Dec. 12 Republican debate transcript

Washburn: Congressman Paul, what's the biggest obstacle standing in the way of improving education?

Keyes: Do I have to raise my hand to get a question? I'd like to address that question.

Washburn: I'm getting to you...

Keyes: No, you're not. You haven't since several go rounds, so I have to make an issue out it.

I would like to address the question of education.

Washburn: Go ahead.

Keyes: I don't wish it to pass off...

Washburn: Go ahead. Please note that you have 30 seconds.

Keyes: They had a minute. Why do I get 30 seconds?

(Laughter)

See, your unfairness is now becoming so apparent that the voters in Iowa must understand there's a reason for it.

And the reason for it is what I'm about to say. Governor Huckabee just addressed the question of education. He has stood before values voters and moral conservatives, claiming that he is their spokesman.

You know the major problem in American education today? We allow the judges to drive God out of our schools. We allowed the moral foundation of this republic, which is that we are created equal and endowed by our creator -- not by our Constitution or our leaders -- with our rights.

If we don't teach our children that heritage and the moral culture that goes along with it, we cannot remain free. They will not be disciplined to learn science, to learn math, to learn history, to learn anything.

And they don't want to talk about this, except when they're squabbling about their own personal faith and forgetting that we have a national creed. And that national creed needs to be taught to our children so that whether they are scientists or businessmen or lawyers they will stand on the solid ground of a moral education that gives them the discipline they need to serve the right, to exercise their freedom with dignity, and to defend justice because they understand it is our heritage.

Washburn: Congressman Paul, what's the biggest obstacle standing in the way of improving education in the United States? And how would you address it?

Paul: In probably the federal government. We've been involved at the federal level for over 50 years. We've had a Department of Education -- it used to be the policy of the Republican Party to get rid of the Department of Education. We finally get in charge and a chance to do something so we double the size of the Department of Education.

And we have No Child Left Behind. The teachers don't like it. The students don't like it. And the quality of education hasn't gone up. The cost of education has gone up.

So we need to look to our local resources. We need to release the creative energy of the teachers at the local level.

But what we can do immediately is to give tax credits -- I have a bill that we give tax credits to the teachers to raise their salaries. At the same time, we should encourage home schooling and private schooling and let the individuals write that off. The parents have to get control of the education.

It used to be parents had control of education thorough local school boards. Today it's the judicial system and the executive branch of government, the bureaucracy, that controls things.

And it would be predictable that the quality would go down.

The money goes to the bureaucrats and not to this educational system at home.

Washburn: Thank you.

Senator Thompson, how would you answer that?

Thompson: The question was, what's the biggest impediment to education?

Washburn: What is the biggest obstacle standing in the way and how would you address it?

Thompson: The biggest obstacle, in my opinion, is the National Educational Association, the NEA.

I read time and time again, every time someone wants to inject a little choice into the equation for the benefit of the kids, inject a little freedom, inject a little competition, because we're not exactly doing that well because of the things that you pointed out earlier, the NEA is there to oppose it and bring in millions and millions of dollars to go on television and work and scare people and misrepresent the situation on the ground.

I think that that just goes against everything that we know that can make progress in this country. We're a nation of freedom and innovation and choice, and well-to-do people are out in the suburbs. They don't seem to care that much. Inner-city people need a chance to enjoy the choice that the mayor's talking about for colleges and universities.

Other people have choice, too. If they're wealthy enough to move into a neighborhood because they want their kid to go to school there, that's choice, too. Let's give it to everybody else and let's stop people from standing in the way of that.