No, smaller is not always better — that argument has salience in the
discussion of public education reform. Choice, accountability, less
governmental meddling — these changes would free up time, space, and dwindling
funds
Despite the Los Angeles Times' oblique hint that Romney does not care about
the needs of inner city youth, the former governor of Massachusetts, who
established a commanding legacy of expanding educational opportunity through
charter schools, has demonstrated an open savvy to reach out to prospective
voters in the most forbidding regions of the country for Republican candidates.
In the Philadelphia suburbs, he stood by his reasonable claims that smaller
class sizes in themselves do not advance the learning of the student. Extremes
like five students to a classroom are financially irresponsible, while fifty
students in one class poses academic challenges beyond the ability of one
teacher. Citing the learning and graduation rates of students in Finland and
Singapore, Romney touches a third-rail in urban politics: the importance of
stable, two-parents, a phenomenon devastated by government welfare.
On another note, I have always admired Mitt Romney's willingness to visit
neighborhoods which have been historical hostile to the Republican brand,
including South Los Angeles and Compton in California. Democratic operatives
have taken Romney's visits to urban, working-class, and minority communities as
an opportunity to skewer his wealthy connections and hefty business legacy, but
they refuse to acknowledge the very elitism in their progressive stalwart
champion Barack Obama, a Chicago organizer who has discouraged school choice
for the black community, yet owns enough capital to enroll his two daughters in
the most selective private schools. This double-standard must be attacked by
leaders in the black community, who I am certain are tired of promoting candidates
because of their color, yet who refuse to expand opportunities to their own
people.
Perhaps Mitt Romney would be the first president in nearly five decade to
erode at the liberal hegemony over the black community which the Democratic
party has held for so many years.