Mike Keefe, Cagle Cartoons

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In our highly praised age of information infinities, educated citizens ought to be able to learn about presidential candidates with ease, and learn about their specific views on important questions of the day. Few questions of national import rival the problem and promise of public education in Americatoday.

The United States needs a much better system of public education than it now has. Our American children deserve a superior no! a great public education. In an age of globalization, as we hear so frequently, our daughters and sons will compete for good jobs and positions with the best and brightest from the whole world. However, so many international tests confirm the decay of American public education that we need not debate this depressingfact.

Our young people their health and intelligence, and their educational training are our greatest source of capital. Today we shamelessly gut public education funding, trash the teachers, ignore decrepit buildings, and try to find ways to amend the teachers public pensions. Teachers, like firefighters and cops, know that reform meanscut.

In this climate, it seems important to ask what presidential contender Mitt Romney and his team say about the sorry state of public education in these United States. While Paul Ryans education plan has gotten scrutiny, lets look atMitts.

Harnessing the power of the Internet and Google Chrome, I looked up the ex-governors white paper, A Chance for Every Child, May 23, 2012 (scroll down to A Chance for Every Child). At 34 pages it was quick to print, and, like a thoughtful citizen and longtime teacher, Ive carefully studied Mr. Romneysideas.

Early on in Romneys white paper (page 4), he concedes the pathetic state of public education today: Sadlyacross the nation, our school system is a world leader in spending yet lags on virtually every measure of results. Its true, and actuallytragic.

A Chance for Every Child contends, remarkably, that no new funds are needed for public education in America. Mitt Romney understands that more spending is the last thing our schools need. (Page 34). Mitt presumably would not vote for Proposition 30, a tax to help schools inCalifornia.

What is needed, according to the Romney playbook, is a redirection of the monies the states and the federal government already spend on education: He wants more taxpayer money to go to on-line education, especially for-profit colleges, as well as charter schools and school vouchers. (However, since vouchers have been rejected throughout most of the nation, A Chance for Every Child never uses the term voucher, just constantly impliesit.)

See original here:
What About Romney’s Education Plans?