VIDEO: 'Romney Doesn't Work With Anybody'

Joan Menard did not mince words when recalling Mitt Romney's approach to education spending during his tenure as governor.

"Education was consistently cut, and cut, and cut, and cut in his budgets," said Menard," a longtime senator who served as Massachusetts Senate Majority Whip under Romney.

She said Romney slashed education spending across the board, cutting 14,000 civil servant jobs, including teachers, and who consistently believes smaller class size has no bearing on how students perform.

Massachusetts' education system is still struggling to recover from the Romney years, Menard said.

"And the plan Mitt Romney is proposing today would make our public schools suffer over and over and over again," Menard said.

Menard, who now serves as Vice President of Bristol Community College in Fall River, Mass., spoke to a small gathering of students and Obama supporters during a roundtable discussion on education held July 13 at Nashua Community College.

She said Romney did not "work with anybody," while governor.

"In six years he probably said three words to me," Menard said. "And there was no working with the legislature."

Joining Menard was State Sen. Lou D'Allesandro, D-Manchester, a retired teacher and past President of Daniel Webster College, Melanie Levesque, of the Community College System of New Hampshire, and Nashua Community College student Emily Poe.

This stop in Nashua was one of two Friday, part of the New Hampshire Obama campaign's “Out-Educate” initiative, which is focused on talking with voters about the importance of investing in education, from kindergarten through college.

According to information provided by Obama for America organizers, under Romney, fees for Massachusetts community colleges rose 33 percent [Massachusetts Higher Education, Avg. Costs For Full-Time Resident Undergraduate 1998-2008, Accessed 4/27/12] and community colleges cost 59 percent more than the national average. [MassINC, Paying for College, Executive Summary, April 2006].