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How we can fix Pennsylvania’s broken education system

Are Pennsylvania schools underfunded? Before COVID-19, 52 percent of Pennsylvania voters thought so. Then, after voters learned the actual price tag, this number dropped by half. Three years later, a Franklin & Marshall College poll finds only 44 percent of respondents believe schools lack funding, revealing a subtle yet notable shift in public sentiment. As education spending balloons—soaring 55.7 percent in the last decade — Pennsylvanians are increasingly skeptical of demands for more education funding. New data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education shows statewide ...

As voters weigh frontrunners — what’s wrong with the old guys?

A lot of the debate in the political arena today is about the old guys who either are president or want to be president. If I hear one more time that our next president is likely to be either Biden or Trump, and that their chief “deficiency” is their age, well I just may do something desperate. While I am not as old as either one of those characters, just what is wrong with old age other than medical infirmities and being sent off on an iceberg by our kids? My mother made it past 102 and if you sat down and talked with her at any time during her life, she bragged not about her ...

State eliminates Medicaid backlog

Every Pennsylvanian deserves access to high-quality, affordable, local health care, and the dignity and peace of mind of knowing they can get care when they need it. The Commonwealth has no shortage of health care professionals who want to provide care through the Medicaid program, which serves more than 3.6 million Pennsylvanians, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities. However, until recently, long wait times to be approved by the state were often a barrier for providers who wanted to offer services through Medicaid. This backlog had real consequences: not only ...

The public health emergency is over — now what?

As announced in March, the United States ended the COVID-19 public health emergency on May 11th. The World Health Organization declared its public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) over on May 5th. “The end to the PHEIC, to be clear, isn’t a declaration that COVID is over—or even that the pandemic is. Both a PHEIC and a pandemic tend to involve the rapid and international spread of a dangerous disease, and the two typically do go hand in hand. But no set-in-stone rules delineate when either starts or ends.” K. J. Wu, PhD (The Atlantic, May 5.) In this “new ...

Sexism wrong from either side

Here we go again. A strong, prominent woman in the political arena comes under attack for being too strong, too ambitious, having too big a role in her spouse’s campaign. Sound familiar? Painfully so. Sexist? No question. Only this time, the target is not Hillary Clinton, although the treatment is the same. This time, the target is not a self-described feminist, but the wife of a hardcore right winger, Casey DeSantis. It doesn’t matter. Sexism comes in many colors, red as well as blue. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is married to a former television anchor and breast cancer ...

Treatment courts a powerful tool

For three decades, there has been a growing movement to transform the way the justice system responds to substance use and mental health disorders. Rather than continuing the revolving door of addiction and related crime, treatment courts break the cycle by holding individuals accountable while connecting them with the treatment and support needed to change their lives. This approach is no longer an experiment; more than 4,000 treatment courts across the nation have proven to be the most successful justice intervention in our nation’s history. May is National Treatment Court Month and ...