Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

Pat and his wife Tina are the parents of four children who have or are attending Connellsville Area School District. His father, Jim, was a longtime teacher. He understands and supports the need for a quality education for all the children across the Commonwealth.

In Harrisburg Pat has voted for record funding for education and ensured that more of that money will go to the classroom by leading the fight to reform Pennsylvania's unsustainable pension system. He supported instituting a fair funding formula which benefited local school districts.

Pat is fighting to increase transparency so that taxpayers have more of a say in how their money is being used by instituting public comment periods on contracts for administrators and collective bargaining agreements (SB592 & SB 168). He introduced a ban on ghost teachers, a practice where teachers leave the class room to work for the union. This practice costs the state money in the form of the pension and hurts our students(SB494).

Finally, Pat has fought against the proliferation of standardized testing in our schools believing that those decisions are best made at the local level, not dictated from Harrisburg and Washington DC. He has cosponsored legislation to delay the Keystone Exams and reduce the amount of time used for standardized testing in our schools.

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