Early Childhood Education

• Zero to Five Plan: Obama's comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, Obama's plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
• Expand Early Head Start and Head Start
• Affordable, High-Quality Child Care

K-12

• Reform No Child Left Behind
• Make Math and Science Education a National Priority
• Address the Dropout Crisis
• Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities
• Expand Summer Learning Opportunities
• Support College Outreach Programs
• Support English Language Learners

Recruit, Prepare, Retain, and Reward America's Teachers

• Create new Teacher Service Scholarships
• Require all schools of education to be accredited
• Retain Teachers
• New and innovative ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with teachers

Higher Education

• Create the American Opportunity Tax Credit
• Simplify the Application Process for Financial Aid

Education Issues

Excellence, Choice, and Competition in American Education

• John McCain believes our schools can and should compete to be the most innovative, flexible and student-centered - not safe havens for the uninspired and unaccountable. He believes we should let them compete for the most effective, character-building teachers, hire them, and reward them
• If a school will not change, the students should be able to change schools. John McCain believes parents should be empowered with school choice to send their children to the school that can best educate them just as many members of Congress do with their own children
• He finds it beyond hypocritical that many of those who would refuse to allow public school parents to choose their child's school would never agree to force their own children into a school that did not work or was unsafe. They can make another choice. John McCain believes that is a fundamental and essential right we should honor for all parents
• John McCain will place parents and children at the center of the education process, empowering parents by greatly expanding the ability of parents to choose among schools for their children. He believes all federal financial support must be predicated on providing parents the ability to move their children, and the dollars associated with them, from failing schools