On Education
Tom with students from HMS.
A Student, Teacher and Parent Bill of Rights
The average student in our public schools is spending 1 out of every 8 days in school either preparing for or taking a standardized test. One out of every eight days where our kids are not being exposed to new things. "No Child Left Behind" mandates that we test our kids to such a degree. We need an educator in Harrisburg that understands the impact of slogans on policy. In the Legislature we must emphasize teaching not just testing. Tax payers have rights in our educational system, but most importantly our kids have rights as well. Teachers too often must teach to the test and parents must watch their kids jump through the hoops of standardized testing as they miss out on learning. Our kids have a right to the best education we can provide and we will work to put quality education ahead of treating kids as numbers; work to ensure that we do not put test scores ahead of a genuine education for each of our kids. Let's truly leave no child behind and spend our time teaching every student.
I recently had a conversation with Barbara Shaiman – founder of Champions of Caring. They provide educational programs to encourage community service, character education and to promote diversity. The Radnor School District has been working with them and their programs would work well in the Springfield School District and Marple Newtown School District. I have done work for the last several years about the effects of bullying on kids and in today's fast-paced world we need to provide our kids with more opportunities to reach out to their community and respect and appreciate the things that make us all different. I encourage you to take a look at their web site and look forward to working with them to bring State resources back to our schools in support of their programs and others like them.
Education is my profession – I've taught at every level from elementary school to graduate school. I can bring a "real world" perspective to education policy. In Harrisburg I will
- Work to expand access to full-day kindergarten to all students in Delaware County and and throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The most effective educational reform is early childhood education.
- Push to increase the state share of education funding. Currently the Marple-Newton School District receives only 8% of its funding from the state. This share needs to be increased to lessen the burden on local property owners and to equalize the quality of our schools. The quality of a child's education should not be dependent on the affluence of the local tax payers.
Tom with a student.
- Walk away from one-size-fits-all solutions like raw test scores, and towards programs like the "growth model:" rewarding schools not just for the score a student receives on a given test, but also for the progress each individual student makes in a given school year.
- Further explore alternative high schools. Our schools need to change and adapt with the times to meet the needs of students who live in a different world. The most damaging decision a student can make is to leave school: it is imperative that we do a better job of keeping students in school.
- Create a new mentoring system for new teachers. Most teachers leave the profession within 5 years. We need to attract, train and keep quality teachers for our kids. New teachers need support and training to keep them on the job and ensure that they have the skills they need to teach our kids.