Education And Mitt Romney

Romney says let poor students take their government dollars to any school they like, public or private. We’ll weigh the plan.

Mitt Romney was all economy all the time during most of the Republican primary season. Last week, he turned to education. Almost everyone agrees it is the key to the country’s future. But Romney declared that millions of American kids are getting “a third world education” in the USA.

His answer? More school choice. Let poor and disabled students take their federal funding and attend any school they like, even private school. If, that is, they can find such a school. And get in.

This hour, On Point: sizing up the Romney vision on America’s number one challenge – education.
-Tom Ashbrook

Alyson Klein, a reoprter for Education Week.

Ulrich Boser, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he analyzes education policy. He authored the report “Race to the Top: What Have We Learned from the States So Far?” on President Obama’s education initiative, the “Race to the Top” fund.

Martin West, education advisor to Mitt Romney and assistant professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

Ginger Gibson, national political reporter for Politico.

New York Times "In all the months of Republican primaries and early campaigning, the topic of education rarely emerged. That changed on Wednesday when the presumed Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, announced his new education agenda."

Slate "The basic idea of Romney's thinking on K-12 education is to walk away from the standards-and-accountability approach that's dominated in both the Bush and Obama administrations and double down on the choice thread of reform."

ABC News "Mitt Romney said Tuesday that under his new K-12 education plan, federal education funds will follow every low-income or disabled American child so that he or she can attend any school in the state, including private ones."

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