouse is no longer an choice. It'due south not merely quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country — and this country needs and values the talents of every American.

Compare that to a argument made by Santorum last week:

There's technical schools. There's additional training, vocational training. In that location's skills and apprenticeships. There's all sorts of things that people can exercise to upgrade their skills, to be very productive and great workers hither in America who provide for their families and build their community.

Equally Kessler pointed out — not much difference between the two statements.

A major difference is that while Santorum wants to get the federal authorities and states out of the "education business concern," more than any other president President Obama has made community colleges, the identify where almost Americans go for low-cost technical career training, the centerpiece of his higher educational activity policies.

Ane of his get-go appointments was to select Martha Kanter, and then chancellor of Foothill-De Anza Community College equally his undersecretary of educational activity, the 2d in control in the U.South Department of Education. She is the offset community higher leader to serve in that position, a clear betoken of the importance he placed on this oftentimes neglected sector of the teaching infrastructure in the United States.

Beyond the specifics, Santorum'due south credible belief that Americans should not be encouraged to go to higher flies in the face of research showing that the earning capacity of college educated Americans is far higher than those who don't attend higher.

There'south likewise the well-documented need for more college educated workers to drive the U.South. economy. By 2025 California will demand an boosted 1 million college-educated workers, a 2009 Public Policy Found of California report projected. If Santorum were to go president and he were to promote his anti-college going ideas from the White Firm  — a prospect even less likely after his loss in Michigan this week — it could take California far longer to achieve that i one thousand thousand mark.

To get more than reports like this one, click here to sign up for EdSource's no-cost daily e-mail on latest developments in education.

moriartylaccou.blogspot.com

Source: https://edsource.org/2012/after-pushing-homeschooling-santorum-takes-on-higher-education/6289