Steve Benner, Bethpage, New York asks:
Dr. Carson, I am a Social Studies Teacher in New York State and am greatly worried about the increasing federal overreach by the Department of Education. What especially would you do with that issue?
Dr. Ben Carson:
Well, you know, the Department of Education has 4,200 employees with average annual compensation of $135,000, by the way. We don’t need anywhere near that, and we don’t need anywhere near the overreach of the Education Department into everybody’s lives. We all know that the best education is the education that is closest to home, particularly when parents are involved, and we need to make sure that parents have choice. You know, not just public schools but charter schools and, you know, home schooling, private schools, all of these are things that should be made available to people through vouchers and other types of programs.
That will benefit us all because education is the great divide, and we want to make sure that we have the strongest education possible throughout the world.