PRESS RELEASE from Romney for President
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
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CONTACT: Romney
Press Office
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May 23, 2012
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MITT ROMNEY DELIVERS
REMARKS ON EDUCATION: “A CHANCE FOR EVERY CHILD”
Boston, MA –
Mitt Romney today delivered remarks on education at The Latino
Coalition’s Annual Economic Summit in Washington, D.C. The following
remarks were prepared for delivery:
Thanks
to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for hosting us. This year the Chamber
marks 100 years of Standing Up for American Enterprise. Few
organizations have fought longer or harder for the principles of
economic freedom. And these days, your voice is more important than
ever.
I
am grateful to the Latino Coalition for the invitation to be part of
your Annual Economic Summit. In recent days we’ve heard a lot about
business from the President and if you’re feeling like you deserve
protection under the Endangered Species Act, I can’t blame you.
This
is a time when everybody in this administration should be doing
everything in their power to support you. If every one of our small
businesses added just two employees, Americans could pay more mortgages
and buy more groceries and fill their gas tanks.
Instead,
sadly, President Obama has decided to attack success. It’s no wonder so
many of his own supporters are calling on him to stop this war on job
creators. Make no mistake, when I am President, you won’t wake up every
day and wonder if the President is on your side.
Starting
on Day One, I’ll be there to help you make it. And if you’re
successful beyond your wildest dreams, I’ll be the first to celebrate
your success because I know your prosperity means greater opportunity –
for you, for your families, for your employees, and for your
communities. And that’s what the American Dream is all about.
During
my lifetime, I’ve seen a few of my own dreams come true. I’ve run
and
started business, helped guide the Olympics, and led a great state. I
learned early on that the only way to succeed in tough situations is to
bring people together for a common purpose. That’s how you achieve
greatness and accomplish your goals.
Dividing
people and pitting one side against another produces nothing but
failure and mediocrity. Unfortunately, we’ve seen too much of
that
from this administration. That’s part of why we’re facing the
slowest
economic recovery since the Great Depression. And it’s why this
President and his party have failed to address the most serious
problems facing our country.
When
the President took office, he faced a jobs crisis. It’s barely
improved. He faced a spending crisis. It’s only gotten worse. And
he
faced an education crisis.
I’d
love to stand here today and join you in celebrating the end of our
education crisis. Wouldn’t it be great if we could look back on the
last four years with confidence that the crisis had been confronted and
we’d turned the corner toward a brighter future?
But
sadly, that hasn’t happened. And the tragedy is not just a matter
of
test scores and international rankings. It’s the frustration of a sixth
grader who wants to learn more, but is stuck in a class that’s moving
too slowly. It’s the embarrassment of a 10th grader who knows he can’t
read the books he’s assigned. It’s the shame of a 12th grader who’s
supposed to be ready to graduate, but hasn’t mastered the skills he or
she needs to succeed in life.
In
this country, we believe every child has something to contribute.
No
matter what circumstances they were born into, every child has a dream
about where they can go or what they can become. Whether that
dream is
to invent something, start something, build something, or create
something, it all starts with the basic skills and confidence that only
a good education can provide.
Yet, today, too many dreams are never realized because our education
system is failing.
More than 150 years ago, our nation pioneered public education.
We’ve now fallen way behind.
Among
developed countries, the United States comes in 14th of 34 in reading,
17th of 34 in science, and an abysmal 25th out of 34 in math.
Our
public education system is supposed to ensure that every child gets a
strong start in life. Yet, one in four students fails to attain a
high
school degree. And in our major cities, half of our kids won’t
graduate. Imagine that.
Imagine
if your enterprise had a 25% to 50% failure rate in meeting its primary
goal. You would consider that a crisis. You would make
changes, and
fast. Because if you didn’t, you’d go out of business.
But
America’s public education establishment shows no sense of
urgency.
Instead, there is a fierce determination to keep things the way they
are.
Here
we are in the most prosperous nation, but millions of kids are getting
a third-world education. And, America’s minority children suffer the
most. This is the civil-rights issue of our era. It’s the
great
challenge of our time.
Last
week, I spoke about the prairie fire of debt that is spreading across
our country. Today, I want to talk about our crisis in
education.
With all of our economic troubles, there’s a temptation to put off the
task of fixing our nations’ schools for another time. But the
jobs and
housing failures of these past few years only make that task more
important.
Let’s
not kid ourselves – we are in the midst of a National Education
Emergency. 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.
