Every child in California is entitled to a first-class education.

Education is the great leveler in American society. It provides the opportunity for any child to rise based on hard work and achievement.

Unfortunately, this leveling effect is lost as California's schools deteriorate due to domination by union bosses, which contribute to the degradation of the curriculum and the marginalization of involvement by parents. While opposing the Common Core national standards, we support all reasonable measures to strengthen academic standards and maximize the influence and involvement of parents in the schools. We support an education system that ensures access and opportunity for all children, blind to the color of their skin, the circumstances of their neighborhood, or the socioeconomic background of their home.

We believe that parents will make better choices than government in almost every case. Consequently, we support school choice programs, voucher and tax-credit scholarships, magnet schools, charter schools, homeschooling, educational savings accounts, the right of parents to choose to have their child taught in academic English, and to opt out of age inappropriate and sexually explicit curriculum. We support the abolition of all regulatory barriers that prevent parents from exercising these options.

The top priority of our schools should be learning basic competencies, not social engineering. We support metrics such as exit exams to evaluate basic competency. We call for local schools to be controlled by parents and local school boards.

Schools cannot function unless they are safe. Besides providing a rigorous course of study, safety in schools at all grade levels should be the highest priority.

Admission to all public colleges and universities should be based solely on merit. We believe that the free exchange of ideas at institutions of higher learning is key to their fundamental purpose. We oppose all censorship of student speech on public universities through policies explicit or implicit. We believe that private institutions of higher learning must have clear and consistent policies, applied fairly, regarding student speech and expression. All universities have a responsibility to protect students seeking to engage in political activism from violent responses from those both affiliated and unaffiliated with the university.