Hoping to exploit a 'struggling' school, Romney struggles to defend his policy to minority educators [View all]

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The Republican presidential candidate visited a West Philadelphia charter school on Thursday, a day after declaring education is the "civil rights issue of our era."

Romney repeated that declaration during the school visit, but struggled to defend his view that class sizes aren't a major factor in educational success. Local African-American leaders also said his push for more two-parent families isn't realistic in their community.

The charter school's founder also said he's not sure whether Romney understands the needs of the African-American community.

read: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/romney-faces-tough-questions-black-leaders-16421737#.T75n7lLAGQs


"I came into office and talked to people and said, 'What can we do to improve our schools?'" Romney said at his Thursday event. "And a number of folks said we need smaller classroom sizes, that will make the biggest difference . . . The schools in the district with the smallest classroom sizes had students performing in the bottom 10%," Romney said. "Just getting smaller classrooms didn't seem to be the key."

Romney was pressed on his stance by a music teacher at the charter school who questioned the research Romney cited.

"I can't think of any teacher in the whole time I've been teaching, for 10 years, 13 years, who would say that more students would benefit them," Steven Morris, the teacher, said. "And I can't think of a parent who would say 'I would like my student to be in a classroom with a lot of kids with only one teacher.' So I'm kind of wondering where this research comes from."

Another teacher participating in the roundtable said unequivocally that he had too many students in his classroom.

"It's too large," the second teacher said. "It varies between classes, anywhere between 20 and 28. You can give more personalized attention to each student if you have a smaller class size."

read/watch: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/24/romney-defends-class-size-stance-to-teachers/