While giving a speech at the Republican National Convention, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush compared shopping for milk to parents choosing a school that "best meets the needs of their students."

Evan Vucci/AP Photo

Mitt Romney at campaign stop in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday.

Mitt Romney wants us to learn the lesson of Wisconsin, which is apparently that it's OK to defund teachers' unions and rob them of their collective bargaining rights. Check, and check. Maybe it's a good time, then, to talk about Romney's answer to teachers' unions: vouchers.

As his pro-voucher speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce suggests, Romney believes in a market-based approach to overhaul the country's education system. In essence, Romney's plan would give individual grants to K-12 students from a $25 billion federal fund, allowing parents to choose the best school for their child. "Parental choice will hold schools responsible for results," Romney said, confident marketplace dynamics will force institutions to either improve or die. Moreover, these vouchers will work on any type of school — public, private, charter, or online.

It's hard to doubt Romney's sincerity when he proposes a plan like this. The man seems to have implicit faith in the power and good sense of free market economics. Indeed, he was a key figure in the mid-20th century revolutions that injected meritocracies into the heart of corporate America.

Voucher programs remain very controversial in the education field. Critics argue there's not enough empirical data proving schools — more importantly, students — actually benefit from the competition. School districts that have experimented with vouchers have had mixed results. Romney cites the popular Washington D.C. voucher program, "The Opportunity Scholarship Program," as a model for the country.

Meanwhile opponents often cite the 20-year-old “Milwaukee Parental Choice Program," in which students using vouchers performed "similar or worse" than those in public schools, as a model for how the voucher system is flawed.

One main argument: since private schools have the ability to reject applicants, they will inevitably choose only the best students to improve their standing, their "public report cards," leaving slower students (and disabled students) behind. As a result, the schools could lose funding, further off-setting opportunities for all students.

This much is clear: Romney wants the federal government to quit micromanaging our nation's schools. He vowed to "expand parental choice in an unprecedented way" and "will hold schools responsible for results."

The mayor of Philadelphia isn't feeling much brotherly love for Mitt Romney. In fact, Michael Nutter told MSNBC's Martin Bashir on Thursday that when it comes to education, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee doesn't know squat.

“If you want to come to Philadelphia to talk about education, or if you want to talk about issues in a presidential campaign, then your record is going to be examined,” Nutter said on The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, which Bashir was guest-hosting.

“President Obama actually has a record," Nutter said. "Mitt Romney doesn’t. I’m not going to let him or his folks come into our town and dupe people into thinking that he actually knows something about education." 

Nutter’s remarks come as Romney made a trip to Universal Bluford, a charter school in Pennsylvania's largest city. During a roundtable discussion with school administrators and teachers, Romney declared that class sizes don't really matter all that much, saying his team had analyzed hundreds of communities in Massachusetts, where he was governor several years ago, and found no apparent link between class size and academic performance.

“The district with the smallest classrooms, Cambridge, had students performing in the bottom 10 percent,” Romney said. “So just getting smaller classrooms didn’t seem to be the key.”

Nutter decried that stance as bogus, since nearly all educators rank small class sizes as critical to the success of young students.

"Clearly [Romney] has gotten an 'F' on his first day out on the issue of education," said Nutter. 

Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

Mitt Romney taking part in the 6th grade language arts class during a tour of the Universal Bluford Charter School in Philadelphia on Thursday.

While pushing his newly announced education plan, Mitt Romney faced tough questions over classroom sizes during a campaign stop at a West Philadelphia charter school.

In a roundtable discussion with teachers and educational leaders, the likely Republican presidential nominee argued smaller classroom sizes do not lead to better learning in schools:

"I came into office and talked to people and said, 'What can we do to improve our schools?' And a number of folks said well we need smaller classroom sizes, that'll make the biggest difference. So I gathered information, across our state.  We had 351 cities and towns.  I said let's compare the average classroom size from each school district with the performance of our students. Because we test our kids and we'll see if there's a relationship. And there was not. As a matter of fact, the school district with the smallest classrooms, Cambridge, had students performing at the bottom 10 percent. So just getting smaller classrooms didn't seem to be the key."

Many educators at the event questioned Romney's research, including a music teacher who responded, "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. 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."

The study Romney cited was a report done by the McKinsey consulting firm, which examined education systems in foreign countries such as Singapore and South Korea, and found that the highest performing schools had the same class sizes in the United States. 

"So it's not the classroom size that's driving the success of those school systems," Romney concluded. But another teacher on the panel contested Romney's statements, citing a different report.

"There was a study done by the University of Tennessee, a definitive study about class size and what they said was that in first through third grade, if the class size is under 18 those kids stay ahead of everybody else all the way through school, including classes where you might have 25 in the class and co-teachers. Those students lose their gains after a couple years. If you have small classes in those primary years, those most important years, that’s what makes the difference."

Romney also had trouble outside the school, where Obama campaign aides organized a protest and press conference with Philadelphia's Democratic mayor, Michael Nutter. Mayor Nutter accused Romney of having "no record to run on" and that it'd be nice if he "seemed to know something about education." 

The candidate announced his education agenda to Latino small business owners in Washington yesterday. His proposal focuses on expanding school choice and holding teachers more accountable.

North Carolina's Wake County boasts one of the most diverse and successful school districts in the country. Now their conservative school board is changing that. The Last Word guest host Melissa Harris-Perry has details.

The issue of education in America and abroad is a reoccurring theme on this show. Along with UNICEF, last year Lawrence started the K.I.N.D. fund to deliver desks to school kids in Malawi. Just last week, Lawrence stood up for teachers who have been under attack by ring-wing extremists.

Now, deep spending cuts to education under the new debt deal have caught our attention at The Last Word and all of MSNBC. This poses a slew of challenges in our nation’s schools. Though, many strides are still being made. 

MSNBC plans to air a two-hour live special, A Stronger America: Making the Grade, to addresses these problems and solutions in today's education climate. Hosted by MSNBC’s Tamron Hall and co-hosted by MSNBC Contributor and TheGrio.com Correspondent Jeff Johnson, the show airs this Sunday, August 14 from noon to 2pm ET. Check out the show’s website more information on how you can take part in the in-depth discussion.

Because the debt ceiling debate almost created a black hole that would have destroyed everything everywhere ever dominated the news cycle all weekend, a certain event in Washington basically got no media coverage. Thousands of concerned parents, teachers, and activists held a rally and march near the White House called Save Our Schools.

The rally caught the attention of several leaders in the field of education. A spokesperson from Save Our Schools tells us that Jon Stewart sent the group a video to play at the rally. He couldn't be there personally because, according to the SOS March media relations boss, Stewart was in Afghanistan (USO Tour?).

But one Hollywood celebrity traveled all night taking two flights to be there... Matt Damon. Damon's mom is a teacher, and he gave a speech talking about what his public education has done for him. Lawrence will discuss all of this in depth in tonight's Rewrite.