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Children's potential are greatest in their younger years. This is the
time to give every child the opportunity to be exposed to as many
learning situations as possible. Many children need Head Start to
either supplement or replace the home environment. The rich activities
provided by Head Start have an incalculable effect on children's future,
in particular their ability to succeed in the educational arena. Every
child deserves to fulfill his or her potential. There should be no
waiting lists for families who want the program, and every effort ought
to be made to make the programs the highest quality for our children.
Funding for education should be provided by the state rather than via
local property taxes, including extra assistance as mandated by the N.J.
Supreme Court’s Abbott case. Schools throughout the state should include
in their curriculum the teaching of personal and civic responsibility and
respect for all kinds of cultural diversity, whether racial, language,
sexual orientation or family type. We oppose vouchers, privatization and
corporatization for public schools. We support educational choice within
the public education system. We support elected school boards in all of
New Jersey’s communities, community-based public advocacy groups and
efforts to strengthen parent involvement in the schools. We recognize the
viable option of home-based education.
Green Party of the United States Platform:
7. Educational funding formulas at the STATE LEVEL need to be adjusted
as needed to avoid gross inequalities between districts and schools.
Educational grants should provide necessary balance to ensure equal
educational access for minority, deprived, special needs and exceptional
children. In higher education, federal college scholarship aid should be
increased and aimed at excluding no qualified student.
8. Our teachers find they are underpaid, overworked and rarely supplied
with the resources necessary to do the work most are sincerely trying to do
to reach their students. It is time to stop disinvesting in education, and
start putting education at the top of our social and economic agenda.
9. We call on all Greens to include education as a regular part of our
meetings so we can be clear about what unites us as well as what divides us.
10. We call for equitable state and national funding of school education
and the creation of schools controlled by parent-teacher governing bodies.
11. We support after-school programs for “latchkey” children.
12. We advocate state funding for DAY CARE that includes school children
under the age of ten when after-school programs are not available.
13. Classroom teachers at the elementary and high school levels should be
given PROFESSIONAL STATUS, and salaries comparable to related professions
requiring advanced education, training and responsibility.
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