Closer Look: Sam Brownback

Introduction: Today we take a closer look at the education policies offered by Sam Brownback, Republican Candidate for President and a current U.S. Senator from Kansas.

On his website 15 Issues are listed:

• Agriculture, Culture and Values, Education, Energy, Gun Rights, Human Rights, Iraq, Israel, Life, Marriage, New Homestead Act, Reforming the UN, Religious Liberty, Social Security, Taxes

Education Policies: Only one deals with eduction and on the page displaying the text of each issue, the text about education comes dead last. Brownback spends only the following 133 words on Education:

When we ignore poorly performing schools, we also ignore every student in those schools, thereby allowing an achievement gap to persist. It is imperative that we close the achievement gap and provide our nation’s students with a productive learning environment that challenges and encourages intellectual stimulation. I believe that providing for choice in education is beneficial to student achievement. For years now, we have seen studies that prove school choice programs, such as the new Opportunity Scholarships recently implemented in the District of Columbia, have a drastic and positive impact on students—especially minority students. By supporting such initiatives, we will be ensuring that more students have access to a high quality education, which means that they will have a better chance of success in not only reaching college, but flourishing in
life.

Buzzwords: "achievement gap," "school choice"

Analysis: Great focus on our nations failing schools (the so called "achievement gap"), admitting the problem is step one. Suggests research shows school choice has "drastic and and positive effects" -- this kind of research based positioning is great, but some references to the studies should be included. By being vague the argument for choice is far weaker -- wording like "studies show" or "statistics say" may be the meat and potatoes of stump speeches, but in an online age we should be able to easily fact check for ourself by following a link. Next, Brownback uses DC's Opportunity Scholarships program (a federally funded voucher program for the poor that allows students to attend faith-based institutions) as an example of what could work for the nation. Again, links to the success of this program would strengthen the argument rather than counting on undecided voters to simply believe your campaign literature on faith alone. Finally, Brownback focuses on how closing the achievement gap will help all students get to college and "florish in life." The minor details of affording college and the quality of colleges is left out all together and the idea of improving schools other than through a competitive market place are no where to be found.

Conclusion: Brownback uses a simple and effective problem/solution model -- he first describes a problem (the achievement gap) and suggestions a solution (school choice/vouchers). He hints at proof of his solutions effectiveness, but falls short at explaining how his solution would be implemented. Overall, he focuses on solutions rather than fancy rhetoric, but the extremly small space dedicated to addressing the issue is not atequate for an issue of this size/importance and he does not leave room to address other issues within the educational realm. I look forward to hearing more specifics from this candidate, hopefully in the same problem/solution format with a few personal stories and links to research thrown in.