The mayor of Philadelphia isn't feeling much brotherly love for Mitt Romney. In fact, Michael Nutter told MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Thursday that when it comes to education, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee doesn't know squat.
“If you want to come to Philadelphia to talk about education, or if you want to talk about issues in a presidential campaign, then your record is going to be examined,” Nutter said on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, which Bashir was guest-hosting.
“President Obama actually has a record," Nutter said. "Mitt Romney doesn’t. I’m not going to let him or his folks come into our town and dupe people into thinking that he actually knows something about education."
Nutter’s remarks come as Romney made a trip to Universal Bluford, a charter school in Pennsylvania's largest city. During a roundtable discussion with school administrators and teachers, Romney declared that class sizes don't really matter all that much, saying his team had analyzed hundreds of communities in Massachusetts, where he was governor several years ago, and found no apparent link between class size and academic performance.
“The district with the smallest classrooms, Cambridge, had students performing in the bottom 10 percent,” Romney said. “So just getting smaller classrooms didn’t seem to be the key.”
Nutter decried that stance as bogus, since nearly all educators rank small class sizes as critical to the success of young students.
"Clearly [Romney] has gotten an 'F' on his first day out on the issue of education," said Nutter.
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And then Romney had the nerve to mention how families with two parents is a must for children's education performance. Does he have any idea how many one parent families have children at that school? How dare he come in and lecture these black folks in this school. Do you think he will say this at a white suburban school? Romney seems to have a habit of insulting people everywhere he visits. He is so out of touch with everything; he cannot relate to average people.
I really think that only stupid people would be offended by his comments. I also find this segment so d!&^ funny I fell off my chair. Living in King of Prussia for years, and watching how bad the school districts in down town Philly, where I went to grad school,were., having the mayor of such a dysfunctional school system tell anybody, anything about school, is pure comedy.
How desparate are the left? Lies only work on uninformed people.
Well, lets fact check Nutters freaking statement here.
As Governor of Massachusetts Romey spearheaded his Education Department's K-12 reforms in bringing merit pay to teachers to reward the achievers, and in the critical areas of math and sciences where the average U.S. student ranks so fae below other nations he put through a bonus system (up to 15K) for exceptional teachers in those disciplines.
Other reforms under the Romney Admninistration included a move away from the over funded and inefficient (certainly to students preparations for employments in the US) of bi-lingual education of the core curriculum for recent imigrants of Russian, Eastern Europe, Africa, Mexico and Central and South American nations, as well as the Pacific Rim countries and Western Asia. He replaced that with accelerated English education curriculums and funded such. And then there was the reform of instituting full day Kindergarten programs also.
As incentives to students to pursue higher education opportunities, Romney also instituted tuition and fee free acceptance to the top 25% of High School achievers in the State Universities, Colleges, and Community Colleges.
Now, I wonder what that loud mouthed mudder fudder Mayor Nutter has to say about those facts of Governor Romey's record on Education in this current Century, 2002 to 2008.
. He replaced that with accelerated English education curriculums and funded such.
Good Idea - bilingual program prevent students from learning all subjects. It has one purpose: Hire more teachers.
I think the commentator is a Massachusetts republican,otherwise there isn't a snow balls chance in July would he make those comments.In reality the educational process has been on a down slope since about 1965 & as many programs that have been introduced it seems like an inevitability that that what ever programs that are introduced they are turning out badly unless the individual student has the G-d given quality to have been born with it!!!!!!!!!!
Harold Resnick
Wrong, harold. I am a registered Independent voter from Connecticut who lived and worked in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in 1971-1987 (including teaching Secondary level and vocational high school in 1977-1980) and again in 1995 to 2005. But both of mny sell adjusted children are products of the public education system of Massachusetts, and I am a very proud father given their achievements in life.
If you doubt the accuracy of my post above, search Governor Romney's Education initiatives at Wikipedia for an eye opener.
romney has no record to run on.
Post the Wikipedia link,,, because I can't find anything...
Scroll down to Contents, find #5) Education, and click and you are there, Luz.
Sorry...apparently the link wouldn't be posted as an as I entered it for some reason known only to MSNBC blog master.
Geeze, you can't get thisw blog to print even the mention of the form of the link, quite acceptable in all other blogs I post on. Maybe MSNBC doesn't want anyone fact checking the nonsense they put out daily?
Just searh "Governorship of Mitt Romney", open the Wiki offering, and find Contents:, click on 5) Education and you are there! The truth will out!
America's war on children, and the media is silent. You need to read about Romney and the " teen enhancment camps" that CRC and Baine ran, where there was child abuse, deaths and illnesses I want to know why the media isn't covering this? In Philly we have a hugh trial going on about child abuse, and the church elders covering up, and nothing is reported. Please read my article
Excuse me?
Romney left Bain Capital in 1999.
In 2006 Bain Capital bought CRC Health Group (for $730 million), a leader in the addiction rehabilitation field. In 2007 they bought Aspen Educational Alternatives that specialized in addiction treatment and residential behavioral treatment programs for adolescents with moderate to severe behavioral disorders, (paying $230 million). They then merged the two, and made Aspen the primary adolescent treatment progams, while CRC continued to provide for adult treatment programs.
While there have been investigations of claims of abuse and even a few deaths by suicide or physical illness in their programs, no staff member has been found guilty of charges or fined to date.
As anyone knows who has worked in these fields, this is not childs play. And compared to the number of incidents of abuse claims or even untimely deaths that occur in state run or other non profit or for profit programs, their record is quite favorable in those regards. Even the YMCA and Boy Scouts of America Camp programs dealing with a clintele largely free of addiction disorders and behavioral disorders including histories of suicide attempts have had their share of claims of abusive treatment and untimely deaths in their programs.
Looks to me that you've been reading the Huffington Post, that liberal rag that has a perpetual stiff approach to attempting to screw the Republicans every chance that they get...I'm sure someone like Mathews and/or O'Donnell will get around to having one of their "journalists" come on and try to interject this nonsense into the campaign, though, dixie. (or is that Dizzy?).