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School choice: Don't choose to rob even more money from education

Posted: Monday, February 6, 2012 6:00 am | Updated: 6:46 pm, Fri Feb 3, 2012.

By JANE K. CURRY | 3 comments

Gov. Tom Corbett and the Legislature have a legal obligation to support public schools. They should focus on what they are already obligated to do, restore the funding they have removed, and refrain from making drastic changes that will inevitably impact negatively on Pennsylvania’s public school system.

Public schools in Pennsylvania are doing very well. According to a wide variety of research studies, Pennsylvania’s public schools are among the best in the nation. For example, performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows only four states with statistically significant higher fourth-grade reading scores than Pennsylvania. Only seven states have statistically significant higher eighth-grade reading scores. In math, only three states have statistically significant higher fourth-grade scores. Only 11 states have statistically significant higher eighth-grade math scores.

Pennsylvania is among the top 11 states in the percentage of public high school students who score well enough on AP exams to qualify for college credit when taking the exam. Pennsylvania public high school students taking and testing in an AP course