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Carly Fiorina Is Sen. Ted Cruz’s Running Mate: What’s Her K-12 Resume?

By Andrew Ujifusa — April 27, 2016 1 min read
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On Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, announced that one of his former rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, will be his running mate as vice president if he’s the nominee. So what has she said and done with respect to K-12? Not a whole lot, but during her 2016 campaign, we did get a few details from her about what she envisioned for education policy.

  • Fiorina said she would consider putting an end to the U.S. Department of Education last October in an interview with CNBC. That puts her pretty much in line with Cruz, who has vowed to abolish the Education Department—but not before directing it to end the Common Core State Standards (something the department does not actually have the power to do.)
  • Did someone say common core? Fiorina’s position on that has changed over time. She used to be in favor of the standards, and also praised the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competitive-grant program when she ran for a U.S. Senate seat in California in 2010. Common core, she said, would help prepare students for the current labor market.

    But once the 2016 campaign started heating up, she changed her tune, saying that the common core was being inappropriately influenced by Washington, and that: “I don’t tend to agree with common core.”

  • Before the Every Student Succeeds Act was signed into law last December, Fiorina said during an education policy forum last August she preferred the House’s version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization that passed last summer.

    Why? Fiorina said she liked that the House version allowed parents to opt their children out of federally mandated tests. Under ESSA, states can have law allowing parents to do just that, but it also requires states to test 95 percent of all students and 95 percent of specific subgroups of students.

  • Fiorina has also backed school choice.

Photo: Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina speaks at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference in Philadelphia, Friday, June 19, 2015. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

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