Vice President Joe Biden told the National Education Association’s 150th annual meeting today that teachers are under “full-blown assault” from Mitt Romney.
“Their plan for public education in America is to let the states use Title I dollars to boost enrollment in private schools,” Biden said, to the sound of booing NEA members.
“I’m not looking for boos, all right?” Biden said. “I think we should have just a straight, honest-to-God talk about the different between how President Obama and I view education and how our Republican colleagues today view it.”
The vice president went on to tell the teachers that Romney wants to “strip you of your voice because he doesn’t think that you all know much about how to educate; and he characterizes you, and his allies characterize you as not caring about the students, but caring about yourselves.”
“These guys,” Biden continued, don’t understand why teachers choose their careers.
“And by the way, like in politics, in business, in religious hierarchies, there’s really good teachers and there’s really lousy teachers. There’s really great teachers, and there’s some just plain good teachers,” he said.
“I’m afraid the governor and his allies — they don’t get it. They don’t get why you chose this profession. I’m not even sure — I won’t say that. They don’t get it. And look, folks, they either directly call you — and I’m not quoting Governor Romney now — but your critics either directly call you and imply that you’re selfish, that all this is about is an easy ride.”
Biden said that Republicans are making educators the “fall guy.”
“They should be thinking of ways to help you make your job easier, not more difficult,” he said. “Instead, they hector, they lecture and they blame you. And they call you selfish.”
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