The AFT on Mitt Romney

A message from AFT, re:Romney

Presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign has taken on public education this week. He unveiled his proposals today and offered them up on a platter of rehashed rhetoric, failed initiatives, and the promotion of division over cooperation.

Instead of committing to ensure quality public education for all students, he proposes to strip money out of public education and give it to private schools and digital learning outfits— absurd at a time when school budgets already are being slashed to the bone across the country.

Instead of proposing policies that improve teaching and learning, Romney would rather spend his time demonizing teachers and their unions, and talking about how he intends to politicize the Department of Education.

His positions on vouchers, teaching to the test and using the Department of Education to go after teachers and their unions are only a preview of what’s to come.

Mitt Romney’s education plan speaks for itself:

He wants to make Title I and IDEA funding (cornerstone federal programs to help districts educate disadvantaged and disabled students) available to private schools and digital learning outfits—effectively establishing a national private school voucher program.

He blames federal student aid for the rise in college tuition and has suggested that students simply “borrow from their parents” to pay for college.

He wants to expand charter schools so that more school management organizations can take federal education dollars to increase their bottom lines.

He wants to put the banks back into the student loan business, while also undermining Obama administration efforts to regulate for-profit colleges that benefit from federal funding.

He supports reducing the size and role of the U.S. Department of Education, but keeping it around in order to push back against teachers unions.

Romney is presenting America with a false choice: If you support teachers, then you must be against kids. Real public education improvement comes from teachers, administrators, parents and communities rolling up their sleeves and working together to help all kids, not just some kids, succeed.

It’s time to stand up to these attacks. Get involved with the 2012 election today. Let us Count You In.

In unity,
Randi Weingarten
AFT President