Romney: American kids get 'third-world education'

“Education never came up in the Republican primary in any of the debates, or if it did, it came up almost never,” Carney said.

Carney said Obama’s education initiatives have received broad bipartisan support and that the president “looks forward to defending that record.”

Taking a sharper tack, Obama’s campaign said the budget Romney signed into law as Massachusetts governor cost 14,500 teachers, librarians, and school police officers their jobs.

“Not exactly the record of a job creator,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

“Mitt Romney gave a vague, detail-free speech this morning on education and confirmed, as if there were any doubt, just how far back he would take us,” LaBolt told reporters on a conference call arranged to respond to Romney’s speech.

“We know from experience that private school vouchers have failed to raise achievement, and they drain resources from public schools that serve the vast majority of children,” Obama policy director James Kvaal said on the conference call.

Romney’s shift carries some risk. His regular criticism of labor unions, in particular, threatens to alienate voters in Rust Belt states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where a close election may be decided.

Before the speech, Romney on May 22 announced a team of education policy advisers that includes former Education Secretary Rod Paige and other officials from President George W. Bush’s administration. Paige is among several prominent opponents of teachers’ unions on the panel. As education secretary in 2004, he labeled the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.”

Romney’s positions on education have evolved over time. He once supported abolishing the Education Department but reversed that position as a presidential candidate in 2007. At the time, he said he came to see the value of the federal government in “holding down the interests of the teachers’ unions” and putting kids and parents first.

Romney also changed his position on the Bush-era education overhaul known as “No Child Left Behind.” He said he supported the law as a candidate in 2007, but he has since generally come out against the policy many conservatives see as an expansion of the federal government.

Romney continues to support the federal accountability standards in the law, however. He also has said the student testing, charter-school incentives, and teacher evaluation standards in Obama’s “Race to the Top” competition “make sense,” although the federal government should have less control over education. The campaign in recent days has emphasized his support for charter schools while governor of Massachusetts, a theme Romney weaved into his May 23 address.

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