When the Commonwealth Court ruled that public education in Pennsylvania was unconstitutionally underfunded, they did not simply state that our schools were lacking the funding they were due, but they understood that our schools were not meeting the academic outcomes that we should all expect.
 
Pennsylvania must ensure that our students are learning fundamental reading and mathematics skills that will carry them through life and offer them access to family sustaining employment and community benefit. For a few too many students, our education system does not reflect that expectation. Proficiency certainly takes time and student-specific challenges can manifest themselves in delayed mastery, but just last year less than 33% of Black and Hispanic students were reading on or ahead of grade level in 3rd thru 8th grade in PA with nearly 25% of our Black and Hispanic students performing well below grade level. Less than 20% of Black and Hispanic students were on or ahead of grade level in mathematics with 55% of students performing well below grade level. Graduation targets are too late. Mandated and funded interventions are helpful but are inadequate when setting performance expectations.
 
It is for this reason that I will be introducing legislation to ensure that our children are not placed in a grade-level that is too far ahead of their reading and math proficiency. Currently, 17 states have laws in place that require students to be retained if their reading and math standardized test scores do not show that they have reached an expected level of proficiency. When there is a clear policy on minimum reading and math proficiency needed to be promoted, we can ensure that our children are not simply passed along into the next grade when they are not ready.
 
We must fund our school because they must ensure that our students are obtaining the very foundational skills they need when they need to learn them. Please join me in raising this expectation.