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for 2006 Pennsylvania Primary Election Legislative Candidates
1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Pennsylvania's system of funding public education? What should the Pennsylvania Legislature do, if anything, to improve the system of funding public education? (75 words or less) The weakness is penalizing only the home owners for school funding. The school property tax should be eliminated and should be funded with either a wage tax or expanded sales tax. Also anyone who has children going to school should pay a yearly registration fee per child to help offset school funding. I also have two children in school. Our current funding system has home owners viewing the educators as the bad guys, which is not good for our education system. 2. How should the Pennsylvania Legislature assist school districts to meet the requirements of Pennsylvania's regulations for academic standards and graduation requirements as well as the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that expects every student to demonstrate proficiencies on state assessments in reading, math and science by 2014, and for all schools to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" (required by NCLB) toward that goal? (75 words or less) Stop the nepotism in teacher hirings and hire the most effective teachers. Get more parents envolved in the school and their childs education. Most teachers will agree that the parents that never show up at parent/teacher functions are more likely to have children that have problems in school. Limit the amount of children per class, the larger the class size the higher the percentage of grades drop. 3. How should the Pennsylvania Legislature assist school districts to close the academic achievement gaps that exist among groups of students in schools and school districts across the Commonwealth? (75 words or less) Groups of students that are doing poorly should be broken down into a small group to get more time and attention from a teacher. 4. What, if anything, should the Pennsylvania Legislature do to increase access for young children in Pennsylvania to high-quality pre-K programs and full-day kindergarten programs? (75 words or less) The preschool grading system was a good start, now they need to provide some funding for early education. Full day kindergarten should be mandatory, the earlier the education starts, the better the child performs thru out school. 5. What is your vision of the public education opportunity that should be available to every child in Pennsylvania and what will you do to accomplish that goal? (75 words or less) I feel every child should have the same opportunity to the highest quality education possible no matter what their financial status is or where they live. Some teachers are much more effective at getting the children to think and learn what they are teaching. We need to change our current hiring system. We need to make sure that schools are equally funded and the teachers have the materials they need. Class sizes need to have limits. 6. Is there anything else that you will do to strengthen Pennsylvania's public education system? (75 words or less) I think we need to look at the schools that have excelled in Pa. and use them as a model for our education system to see what works best. And we could use this information to better all of our schools. Set up regional school board and teacher committees to exchange views on what is working and what is not in other school districts.
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