By Gregg Behr
On the surface, Pennsylvania lawmakers don’t agree on much. The aisle that runs through Harrisburg can sometimes seem impossibly wide — a yawning gap that splits our state in two.
So it’s significant that Khalid Mumin, Pennsylvania’s acting education secretary, unearthed some common ground. After meeting with a majority of the state’s senators, Mumin noticed that nearly all of them agreed on one particular thing: “Education,” he explained during a March 29 hearing, “has to look different for our youth here in the commonwealth.”
Lawmakers aren’t alone. A recent report by the National Center for Education and the Economy warns that “Pennsylvania is spending large amounts of money for an education system that is not preparing students well for today, let alone tomorrow.” The problem, notes the report, “is not caused by our teachers, our students, or…