Cranbook High School's finest Earlier today, Mitt Romney continued his new focus on education policy with a visit to a charter school in West Philadelphia, where, according to this report from Politico's Ginger Gibson, he didn't get "the friendliest of receptions." It wasn't just the usual stuff, either. Sure, you had folks'including Philadelphia's mayor'staging a pro-Obama rally and questioning why Romney even visited in the first place. But the teachers Romney was ostensibly in town to meet with during a roundtable session weren't buying his views on education policy either.
One of the teachers mentioned to Romney that she had heard he thought class size didn't matter and attempted to explain to him why she believed he was wrong. Instead of learning from her, Romney proceeded to explain to her why he believed she was wrong, citing a study that said class size wasn't correlated with academic performance. That prompted a rebuttal from another teacher who pointed to a University of Texas study rejecting Romney's claim. Romney got a lifeline when the topic changed from class sizes, but you get the feeling if he'd been allowed to proceed, he wouldn't have stopped his lecture to the teachers on how to they should be doing their jobs.
On the bright side, however, Romney largely escaped being mocked for having chosen to highlight the excellence of charter schools by picking a school that, as Gibson notes, "is on warning from the state because it hasn't made academic progress in the first two years of its existence." He also managed to successfully suppress his overwhelming temptation to ask West Philadelphia locals "who let the dogs out?"
And on the brightest note of all, by continuing to talk about education issues, Mitt Romney managed to avoid discussion of Bain or how his experience as the company's founder and CEO would help him improve the American economy.
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