(Des Moines, IA) Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer on Tuesday said parents who “home-school” their kids should get tax credits as well as “voucher” payments others may receive for sending their kids to another public or private school.
The “voucher” — labeled “school choice” by some — would give parents a payment to cover the costs of educating their child in a school outside the district in which they live.
Bauer staged a news conference Tuesday to discuss the issue and his staff invited several dozen “homeschoolers” to the event.
“I often hear a lot of folks in Washington saying that the secret to education is a small classroom. Well, you all have the ultimate small classroom. You’re able to give your children one-on-one attention,” Bauer told the group.
Bauer, an undersecretary of education during the Reagan Administration, proposed school vouchers with “no strings attached” but later outlined some limitations.
“My voucher proposal could be spent by a homeschooling parent for either curriculum materials, tutoring help in an area where the parent might not feel up to the level they need to be in order to education their child,” he said. “This is a legitimate choice. More and more parents are picking it and I want to make sure the playing field is level.”