Issues

Protecting The Family Budget

In this economy, families are struggling to make ends meet.  Even with all the efforts by PPS administrators to reduce the deficit, my opponent has not ruled out raising taxes to pay for unwarranted initiatives.   We must reduce the tax burden on working families so they can afford college for their children, a mortgage on a home and providing the basics of food, clothing, and shelter.  As your representative, I pledge to work within a balanced budget and watch the spending like a hawk to avoid raising taxes.

Saving Our Schools

   

Public Schools face more challenges today than ever before.  Since the enactment of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) has closed more schools and lost more students to Charter Schools as a result of low student achievement.  And yet, the budget for PPS has ballooned by over $40M in the last five years that it placed the District in an operating deficit of more than $65 M.

Directives approved by the current Board President to close more schools, furlough teachers, and cut good programs are PPS most recent efforts to reduce the deficit.  This approach will only adversely effect student achievement by further shuffling of students, mushrooming the number of students to teacher, and offering fewer course options and after school programs that engage students.  Unfortunately, plans to deflate managerial bloat have not been adequately addressed.  As a result, there are still more administrators to students than there are teachers to students.  I believe that taxpayers’ monies need to go to the classroom where it will impact student learning the most.

More over, we may lose even more students to parochial and private schools with the advent of vouchers.  We cannot afford to stay the course, as my opponent wants.  If we are to attract families back to our schools, then we need to accomplish two things:  establish safe learning environments and improve the quality of our students’ education.  As your representative, I pledge to collaboratively work with the other board members to resolve the issues.