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Rick Santorum On Education: 5 Things The Presidential Candidate Wants You To Know

This article is more than 8 years old.

Rick Santorum, the former senator and congressman from Pennsylvania, today became the seventh candidate to join the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Santorum, who won 11 state primaries in the 2012 campaign, has a strong following among the home-schooling community. He and his wife, Karen, have homeschooled their seven children.

He says he favors “common sense” over “Common Core” state curriculum standards. Here are some of his other views on education:

Common Core:

Stronger families and more jobs will result in better schools. But our children, they deserve an education customized, customized to maximize their potential. The first step in that process is joining me to drive a stake in the heart of Common Core.

Campaign launch speech, Cabot, Pennsylvania, May 27, 2015

“It Takes a Family”:

The key to turning all this around is to help the family. I wrote a book in response to another book written by a senator from New York called “It Takes a Village.” I wrote a book called “It Takes a Family.” I think if we’re really going to solve and crack this nut of the education problem in America we’ve got to do some things to help repair and bring parents back into the scene. The idea that at a certain age you sort of drop your kids off and you’re done with this, it’s now somebody else’s job, is the cancer that is killing the education system in this country in my opinion.

College Board Forum, New York, December 2011

College vs. Work:

President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college.  What a snob. There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren't taught by some liberal college professor that tried to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.

Americans for Prosperity presidential forum, Michigan, February 2012

Early childhood intervention:

How about early parent intervention with their children? Instead of focusing on the child and getting them out of the home and into an educational setting,  how about focusing on the parents and trying to get the parents more interested and involved. Parents are the first teacher.

 College Board Forum, New York, December 2011

 Personal education background:

Santorum, 57, grew up in West Virginia and Butler, Pennsylvania, where he attended Catholic and public schools. He graduated from Penn State University, got an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh and earned his law degree at Dickinson School of Law (now part of Penn State). His father, who emigrated from Italy as a child, worked for the Veterans Administration counseling veterans and his mother was a nurse. His wife, Karen, was a nurse before getting her law degree at the University of Pittsburgh.

Santorum is the author of four books, including “Bella’s Gift,” which he wrote with his wife and daughter Elizabeth, a graduate of the University of Dallas. It’s about his youngest child, Isabella, who was born with the rare genetic disorder Trisomy 18. He also has two sons who attend the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, and three children in high school.

Santorum came under fire when his children were enrolled in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School though they lived in the state only part time. Following his election to the Senate in 2000, the family moved to Virginia and critics charged that his home district of Penn Hills, where they still owned a home, shouldn’t have been liable for covering the cost of tuition. In 2006 the Pennsylvania Department of Education stepped in and paid $55,000 to Penn Hills to settle the dispute.

Other candidates' views on education are hereJeb BushBen CarsonLincoln ChafeeChris ChristieHillary ClintonTed CruzCarly FiorinaLindsey GrahamMike HuckabeeBobby Jindal, Martin O'MalleyGeorge PatakiRand PaulRick PerryMarco RubioBernie SandersDonald TrumpScott WalkerJim Webb