As voters head to the polls Tuesday in a tight presidential contest, President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney are sharpening their differences on education issues.
Kicking off his final weekend of campaigning, Romney last Friday took aim at teachers unions as the main impediment to progress in U.S. education.
“If the President were re-elected, he will say every good thing imaginable about education. But, in the final analysis, he will do what his largest campaign supporters—the public-sector unions—tell him to do and your kids will have the same schools with the same results,” the Republican presidential nominee said at a Wisconsin campaign stop.
If elected, Romney said he would serve as the “voice for children and their parents,” adding, “There is no union for the PTA.”
The attacks came as the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, took aim at the Republican nominee. Romney “just doesn’t get that true education reform takes all stakeholders—educators, parents and community—working together for students,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel.
For his part, President Obama also went on the offensive in the campaign’s last weekend, touting his work in providing more money for need-based student financial aid. “I said I’d help young people afford a college education. We expanded Pell Grants and lowered student loans. I do what I say,” he said at a Sunday rally in Cincinnati.
He also claimed that Romney cut higher education as governor of Massachusetts, resulting in a 63-percent increase in fees for students at state colleges and universities.
