Letters: A lesson failed: Schools funding counts

AT A NEWS conference on Friday, state Education Secretary Ron Tomalis released the results of the 2011-12 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). The PSSA tests measure a student's achievement of certain academic standards and determine if school programs are adequate enough to enable students to attain proficiency of these standards. Every student attending a public school in Pennsylvania is required to take the test.

The results should be disappointing for every Pennsylvania citizen. The announcement that student test scores declined on the PSSA exams marks a sharp turnaround for our state. These results illustrate an undeniable truth: adequate funding matters.

Gov. Corbett's education budgets have dramatically reduced support, cutting basic education aid by nearly $900 million during the past two years. These cuts have had an immediate negative impact on student performance.

Throughout the previous administration, significant new education investments were made in proven strategies to improve student performance and reduce learning gaps among poor and minority students. These investments produced dramatic results, making Pennsylvania a national leader in education progress. By 2011, Pennsylvania was one of only eight states in the nation where test scores rose in every subject and every grade level. Now, following staggering budget cuts, our scores have gone down.

At the news conference, Secretary Tomalis discussed his investigation into the issue of cheating on the PSSA tests. The investigation indicated that cheating was a result of test administrators making wholesale changes on the tests prior to turning the tests in for grading. This is unacceptable, and we applaud Tomalis for his intense efforts to root out bad test results and bad test administrators.

But it should be noted, as Tomalis acknowledged, that continuing investigations into alleged improprieties involve only six of 500 school districts and three charter schools. The secretary admitted that scores declined even when removing all test-score results from the statewide totals where cheating is alleged to have occurred.

In a survey of school districts released in May, the effects of the Corbett administration's budget cuts have been significant. Most districts have been forced to increase class sizes, tutoring programs have been reduced or eliminated, summer-school programs have been curtailed and early-learning initiatives have been scaled back. It would have been highly improbable for student learning and achievement to not be impacted.

In the end, we must acknowledge at least two things: money matters, and investments in proven education concepts that work must be the foundation of our education policy. As adults and policymakers, let's not cheat our children out of the high-quality academic experience that they deserve and that the broader society must have.

Pa. Sen. Vincent J. Hughes

7th District

47 percent and zero

So, in addition to Romney finally outing himself as an elitist, divisive snob who'd willingly turn his back on half the country if elected president, he also showed that he's a flaming moron as well. If he wasn't aware that the 47 percent of people who'd vote for Obama includes seniors, disabled vets and uber-rich folks cooking the books to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, then he's got zero business running this country.

Jeffrey C. Branch

Philadelphia

Rotten to the corps

What were the Republicans thinking when they blocked a bill that would have put thousands of veterans to work as police officers, firefighters and to work in a veteran's job corps, based on the civilian conservation corps during the Great Depression? It was all right for our young men and women to serve in the military and to risk their lives and to be severely incapacitated from the ravages of war, but to be denied jobs after they return from battle - this is a disgrace!

They say that it will add to the deficit, but I'm quite sure that they could review the current budget and find ways to cover the cost of this program by cutting some of the fat out of it.

Show some respect and appreciation to these brave men and women for the sacrifices they made. How many of these reps have family members who serve or served in the military? What a joke.

Paul D. Kelly, Sr.

Philadelphia

Doing their unfair chair

I was upset and saddened by the recent image I saw in an online publication of an empty chair hanging in a tree, festooned with an American flag. This had been placed in his yard by a homeowner in an upscale Texas suburban neighborhood.

This hateful display refers, of course, to President Obama's chair (as imagined by Clint Eastwood at the RNC) and maybe unwittingly to the South's sad history of racial lynchings. This kind of thing is helped along by the conservatives' daily drumbeat of anger and hostility toward the president, and exemplified by the tired, predictable statements of people such as Michele Malkin, Rush Limbaugh and others.

Honest, strong debate about the issues of the day is one thing, but this is something entirely different, and very disturbing.

Geoffrey McClain

Moorestown, N.J.