Rendell assails proposed school-voucher plan
January 12, 2011|By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer
Gov. Rendell urged his successor Tuesday to not cut education spending in the state's next budget, and came out against a proposed voucher program that would help low-income students from low-performing schools attend either private schools or public schools in other districts.
After touting Pennsylvania's top-10 national ranking in a report released Tuesday by Education Week, Rendell said at a news conference that there were "going to have to be [state budget] cuts next year, and those cuts are going to be painful."
Rendell - who made a point of increasing the state's funding of basic education in each of his eight years as governor - conceded that the state's multibillion-dollar budget gap makes that impossible