Of
course, the jobs and housing failures of these past few years only make
the need for educational improvement all the more critical. So
I’ll be
blunt: I don’t like the direction of American education, and as
President, I will do everything in my power to reverse this decline.
Much
as you have in your own business careers, I’ve found that you can’t
expect dramatically different results unless you are open to dramatic
change. As president, I will pursue bold policy changes that will
restore the promise of our nation’s education system.
First,
I will expand parental choice in an unprecedented way. Too many
of our
kids are trapped in schools that are failing or simply don’t meet their
needs. And for too long, we’ve merely talked about the virtues of
school choice.
As
President, I will give the parents of every low-income and special
needs student the chance to choose where their child goes to
school.
For the first time in history, federal education funds will be linked
to a student, so that parents can send their child to any public or
charter school, or to a private school, where permitted. And I
will
make that choice meaningful by ensuring there are sufficient options to
exercise it.
To
receive the full complement of federal education dollars, states must
provide students with ample school choice. In addition, digital
learning options must not be prohibited. And charter schools or
similar education choices must be scaled up to meet student demand.
Instead
of eliminating the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program as President
Obama has proposed, I will expand it to offer more students a chance to
attend a better school. It will be a model for parental choice
programs across the nation.
Parental
choice will hold schools responsible for results, but parents can only
exercise that choice effectively if they have good information.
No
Child Left Behind helped our nation take a giant step forward in
bridging this information gap. But the law is not without its
weaknesses. As president, I will break the political logjam that
has
prevented successful reform of the law. I will reduce federal
micromanagement while redoubling efforts to ensure that schools are
held responsible for results.
For
example, parents shouldn’t have to navigate a cryptic evaluation system
to figure out how their kids’ schools are performing. States must
provide a simple-to-read and widely available public report card that
evaluates each school. These report cards will provide accurate
and
easy-to-understand information about student and school
performance.
States will continue to design their own standards and tests, but the
report cards will provide information that parents can use to make
informed choices.
We
will take bold steps to ensure our system welcomes and rewards the best
teachers. As president, I will make it my goal to ensure that
every
classroom has a quality teacher.
There
are currently 82 programs in ten agencies that spend $4 billion on
teacher quality. As president, I will consolidate these programs,
and
block grant them to states that adopt innovative policies. For
example, states will be rewarded if they regularly evaluate teachers
for their effectiveness and compensate the best teachers for their
success. Teaching is a highly valued profession that must attract
and
retain the best and brightest.
Dramatically
expanding parental choice, making schools responsible for results by
giving parents access to clear and instructive information, and
attracting and rewarding our best teachers--these changes can help
ensure that every parent has a choice and every child has a chance.
Finally,
since we live in a twenty-first century economy that increasingly
demands a college education, efforts at improvement can’t stop at high
school’s end. Students must have access to a wide variety of options
that will give them the skills they need for successful careers.
We
must stop fueling skyrocketing tuition prices that put higher education
out of reach for some and leave others with crushing debt.
These
are bold initiatives that will produce better outcomes for our parents
and teachers and students. But accomplishing real change won’t be
easy. Efforts to truly reform our schools always meet strong
resistance from entrenched interests.
The
teachers unions are the clearest example of a group that has lost its
way. Whenever anyone dares to offer a new idea, the unions
protest the
loudest.
Their
attitude was memorably expressed by a long-time president of the
American Federation of Teachers: He said, quote, “When school
children
start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the
interests of children.”
The
teachers unions don’t fight for our children. That’s our
job. And our
job keeps getting harder because the unions wield outsized influence in
elections and campaigns.
Annually,
many teachers are forced to pay almost $1,000 in union dues. The
two
major teachers unions take in $600 million each year. That’s more
revenue than both of the political parties combined.
In
2008, the National Education Association spent more money on campaigns
than any other organization in the country. And 90% of those
funds
went to Democrats.
Education
is one issue where it should be easy to find common purpose and common
solutions. And I believe the President must be troubled by the
lack of
progress since he took office. Most likely, he would have liked
to do
more. But the teachers unions are one of the Democrats’ biggest
donors
– and one of the President’s biggest campaign supporters. So,
President Obama has been unable to stand up to union bosses – and
unwilling to stand up for kids.
The
most recent example is the Opportunity Scholarship program. Since
2004, it’s allowed thousands of children in the District of Columbia to
escape one of the worst school systems in the nation and get a
world-class education. Armed with scholarships of up to $7,500,
students enrolled in private schools. 99% of them were African American
or Hispanic.
