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Democratic Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, where Romney stopped the day prior to talk with teachers at a charter school, leveled heavy charges at the candidate, saying his policies were "out of touch," "misguided" and "backwards."

"He certainly left an impression here in the city that he has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to education," Nutter said on a conference call with reporters Friday organized by the campaign.

The mayor also described Romney's meeting in Philly as a "drive-by visit" due to its short length.

When Romney stopped at a local school Thursday, he pointed to studies that countered common thought that smaller class sizes contributed to increased learning for students.

He cited a 2007 analysis by the McKinsey Global Institute that argues "evidence suggests that, except at the very early grades, class size reduction does not have much impact on student outcomes," based on the 112 studies the group examined for the report.

"Just getting smaller classrooms didn't seem to be the key," Romney said.

Teachers attending the roundtable Thursday morning quickly fired back, arguing smaller class sizes are always preferable to larger ones.

Piling on, Obama campaign officials on Friday pointed to other studies, namely the widely-cited Project STAR study in Tennessee, that concluded smaller student-to-teacher ratios benefited student learning.

Nutter, going further, argued one doesn't even need to look to studies on this issue, saying the concept should be common sense.

"Any parent knows that's easier to keep track of two kids as opposed to 10," he said. "Some of this is just common sense, so let us not get so sophisticated that we can't keep track of what is plainly evident right in front of us."

Earlier this week Romney laid out his education plan, which calls for dramatically expanding school choice for low-income and disabled children by using a voucher-type system. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/25/team-obama-expands-edu
cation-offense-against-romney/

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Note that some of the countries with some of the world’s highest achieving student bodies — like Korea and Japan — have the biggest class sizes. Perhaps this has to do with cultural differences; societies with Confucian roots may have stricter hierarchies within the classroom, so perhaps it’s easier (or more expected) for a single teacher to manage a bigger group of students.

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Teachers like smaller class sizes? Maybe because smaller classes equals less work and more teachers hired?

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For the first five years of my working life, I was a secondary school teacher. I had a three-year degree and a one-year Diploma of Education. I chose that vocation during my senior high school days principally because I wanted to teach, wanted to play a part in making life good for the following generation. Sure, the money was good enough, but that was a secondary consideration, and looking back I would have done it even if paid a bit less.

I lasted five years (well, three fulfilling ones to be exact – I struggled in the final two). Gradually the job turned into being a classroom manager-cum-policeman. This affected my health and dulled my enthusiasm for the job.

I think I was quite a good teacher. The kids on average seemed to like me and I got pretty reasonable results from my senior classes. I took part in lots of extra-curricular activities, and at least until weariness began to take over, I put a lot of effort into preparing what I hoped would be interesting classes.

After a few years of huge and dedicated effort, I gave up because it was just too hard, with the large classes, to do good teaching while managing the kids who didn’t want to be there. And here’s the thing: if I had been paid another 20% in salary to stay on, I would have let it pass. It just wasn’t worth the stress and the effect it was having on the rest of my life. I had skills learned in my degree and had no trouble finding a new career that paid a similar amount but was far less wearying.

Another observation. The teachers at that first school were a mixed bunch. Some were career teachers who may have found difficulty doing some other jobs so they just stayed on doing their best but holding back enough for them to not be affected by the stress and workload. They had a way of teaching that got by, had pretty fixed classroom plans, and remained somewhat emotionally aloof. For them, the remuneration they got was probably as good as they would get anywhere because they were not top-notch in the creativity and passion stakes, so wouldn’t need to be diverted from looking for other jobs.

And there were other teachers who (as I had intended to do) immersed themselves into doing the best possible job for their students. The dedicated ones, who possibly unlike me had the energy and inner creativity to be excellent, interesting teachers who could stay the course. Had they been paid more due to their excellence, I’m sure they would have taken it gladly. But I doubt that any of them would have tried any harder as a result, because they were already doing great work. For them, pay was an important but secondary driver.

The sort of creative, passionate and energetic teachers we want are motivated generally by their love of what they are doing.... And their main de-motivator is likely to be having to do more classroom policing as their class sizes increase. These people are the ones most likely to leave rather that sign up, because they have key personal skills that are suitable for other less stressful and more creative careers. http://imaybewrongbutnz.com/2012/05/17/teachers-prefer-smaller-classes
-to-greater-pay/

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That said - a lotta times it ain't even the money so much as problems of corruption, inefficiency and trying to patch a model so broken that just dumping money into it is muchlike trying to fill a sieve, add-more-money is more often than not as dysfunctional a solution as a bandaid on a bullet wound, and this isn't an issue which can be encapsulated in a few feelgood soundbites, neither.

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