Ron Paul: Americans Are 'Sick And Tired Of Our Educational System' (VIDEO)

The Republican presidential candidates have been vocal in their stance to reduce the size of the federal government. Michele Bachmann has repeatedly noted her call for abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, as has Rick Perry, who last week laid out his "uproot and overhaul" plan that would also ax the department.

Though some experts say that a plan like Perry's isn't quite feasible, someone else is stepping into the light with a similar message to slash the federal role in public education. "Once a fringe candidate," as introduced Sunday by Face The Nation's Bob Schieffer, Ron Paul talked American education.

Schieffer asks Paul what the country would do if the candidate's goal to cut several federal agencies actually became a reality, and how the government would handle the issues that those agencies control and oversee. "We just let them go by the bye or what?" Schieffer asks.

"No way and the program deals with this," Paul told Shieffer. "The money isn't there. These are departments that are doing too much. The American people are sick and tired of our educational system."

Watch the rest of Paul's response above.

Quick Poll

Are you "sick and tired of our educational system"?

Yes! Cut the Department of Education.

Yes, but there are other ways to fix it without axing the federal agency.

No, it's working fine.

I'm indifferent.

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Comments

[wakeupyouall]

12:15 PM on 11/29/2011

many public schools are working just fine even when not funded. people move to our district from all over the world because of the schools. Good schools well funded keep the property values up. We know what works we just need to impliment it. Failure of some urban schools have other issues that out outside of the responsibility of the schools. they shouldn't be blames for curcumstance that are beyond their control. No child and testing takes way time form good teachers. My kid went to a alternative school no homework and no grades and tested in advance levels. There are more ways to skin a cat so to speak.

[ttsgw]

04:23 PM on 11/25/2011

What more do they need than reading the bible, the answer to all qustions.

[wakeupyouall]

12:16 PM on 11/29/2011

That explains the right wing in this country and why we nedd public education for a sucessful democracy.

[keyboardslappa]

05:13 PM on 11/29/2011

Ugh. When does eliminating a federal Department of Education equate to eliminating public education? My public education involved coursework covering creative writing. I'm sad that the lack of funding didn't allow me to take the Creative Reading class you were fortunate to take.

[loveis22984]

02:30 AM on 12/05/2011

How about learning how to read so they are able to read the bible.

[sglahn817]

09:36 AM on 11/25/2011

Repubs don't see the need for public education. Kids of those with means can go to private schools or have tutors, just like with the monarchies of the past. Cheap labor, cannon fodder and restrictive voter rights- republican nirvana.

[JuniperSunshine]

01:40 AM on 11/25/2011

You can have government *funding* of education without delegating *control* of education to the government. That right there would fix a host of problems with our educational system.

[mistercoyote]

07:25 PM on 11/25/2011

The right wants to privatized public education. Wake up. You really want your kids being taught by the lowest bidder??

[Joseph Larrew]

01:27 PM on 11/28/2011

Maybe the right wants "privatized public education," which is a strange concept, but explained later by the statement "taught by the lowest bidder." However, anyone who doesn't want the government in schools at all (although they may not be opposed to the federal gov't giving money to the schools) is simply advocating for private schools, not contracted schools like your "lowest bidder" comment sounds like. Getting the government out of private schools and education in general will greatly decrease the cost of private schooling and we all know most private schools are better than the best public schools.

[loveis22984]

02:36 AM on 12/05/2011

Really? If they eliminate the DOE the red states will most likely be the ones to suffer because they will change what it means to be proficient in something, lowering the standards so far that graduates from their states will not college ready. Sooo, I guess a high school diploma from Mississippi will be worth exactly the cost of the paper it will be printed on.

[Vgman]

08:30 PM on 11/23/2011

Here is how you make the educational system more successful. Allow public schools to send the "problem" children to the highly touted charter schools since they do such a good job.

[wakeupyouall]

12:22 PM on 11/29/2011

Or even private schools ans see how they would do. Part of the reason Private schools have good out comes is they pick and chose their clientele.

