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Senator Lloyd Smucker When someone reaches for the quote book for inspiration, Lincoln, Franklin, Truman, Reagan, and Martin Luther King Jr. are popular choices. But for this group, an unlikely source – Calvin Coolidge – hit the right note, when he said: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.” Not talent. Not genius. Not education. For Cal, persistence was what today we call the game-changer. The remarkable persistence of Good Schools PA has been a game-changer, for the education debate, for education policy, and most important, for education funding. You all know how hard it has been to secure a new funding formula for basic education, along with the commitment of additional state money, in the high hope that academic results will match good intentions. Nevertheless, the toughest test is soon to come – where to find additional funding this year and next, what with state revenues still slumping, federal stimulus monies scheduled to dry up, and substantial pension obligations rolling in like a tsunami. Given last year’s notoriously extended budget debacle, you probably have a better shot at predicting the nation-by-nation medal totals in the Winter Olympics than when and how the next state budget gets done. And if anyone needed therapy to recover from that ghastly exercise, I apologize for bringing back the unpleasant memory. The expectation is that Governor Rendell, in his last state budget, will want one more legacy increase in education funding. There is exceedingly little enthusiasm – among legislators or among taxpayers – for a general tax increase. So where the money will come from is a mystery. If all those who oppose higher taxes are written off as being anti-education, we will miss chances for constructive cooperation of the policy side of the education equation. In the current budget, funding for a variety of purposes was stripped to help support a healthy increase for schools. For those who are convinced that education should have first call on every dollar, that is not a problem. But that approach can only be used a couple of times before you run out of things to strip. Meanwhile, there is still a high-cost, high-degree-of-difficulty area of concentration where a formula that never made real sense has not been adjusted – that, of course, is special education. A true fix there will mean more money for some and less for others, which runs contrary to the hold-harmless traditions in education funding. How to carry that off politically in these desperate-for-dollars times is another mystery. Sherlock Holmes is back in vogue, but even he and Dr. Watson might have difficulty solving this one. This set of problems creates difficulties for school districts across the board, but the circumstances are much tougher on a district such as Lancaster. There is expectation of, and pressure for, huge jumps in student performance, all while the district is stuck wearing a fresh financial straitjacket. Especially in urban districts, the emphasis on test scores obscures what is happening in respect to other critical measures – curbing the dropout rate, strengthening school safety, boosting graduation rates. Improvements there are as instrumental to student success as are test scores. Some of these troubles stir calls for a takeover of school management, under the heading of empowerment. I am not in the least inclined to give control of our schools over to someone up in Harrisburg. No two districts are identical, so a single set of solutions will not work equally well in disparate districts. We should shape our own course here, and I will be involved in the effort. We understand and appreciate the enormity of the challenges confronted in modern education. But we also rightfully acknowledge and recognize the quality leadership and extra effort evident many places in the district. Plus the extremely important role advocacy groups, the persistent ones most of all, play in the pursuit of education improvement and excellence.
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