Previously, Huckabee has deferred to John McCain on torture. McCain’s position is that torture is wrong and the US shouldn’t engage in it.

That’s also the position of nearly every single American above the legal voting age. It’s kind of like saying that McCain’s position is that oxygen is good for human and we should continue to involve it in respiration.

I understand what he was up against when the 1999 homeschool bill was introduced, but he could have vetoed the bill or let it go unsigned without his signature he did neither.

Further, his Smart Schools initiative that he passed just a year earlier in 1998 was a net negative for homeschoolers.

Quoting from Mike Huckabee, “It was a priority for me to develop more accessible and effective preschool programs and to make dramatic changes in both access and affordability in higher education. We developed a seamless curriculum from pre-K through college so that there was coordination and continuity throughout the educational process. ”

Please take special note of the words “seamless curriculum from Pre K through college.

This is more commonly known as P - 16 education reform. This is NOT a good thing for homeschoolers or conservatives in genral.

The P-16 is a FEDERAL push for portable credentialing and standards for all 50 states. That means that what a child learns in California would be taught to a child in Arkansas. This is efficient but also completely removes local and parental control from the eduation equation. Implementing national standards through the adoption of P-16 standards ensures that homeschooling will become obsolete and undesirable. In order to get the required “credential” children will be forced into compliance with the P-16 “seamless” architecture. Outsiders need not apply. Needless to say, homeschoolers are “outsiders” when it comes to the educational establishment. The only way they would be brought into the system if by complying with the requirements of the state, but that’s exactly why most homeschoolers do so. Because state compliance interferes with their ability to direct the education of their children.

Huckabee wants to have it both ways, he says that he is for federally mandated testing but that he also supports a parents right to homeschool. This is nice political speak in that it makes him sound strong on education and on parental rights to homeschool. But the reality is that federal mandates in testing are the death blow to homeschooling. He says that it is up to the states to decide how they are tested, but in the economic reality is that the states will choose the testing route that most inexpensively meets federal guidelines. They don’t want to be in the testing business, so state compliance to federal standards will lead to a universal test across state lines. This is effect a de facto national test which is exactly the opposite of freedom in education.

Governor Huckabee’s support for “continuity in the educational process” is nothing short of a accepting the federalization and control of education through college. Make no mistake about it there are those who would like to see the NCLB standards implemented through the college years. This amounts to a federalization of higher education through mandates and monetary incentives from the federal government. Huckabee’s endorsement of P-16 demonstrates that he doesn’t oppose such ideas.

That should be a HUGE red flag for homeschoolers and conservatives who value our freedom to educate.

Further, as Governor, Huckabee introduced INTERNATIONAL standards in education into Arkansas.

Under his leadership he allowed the UN/IBO diploma to enter the Arkansas educational system. This introduced INTERNATIONAL standards in Arkansas. The impact of this cannot be understated.

World Magazine had an article on IBO earlier this year,

“The IBO goal is the formation of students “who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” Not just that other people can be right, but that people with differences can “also” be right. At the heart of the IB approach is a view that no actual culture holds truth.

The keystone course for the International Baccalaureate diploma is “Theory of Knowledge.” Not “theories,” but “theory.” While it is fine for high-school students to study epistemology, this is a course in postmodernist epistemology. This theory employs a “hermeneutic of suspicion” that undermines the very possibility of accepting any kind of objective truth.

It does take a certain kind of braininess to convince oneself that it is true that there is no truth, and it is no wonder that major universities—the patrons of postmodernist theory—are impressed with all of the young relativists clutching their IB diplomas.

But this philosophy does not produce a good education; rather, it produces a mindset in which good education is impossible. — Gene Edward Veith” (World Magazine January 13, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 1)

Allowing the International Baccalaureate to begin operating in US schools is a trend that many states are moving toward as a “replacement to AP courses.” Huckabee has not addressed this encroaching global education standard. He is without excuse. Huckabee was head of the ECS from 2004-2006. The international diploma is well known and his involvment as Governor in issues related to education would make it hard to believe that he didn’t know what the IB diploma was all about. The IBO passed in Arkansas in 2005. A definite negative for local/parental control in education.

Overall, Huckabee’s educational record is not conservative at all. He allowed homeschooling to take a step backward and the United Nations/IBO to take a step forward in his state. Not a “net gain” for me.

I’d encourage anyone who cares about education and the freedom to teach our children unhindered by the state to consider exactly how these reforms are moving our country away from local control and toward “global citizenship.”

Global education and citizenship through international standards has no room for independent minded homeschoolers, especially those who believe that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

The globalization argument is starting to get under my skin, too. It’s as if we Americans are actually afraid of competition. It may be that we can’t compete nearly as well as we once could (due in large part to the reason that Huckabee’s big government stance is popular) but we can surely compete well enough to prosper just as we have been for the past decade under NAFTA. I long for a candidate to get a little boldness on the issue and point out that globalization is really a chance for us to prosper in a much larger market than we ever have before.

Also something, I’d like to ask Republican candidates about this as well: they all act these days as if globalization is horrible, hurting the economy, Americans are losing jobs, etc. but… globalization has meant a net plus for just about every country, including the US.

Yes, some people will lose their job, but other jobs will be created to fill that gap, and then some. That’s how it works. If you stop that process, you stop the process of innovation and progress. A horrible path to choose indeed.

I’d like to ask all of them about that.

Having said that: as I said, I would like to ask all of them about that. It seems to me that most if not all the candidates use that issue at least to a degree… With Romney I like it that he basically says ‘we shouldn’t be afraid of globalization, it’s an opportunity, lets exploit it’ but other than that…

It’s about time that Westerners finally admit that globalization is a net plus. Not just Americans, Europeans as well. Stop nagging and adapt.

If you do, your country will become even more prosperous than it already is.

A government can’t sit by and let people lose their job, etc.

This is the biggest reason why Huckabee won’t get my vote. A government that decides to meddle with the economy in such an intimate fashion will eventually ruin it. I’m surprised that Huckabee can’t look around the world and see that.

Then again, I suppose the message of “There, there. We’ll take care of you” gets the votes these days.

Marc Moore - you know, the co-blogger… - recently published a postendorsing Mike Huckabee.

Hmm….Marc and I always seem to disagree…so I guess the question then is which candidate is the opposite of Huckabee?