[rmundo]

06:49 PM on 11/23/2011

I guess Ron Paul and his family never went to public schools, so he is not being unfair to those unfortunate saps that are not rich enough to send their kids to private schools.

[Chembug602]

09:59 PM on 11/22/2011

I don't think what the Feds contribute to each state's educational system is very much financially compared to local and state contributions. States are hamstrung because if they refuse the little money they are given by the Fed then they risk the public accusing them of shortchanging them on their children's education. We could probably live with out their "help" and embrace local control.

[mech126]

12:54 AM on 11/23/2011

Maybe, just maybe if the feds put more money in, the school system would actually work like they did in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and for the last 30 years they have been cutting funding for schools......

[JuniperSunshine]

01:37 AM on 11/25/2011

Bzzz! Wrong! In the past 30 years, funding has skyrocketed.

[GandenT]

04:28 PM on 11/22/2011

Ron Paul cannot distinguish between corruption and the thing being corrupted; he is either mentally incompetent or he is a disingenuous ideologue, I don't care which since either way he is just wasting people's time.

[Steve Lives]

03:25 PM on 11/22/2011

Ron Paul is advocating feudalism. He can call it Libertarianism, but what it really is, is feudalism. So if you want to go backwards a few centuries, vote for Ron Paul.

[GandenT]

04:21 PM on 11/22/2011

Or move to a libertarian utopia like Somolia or the Congo...

[Marx Twain]

03:03 PM on 11/22/2011

I'm a teacher, and would be delighted if the DOE was eliminated. The Federal government provides schools with less thann 10% of their funding, yet gets to call the shots for testing, teacher evaluations, special education, and a whole assortment of issues. It is not a fair partnership, it is a small time bully forcing everyone else to run things their way because the schools are so desperate for every last penny that they can't refuse them.

Besides, then Arne Duncan would have to get a real job.

[Paul Barnard]

04:16 PM on 11/22/2011

I'd much rather have the DOE become the DOE in name as opposed to the Student Loan Clearing House and Test Center it currently is.

[Mish Ash]

01:58 PM on 11/22/2011

Why does the education suck? I've read at least 3 articles today talking about teachers fixing students grades. I read at least 2 yesterday about teachers bullying students. That is why the education sucks. Teachers don't really care about their students and students don't really care about their education. They see Snookie and the teen moms on TV and think that's all they need to do to succeed. No one cares about the sciences, no one cares about the fine arts, no one cares about the things that actually matter. That is why our education sucks.

[gallo48]

09:02 AM on 11/25/2011

Read enough and you'll find corruption, lying and cheating with any profession. Education comes to the forefront b/c it's a public entity. Do you really think that any private company that becomes public is going to be clean?

[missouriwatcher]

11:46 AM on 11/22/2011

One needs to keep in mind that Dr. Paul worships Ayn Rand. 'Nuff said.

[Martinquigs]

11:17 AM on 11/22/2011

Ron Paul just spits out ideological garbage with no empirical evidence that it would work. He uses simple arguments in order to persuade simple people to join his cult. I used to be on the Paul bandwagon until I looked into his policies. They do not address the fundamental issues facing this country, namely the high level of inequality and the unfair distribution of resources in this nation. Paul says that he defends the constitution, but his resolve comes at the expense of the American dream. If we've seen anything in the past 40 years it's that deregulation and empowering private institutions does not benefit the american people. These institutions have no interests but their own.

[forkey000]

06:28 PM on 11/25/2011

bwaaahahaaha! if there's anything that we've seen in the last 40 yrs.(er, i guess not including you), it's that corporations have fought for big government and funded it at the same time to further their own ends. if the government were as limited as paul would like to see, the biggest polluters would not be permitted and therefore protected by the EPA. the government would not subsidize corporate agriculture, allowing them to sell their food for cheaper than it costs to produce it. big banks would be allowed to fail if they mis-managed their money, forcing them to play fair. we would not be militarizing the world with money we don't have and enriching the weapons industry on future generations' debt, because if our money was represented by something tangible and was not able to be created out of thin air, we would be forced only to take on projects that we could actually afford. but you know all this, you're just a troll i'm sure- i just hope maybe someone on the fence may see this post and actually look into it, maybe they'll change their mind...

ron paul's tremendous support this election shows that unlike yourself, americans are becoming aware of the real reasons for the problems we are having. the whole "i'm morally and intellectually superior because i'm a democrat" line is dead. obama is no different from bush, is no different from clinton, from reagan, from carter, from nixon, etc. sorry statists.

