Education

By Tim Briggs

We need to target expenditures towards specific goals aimed to maximize student achievement, create the best possible learning environments for students, and build and maintain a strong, successful staff of teachers and education professionals. Tim received the Early Childhood Education Champion Award from the Montgomery County Childcare Consortium for his strong support of early childhood care and education, which helps children, students, families, and the commonwealth; Tim supports the use of accurate metrics to promote more effective student assessment, class sizes, and instructional time; and supports quality programs for teacher training, mentoring, evaluation, and continuing development.

Investments in education benefit everyone - Pennsylvania's early childhood and pre-K programs have been tremendously successful. Children entering kindergarten from early childhood programs are well prepared. This benefits those children, and it benefits all children: a classroom full of equally prepared students means a better, more educational, more enriching experience for everyone. The cost savings and benefits start immediately, but they continue for a lifetime: these children have higher graduation rates, and they are more likely to go to college and get better jobs; they are less likely to drop out of school, engage in criminal activity, and rely upon the state's resources. But our programs only reach 38% of eligible children. We must expand our early childhood programs and make them available to all eligible children across the commonwealth.