Tim James believes one of the most important things in education should be teaching kids how to read.

“If you don’t teach kids how to read, then they will never learn in school,” James said in an interview at The Clanton Advertiser office Thursday.

James, a Republican, is planning to run for Governor in 2010 to replace Gov. Bob Riley, who cannot run in 2010 because of the state constitution’s term limits on governor. Currently, the only other candidate that has announced his candidacy for governor is Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham.

James, who is the son of former two-term Gov. Fob James, spoke to the Clanton Kiwanis Club on Thursday.

Education, improving the state’s economy and helping small businesses are some of the platforms that James is running on.

On the economy, James feels the excessive budget spending by both the state and federal government will cause the economy to falter.

“We must get our fiscal house in order,” he said.

James also will outline a plan to help stimulate small business growth. The key area for this is reducing business taxes.

He also said he won’t support any new taxes and wants to get back to four-year reappraisals instead of annual reappraisals for property taxes.

He also said the state prepaid tuition trust fund has also forgotten its roots.

“When the PACT program was set up, it was supposed to be a trust fund,” he said. “A trust fund shouldn’t be investing money in the stock market.

“PACT is just a reflection of what is going on Wall Street. No one thought about the risk involved by putting that money in the stock market,” he added.