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Chester County, PA April 24, 2012 Election
Smart Voter

We must maintain strong public schools

By Eric S. Schott

Candidate for State Representative; Pennsylvania State House of Representatives; District 13; Democratic Party

This information is provided by the candidate
Pennsylvania needs to restore the state funding formula that provided historic levels of support for our schools and helped keep property taxes low.
It's the hope of every parent to provide their children with greater opportunity than they enjoyed. And it's a test that every generation has met by broadening access and support for a good-quality public education. My parents' generation, indeed my father-in-law, fought in World War II and returned home to attend college on the GI Bill in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s, we broke down racial barriers in public schools, and in the 1970s worked to improve education services for special needs students. Standards-based reforms in the 1980s and 90s helped raise academic expectations for all students.

Sadly, Pennsylvania is failing to keep this compact between generations. Our governor and state representative are presiding over historic cuts to the public schools that serve 90 percent of Pennsylvania's children, including more than $14 million to 13th District communities like Avon Grove, Coatesville, Octorara, and Oxford. School districts statewide are firing teachers; furloughing school nurses; increasing class size; and dismantling programs we took for granted.

These cuts must stop. My #1 priority in Harrisburg will be restoring support for public education by backing a return to Governor Rendell's school funding formula. This formula provided record support to fast-growing rural and suburban districts like Avon Grove and Oxford, and is key to controlling local property taxes in check. It also matters greatly for student achievement: between 2002 and 2010 we had a Governor and bi-partisan majorities in the State House and Senate that backed investments in early childhood education, tutoring programs, and instructional technology. The result was eight straight years of achievement gains in math and reading, with some of the greatest improvement right here in southern Chester County: Oxford, for example, placed 8th of 500 districts statewide in achievement gains.

The surest way to support public schools is to oppose Governor Corbett's plans for an unproven, unaccountable school voucher scheme that would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions. I'll also fight efforts to strip locally elected school boards of their authority to represent their constituents and set local education policy.

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