[wakeupyouall]

12:38 PM on 11/29/2011

Ron Paul lives a a bubble of ideology that isn't at all connected to any kind of reality. Our democracy isn't working because americans are not doing their jobs as good citizens. They need to vet their candidatesand study economic policies and history. Taking away power from the government is really taking power away from the people. The void will be filled by the corporations and the 1%. The people will be steamed rolled. Only the people can take their government back. They have been lazy and they will have to work to get it back.

[Ronald B. Robinson]

03:27 AM on 11/22/2011

And Fox News viewers are just sick of education -- period.

[eva07]

08:31 AM on 11/22/2011

LOL..

[ltcaffey]

10:24 AM on 11/22/2011

Loved the first president comment. Too bad it only stayed up about 3 min

[Ronald B. Robinson]

02:45 PM on 11/22/2011

ThaNks! Some hater flagged but it got restored. By that time it was buried and nobody else saw it. I've tried a bunch of different ways of saying it but none of them have been posted. I can't understand how software would see it as spam. Coould you please send them a complaint about the original deletion which was obviously malicious. You can copy the permalink and paste it with your comment on the link that says "corrections" and then the menu for community/moderation. We need to stop these haters in their tracks. Thx!

[BartStratton]

02:00 AM on 11/22/2011

I'm sick and tired of People constantly attacking the educational system. Why blame the educational system for 1) the economy and 2) usurious system of finance we impose on students? Teachers have no control over either. I'm sick of these kinds of hysterical, angry strawman arguments being levelled at our schools. Only someone blinded emotion would give any credence to Ron Paul's ignorant tantrum. Paul vomited up a stinking heap of verbal feces and it's shame some poor bottom feeding Libertarian will gobble it up.

[Calvin Lee]

02:35 AM on 11/22/2011

its a host of problems, you can't attack them all in one article, silly.

[Manuel Zepeda]

07:52 AM on 11/22/2011

if you were in school you would notice that the education system doesnt work because a)there arent many teachers that teach to teach, most are their to give students a huge packet and expect them to learn while they play hearts on the computer. then when the student is done, the student doesnt learn anything,he receives an F, the teacher gets payed, the teacher later dies of old age, the student doesnt make it into college unless his parents have the money for the college(which they usually dont), the student doesnt gain a professional career, the student works at mcdonalds or maybe even burger kind. the student therefore did not benefit from our education student, as many of his fellow peers also didnt benefit. so yeah, the economy isnt guna get better with this education system because incase you havent looked at the statistics, the federal government uses more money on prisoners who dropped out of school then on students who are in the school. so if the students were given the chance to their rightfully deserved education, then they wouldnt even be in prison and the feds wouldnt have to waste money on the prisoner which wouldnt even exist. dont you see, the education system isnt working...

[Martinquigs]

11:01 AM on 11/22/2011

Anecdote, anecdote, anecdote.

[missouriwatcher]

11:52 AM on 11/22/2011

Perhaps this is your personal experience, Manuel, but it isn't mine. I attended nothing but public schools before college, and got a quality education. Perhaps it is more a problem of tying the teachers' hands when it comes to discipline and control of their classrooms. Get rid of the trouble makers, and you will see that the system can and does work just fine. No teacher gets into the field because of the money, they do so because they have a sincere desire to teach and serve the interests of young people--at least until their dream is squashed by run-amok kids spoiled by their parents, lawyers looking for a quick buck and politicians eager to see the system fine-tuned to benefit only the wealthy.