A group of four parents and school employees kicked off a hunger strike on the steps of the governor’s office on Monday to protest Philadelphia’s recent decision to close dozens of underutilized schools and lay off some 19 percent of the workforce, including “all 127 assistant principals, 646 teachers and more than 1,200 aides.” The protesters say they will fast “until the cash-strapped Philadelphia district gets enough city and state funding to hire back” the aides.

The reductions come after Gov. Tom Corbett (R) and the legislature slashed the K-12 education budget by 12 percent, or $961 million. The district is currently operating under a $304 million budget deficit and the superintendent is asking teachers to accept salary cuts of between 5 and 13 percent.

“I care about my daughter and grandson,” hunger striker and parent Earlene Bly in a statement first reported by MSNBC. “I am making this sacrifice to make sure they have safe schools. I am fasting to show my family and the city how serious this situation is.” The union Unite Here Local 634, which represents school food aides in Philadelphia, is coordinating with the hunger strikers.

Parents and school officials fear that low-income, special needs and bilingual students who rely heavily on school counsels will suffer most from the cuts. The Philadelphia Coalition Advocating for Public Schools filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in October alleging that the schools closed by the district in 2012 also had “a higher population of minority students than the district average.”

Philadelphia has experienced a decrease in public school enrollment in recent years, as students are increasingly attending private charter schools. In the 2011-2012 school year, “the proportion of students attending charter schools jumped to 23 percent,” up from from 12 percent in 2004-2005.

Ann Romney told Good Housekeeping magazine that the campaign issue closest to her heart is taking on teachers unions and dismantling public education as we know it. In an interview, she told the publication:

I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.

This attack on public school teachers echoes one that has been frequently heard in her husband’s stump speeches and debates. In his Friday economic speech, he said “It matters for the child in a failing school, unable to go to the school of his parent’s choosing, because the teacher’s union that funds the President’s campaign opposes school choice.”

Both Romneys have it wrong. President Obama has also consistently supported charter schools as a supplement to traditional schools. In May, he declared in his “Charter School Week” proclamation, “charter schools serve as incubators of innovation in neighborhoods across our country.” Obama has opposed, however, proposals to take taxpayer money out of public schools and to fund private and parochial schools that do not have to achieve the same standards. Romney has embraced a risky school voucher scheme. Studies have also shown that charter schools may not necessarily improve children’s education.

Unlike Mitt Romney, President Obama’s campaign has not taken a single contribution from political action committees — teachers’ unions or otherwise. The National Education Association’s super PAC, NEA Advocacy Fund, has not made a single expenditure on the presidential race. While some individuals employed by the union have donated to the Obama campaign out of their personal funds, those contributions amount to less than one 1/100th of a percent of his total contributions.

Mitt Romney has made the questionable boast that as governor of Massachusetts, he made the state’s public schools number one in the nation. Those schools — with great union teachers — show that standards and certification are part of the solution, not the problem.

One of the major initiatives of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has been pushing for is the expansion of for-profit and privately managed schools in K-12 education. As part of this push, Christie has been championing a school voucher expansion that would cost the state $825 million to funnel tax dollars to private schools, while at the same time slashing spending for public education, cutting $820 million last year alone.

Last week, Christie announced a new “public-private school pilot program” which would allow “local school boards [to] hand control of some so-called ‘transformation schools’ to education management organizations, possibly including for-profit firms.” Christie designed the new program with Acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf, the “former president of the world’s largest for-profit operator of public schools, Edison Schools Inc.”

The New Jersey Star-Ledger notes that Christie actually has a very strong financial tie to Cerf’s for-profit company. The private law firm at which Christie worked as a lobbyist between 1999 and 2001 actually lobbied New Jersey’s government on behalf of Edison Schools:

From 1999 to 2001, Christie was a registered lobbyist at a law firm that lobbied New Jersey government on behalf of Edison Schools, according to filings with the state Election Law Enforcement Commission. While the firm was representing the multinational education company, Chris Cerf was its general counsel.

The firm, Dughi, Hewit and Palatucci, also represented Mosaica Education, a for-profit charter school operator, and the University of Phoenix, a for-profit online university. At the time, the firm listed two lobbyists, Christie and William Palatucci, a longtime political ally of the governor who is a named partner in the firm.

“Many people support their public schools and they are reacting with anger to the idea they should be privatized,” said state Sen. Dick Codey (D), in response to Christie’s proposed education policies. (HT: BlueJersey)