Mitt Romney: Educating Kids of Color is the ‘Civil Rights Issue of Our Era’

On Wednesday, the presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney talked explicitly about schools failing students of color. But there's a lot more to that story.

By Jorge Rivas May 24, 2012

On Wednesday, the presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney delivered a speech at the Latino Coalition’s 2012 Small Business Summit Luncheon and didn’t mention the word immigration once but he did manage to talk explicitly about the failure of many U.S. schools with students of color. But while some have celebrated Romney for addressing the issue explicitly his comments are part of a larger movement to privatize schools.

"Here we are in the most prosperous nation, but millions of kids are getting a third-world education. And, America’s minority children suffer the most. This is the civil-rights issue of our era. It’s the great challenge of our time," Romney said in front of The Latino Coalition, a pro-business group led by President George W. Bush’s Small Business Administrator.

"As President, I will give the parents of every low-income and special needs student the chance to choose where their child goes to school. For the first time in history, federal education funds will be linked to a student, so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school, or to a private school, where permitted. And I will make that choice meaningful by ensuring there are sufficient options to exercise it," Romney went on to say about his controversial plans.