INVESTING IN OUR CHILDREN AND YOUTH

By Michael K. Ellis

If we do not invest far more in the education of our youth and do so wisely, our urban areas will become vast wastelands of poverty, unemployment and blight and the United States will suffer a competitive disadvantage with other countries that invest in education. The task is large and involves a quantum leap in the improvement of our elementary and secondary educational system, but with your help, we can do it! Here is how:

As your State Representative, I will introduce legislation that will provide scholarship assistance to students with a 3.0 or higher grade point average that would pay their tuition to a state-owned university and would give them the same amounts to attend a state-related institution, a private institution, a community college or vocational-technical school based upon the average cost of a state-owned university. I would fund this program with excess table games profits taxes at Pennsylvania casinos and by allowing small games of chance in local bars and with income from the Marcellus Shale natural gas project.

The Commonwealth must meet its funding obligations to our community colleges so that increased funding and tuition assistance programs makes re-training and education accessible and affordable for all. To date, it has not done so. We must provide scholarships for our state system of higher education so that every student with a B average is eligible.

Every child must reach high school graduation and be prepared for higher education or have a needed vocational skill. This effort must begin with early childhood education programs. In K-12 classrooms, we must teach our students 21st century skills such as computer applications use, but we must do so much more at all levels to teach our students to think through difficult problems and to develop critical literacy skills. Students must learn to tackle complex problems in all disciplines where solutions often involve good and bad consequences.

In the real world of the 21st century, computers can provide the facts. We need graduates trained to think through the possible responses and make informed decisions. They must learn to use the power of the Internet and innovations like the I-Pad to perform research in virtual libraries, to gather facts, to understand and to develop a love of learning. They will learn how to analyze, to imagine, to create, transform, test and use this information to influence the very future of the world around them as well to become full participants in the global community.

It is no longer adequate to base the success of any educational system on the ability of students to parrot back statistics and facts that can be found online. Our teachers must receive professional development programs that enable them to teach students to think and view problems from different perspectives. Teachers must be paid more to accomplish a much more challenging job, and we must demand more of them. We need many of the best and brightest to consider teaching as a career and not avoid teaching for the income and challenges of Wall Street.

The standardized testing of No Child Left Behind gives us a false sense of security that our children are making adequate yearly progress. In fact, our children are actually falling farther behind those of other countries that are taught the habit of critical thinking and critical literacy skills from the earliest years. They are required to demonstrate such skills in order to advance to the next grade level. An interesting, interactive and challenging classroom environment will reduce the drop-out rate enormously. This kind of transformative education will inspire and motivate students to seek careers that meet the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.

I have read and agree with the 2007 Costing Out Study by Augenblick and Associates that determined that Philadelphia's public schools are underfunded by 30%. This study does not simply compare dollars spent in one district with another, but also looks at the unique needs of the students in each district. Philadelphia should be spending more than $14,500 per child; instead, it spends slightly more than $11,000. This is the amount necessary for Philadelphia to provide its students with an educational opportunity equal to other school districts. I will fight to see that the state provides 30% more funding to Philadelphia's public and charter schools.

To fund this massive transformation and overhaul of our educational system will require significant funding. In my section on taxation, I discussed how $1.34 billion in new revenue could be raised, and that does not count the enormous income potential of the Marcellus Sale project. Failure is not an option. If our educational system fails our students, they will fail us in the future when we need them most.