Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney emphasized expanded school choice in his acceptance speech tonight, listing it as the second of five steps to turn America around.
“We’ll give our fellow citizens the skills they need for the jobs of today and the careers of tomorrow,” Romney said. “When it comes to the school your child will attend, every parent should have a choice and every child should have a chance.”
School choice followed energy independence on the list, and preceded his call for new trade agreements, cutting the deficit and strengthening small businesses.
Romney has called for federal funding for low-income and special education students to follow the student to the schools their parents choose, including private schools. He has also proposed eliminating caps on charter and digital schools. (For more detail and analysis of his proposals, read these redefinED posts here and here, and this guest op-ed by the Fordham Institute’s Checker Finn here.)
Romney’s speech mentioned education in two other places.
* “I am running for president to help create a better future. A future where everyone who wants a job can find one. Where no senior fears for the security of their retirement. An America where every parent knows that their child will get an education that leads them to a good job and a bright horizon.”
* “You might have asked yourself if these last years are really the America we want, the America won for us by the greatest generation. Does the America we want borrow a trillion dollars from China? No. Does it fail to find the jobs that are needed for 23 million people and for half the kids graduating from college? No. Are its schools lagging behind the rest of the developed world? No.”
Entire speech here.
