Mitt Romney outlined an education plan centered on expanding school voucher programs in a speech to The Latino Coalition, a conservative business group, in DC on Wednesday, warning of a “crisis” among students.
“Let’s not kid ourselves – we are in the midst of a National education emergency,” he said. “The only reason we don’t hear more about it is because our economic troubles have taken our national attention away from the classroom. But if unemployment was where it should be and home values were going up, there is no question that the crisis in American education would be the great cause of this campaign.”
Romney’s plan would not entail any increased federal spending on education, his advisors confirmed to reporters beforehand. It would instead allow individual parents to use existing federal money to send children in public schools to private and charter schools. He condemned Democratic opposition to Washington DC’s voucher program and accused Obama of not forecfully advocating for it out of fear of angering the teachers union.
“The President can’t have it both ways: he can’t talk up reform, while indulging the groups that block it,” Romney said. “He can’t be the voice of disadvantaged public-school kids, and the protector of special interests.”
