League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 4, 2008 Election
	John H. Webster Answers Questions Candidate for State Senator; District 13

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of California and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

2. What should the state's priorities be for K-12 education? For the Community College System?

It is an absolute conflict of interests for the Government, either State or Federal, to be directly involved in running the schools and in deciding what is taught to our children.

For example, the teaching of ethics which one would think would be an important topic that all children need to learn, is not taught, apparently because it would teach the children to recognize that the Government itself and even our system of Democracy is unethical and immoral.

So in its place, the child is taught that "obeying the Laws" is somehow the ethical way to live.

It is imperative that the Government must get out of running or even paying for schooling (which it does with taxes of course).

As far as how to get there from here the best solution is to start charging tuition for Public Schools and reduce over time the amount of money that the schools are subsidized with tax money. This will allow private and parochial schools to compete on an even footing with public schools. In such a market place, the Public schools just can't compete with either the cost or the provided curriculum.

As far as availability of money to pay the students tuition, the laws need to be changed so that even at the age for a freshman in high school that the student needs to be able to sign for the student loan, and have him/her be accountable for paying back the loan NOT the parents. This way the availability of money for student loans would be related to the ability of the student to perform and to later get a job, not just related to the credit rating of the parents.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League. 

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 11, 2008 09:31
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