Mitt Romney has officially entered the 2012 presidential race, adding another Republican contender with a lengthy education policy record (whether you agree with it or not).
During his unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination in 2008, the former Massachusetts governor touted his support for No Child Left Behind and high-stakes testing. As governor, he helped to usher in his state’s high school exit exam and add science to that test. He often bragged about how well Massachusetts students fared on NAEP during his tenure as governor, from 2003 to 2007. He was an early backer of performance-based pay for teachers, and has been an ardent supporter of charter schools.
Now out of the governor’s office for several years, he’s been less vocal about education (no doubt because President Obama is focusing more on Romney’s record on health care as governor).
And, the NCLB brand is now more tainted than it was in 2008, and according to a clip search of newspaper and wire coverage across the country, Romney hasn’t been recorded as saying anything about the key federal education law in the last six months. So it will be interesting to see where he comes down on rewriting the law.