The first thing everybody tells cub newspaper reporters when they parachute into town is to read Common Ground, Anthony Lukas’s 1985 Pulitzer Prize–winning book about the busing crisis in Boston. During a major education speech on Tuesday, when he spoke in favor of busing, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Mitt Romney didn’t say whether he had read Lukas’s book — but it certainly sounded as if he hadn’t.

Here’s the background. Last Sunday on WLVI’s Keller at Large, Romney gave a qualified statement in favor of busing. He also declared his support for integration-oriented busing as part of his education plan — thus unnecessarily delving into one of the most divisive local issues of the last quarter-century.

Romney’s comments on busing raised the question of what he thinks about the 1974 federal-court decision to bus African-American children from Boston’s predominantly black neighborhoods to attend school with white children in the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods. Now that he’s advocating busing to foster racial integration — a position that is opposed today even by most liberals, who prefer school integration on the basis of class, an experiment under way in Cambridge and Raleigh, North Carolina — might the candidate be willing to share his opinions on this tumultuous period of Boston’s history?

"Probably not," said Romney. "I’m not going to go back into the whole history of busing. I’m not going to try and argue with the courts in that regard." Asked point-blank whether he considers the experience of busing a good or bad thing for the city, Romney answered, "It is what it is," adding, "I have not done an analysis of what has been the impact of busing."

So why does he favor busing for racial integration if he can’t say whether or not it’s done any good? Romney’s answers suggest that he should spend more time on his education plan. At the least, his comments reflect basic ignorance of what remains a painful issue for many state voters.