After
three months, students could already read at levels 19 months ahead of
their public-school peers. And parents were happy; for every spot
in
the program, there were 4 applications.
Then,
Senator Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, inserted a provision to end
the program. The White House offered no resistance. In
fact, the
President has proposed ending all funding for Opportunity
Scholarships. It must have gone against his better instincts, but
the
unions wanted it so he went along.
In
the Opportunity Scholarships, the Democrats finally found the one
federal program they are willing to cut. Why? Because success
anywhere
in our public schools is a rebuke to failure everywhere else.
That’s
why the unions oppose even the most common sense improvements.
In
Detroit, students in the city’s failing public schools were offered a
lifeline by a philanthropist who offered $200 million to create 15
charter schools. The teachers union made the state legislature
turn
that gift down.
In
Connecticut, parents groups tried to pass “parent trigger” legislation
so they could take over and transform failing schools. A national
teachers union moved fast to stop that.
Now
some union leaders will tell you that their objections are
misunderstood. They’ll argue the issues are complicated.
But really
it’s simple – and it comes down to this: When your cause in life
is
preventing parents from having a meaningful choice or children from
having a real chance, then you are on the wrong side. You might
even
be in the wrong vocation, because good teachers put the interests of
children first.
The
same is true of a good president. In his speeches, President
Obama
likes to tell us “we can’t wait.” If only he would say that and
mean
it about education reform – because millions are waiting for change,
and so many are missing their chance.
The
President can’t have it both ways: He can’t talk up reform, while
indulging the groups that block it. He can’t be the voice of
disadvantaged public-school kids, and the protector of special
interests.
President
Obama has made his choice, and I have made mine: As president, I will
be a champion of real education reform in America, and I won’t let any
special interest get in the way.
We have to stop putting campaign cash ahead of our kids.
This is a battle we can and must win. And while a lot needs
fixing, we’re getting some of the most important things right.
We
have good teachers, like the ones who are leading New York City’s
Democracy Prep. Because of them, kids from the city’s poorest
community are outperforming children from the wealthiest. Last
summer,
these teachers took over the worst elementary school in Harlem rather
than let it shut down. Democracy Prep is a testament to good
people
who refuse to give up on our kids or leave our cities without a fight.
And
leadership makes a huge difference. When Jeb Bush became governor
of
Florida, reading scores of Hispanic students in that state’s school
system were dismal. He brought focused innovation and passionate
leadership. Today those scores have risen dramatically.
But
too often, new ideas, good teachers, and dedicated parents don’t find a
welcoming partner and true champion in elected officials like Governor
Bush. Instead, they are met with resistance and resentment from
the
establishment.
I
know what it is like to be a Governor fighting to do things
differently. You need every bit of help you can get. As
President,
I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with these reformers and innovators.
When
I became Governor, we were in the midst of instituting tough,
bi-partisan education reforms. They included the requirement that
every student pass a test to graduate from high school. The test
came
under attack from the unions. But we stood our ground.
We
also offered our best students a four-year, tuition-free scholarship to
the state college of their choice. I called it the John and
Abigail
Adams Scholarship, after two Massachusetts citizens who understood the
importance of education to our nation.
Every
year I’d ask a school principal to invite the students who scored in
the top 25% on the exam to a special assembly. After some words
about
hard work, I’d ask them to reach under their chair and remove an
envelope that had been taped there. And I’d watch as each of them
would open the enclosed letter.
Every year, I’d stand in front of the room and the same scene would
unfold:
At
first, you could hear a pin drop. Then each student’s eyes would
get
big and proud smiles would creep across their faces as they found out
how well they had done on the exam. And then they would read the
part
of the letter where they learned they’d earned an Adams
Scholarship.
The smiles turned into cheers – and the sound was deafening.
I
got more hugs on Adams Scholarship day than I did at Christmas.
Kids
would bring me their cell phones so I could tell their parents the
exciting news. And parents – more than once – told me that they
had
been worried they would not be able to afford college and that the
scholarship would make a difference.
Here in America, every child deserves a chance. It shouldn’t be
reserved for the fortunate few.
If
America is going to continue to lead the world in how much we build,
create, and invent, then we must transform how we teach, train, and
educate. We already have good teachers, engaged parents, and big
ideas. What we need now is strong leadership and the political
will.
A
choice for every parent means a chance for every child. That can
be
more than our hope – it can be our future. It can begin this
year, in
the choice you make, so I ask for your help, your support, and your
vote on the sixth of November.
Thank you all, and God bless America.
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