Romney On All Three Sides Of Education Policy

by Stuart Shapiro

First, Governor Romney was for cutting teachers (and firefighters and policemen).  Then he said that the idea of cutting teachers was “completely absurd.” But before all that, he was for the Ryan budget which, as Matthew Yglesias points out, would inevitably lead to fewer teachers.

…under the budget framework that Mitt Romney shares with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., those federal dollars are going to become very scarce. So either the relative wages of teachers compared with other college educated workers are going to need to tumble (which seems unlikely and ill-advised), or Romney budgeting will lead to fewer teachers. This is pretty elementary. He wouldn’t be literally forcing towns to reduce the size of their teaching staffs, but the policy makes no sense unless you think cutting back on the number of teachers is fine for the country.

So he was for cutting teachers, then for it again.  Now he’s against it.  But unless he’s repudiated the Ryan budget he’s really still for it.  Got that?  Good, because my head hurts.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.