PARSS Newsletter
February 1999

The Secretaries' Principles

In an unusual show of agreement across the years.Each living former Secretary of Education and Acting Secretary of Education since 1972 has agreed to a set of principles for school funding and student opportunity. These SECRETARIES’ PRINCIPLES will be officially unveiled at a news conference at the end of January, 1999. The stimulus for these agreements was the Campaign for Public Education, a grassroots movement to create equity in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.The Campaign in includes both educational and non-educational organizations. PARSS has worked closely with the Campaign in organizing the press conference and with the development of the SECRETARIES’ PRINCIPLES:

• The Commonwealth is responsible for assuring and funding a system which provides quality public education to all children in the Commonwealth.
• The Commonwealth must provide the substantial majority of funding for public education and replace the educational system’s reliance on local property taxes as the dominant source of educational funding.
• The Commonwealth should budget for success in public education by closing the resource gap between and among school districts. The Commonwealth should ensure that all Pennsylvania students have equal access to a quality of education regardless of where they live.
• The Commonwealth should invest in school achievement efforts that are effective in improving student achievement and have the support of parents, educators and communities.

The following former Secretaries of Education and Acting Secretaries of Education have submitted statements in support of these principles.
 

PENNSYLVANIA’S FORMER SECRETARIES OF EDUCATION

 
PENNSYLVANIA’S FORMER ACTING SECRETARIES OF EDUCATION