By Reed Hennessy
Sports Editor

Currently, there are four Democratic Party nominees up for the May 20 primary, the winner of which will face off against incumbent Tom Corbett. Who, as one of the most vulnerable Republican Governors in the country, is unlikely to be re-elected after his approval ratings took a major drop. Some of the issues causing this drop are his cuts to public education, privatization of the Pennsylvania Lottery, and dealings with natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

One Democratic candidate in particular hopes to undo the damage done to the public education system in Pennsylvania by Tom Corbett. “It is unacceptable that Gov. Corbett has cut nearly $1 billion in funding for our public schools,” Democratic candidate Allyson Schwartz said. “As the mother of two sons who graduated from Pennsylvania public schools, I know personally how important good schools are to the future of young people across the state, to families, and to economic growth.”

Running against her in the primary are Tom Wolf, Rob McCord, and Kathleen McGinty, however out of the four Democratic candidates the most qualified is Allyson Schwartz. First assuming public office in 1991 as a member of the Pennsylvania State Senate for the fourth district and serving in that position until 2005, Scwartz ran for and won a seat in the U.S House of Representatives from District 13 in 2004.

During her time in the House Schwartz served on the Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Foreign Affairs, and was the Vice-Ranking member on the Committee on the Budget. In short, Allyson Schwartz is an experienced politician and a great public servant who knows how to get things done.

If elected, public education will be one of her first problems to tackle. “First, teachers cannot educate if their classrooms are overcrowded or if they lack the resources to be effective,” Schwartz said. “Second, we cannot penalize entire schools for the low test scores of a few outliers, particularly when including students who have different needs…”

In an attempt to recover the major blow to his approval ratings Corbett has proposed a new budget plan called “Ready to Learn”, which calls for $387 million in increased public education funding. However, this amount is not nearly high enough to recover the amount lost by public education institutions. The plan has also received criticism due to the fact that schools with higher Standard Performance Profiles (SSP) will have more leeway with spending the money.

Schools with higher SSP scores tend to be in wealthier areas, for example the Philadelphia School District will receive $29 million, but with a low SSP score of 57.5 they will only be able to spend the money on pre-determined initiative programs. “Corbett’s new budget proposal simply does not give our schools what they need to succeed,” Schwartz said.

Overall Corbett has failed when it comes to properly funding and maintaining a proper public education system in Pennsylvania. The Neshaminy School District has felt the effects of Corbett’s massive cuts and the Philadelphia School District is getting worse every day.

“As Governor, I will reverse the harm Corbett has inflicted on our schools and immediately start investing again in students’ futures with proper funding for public education,” Schwartz said.

It is truly time for a change; Corbett’s unsuccessful policies have led him to be one of the least successful governors in the nation. Allyson Schwartz is the governor that Pennsylvania deserves, and the governor that Pennsylvania needs.