The new commissioners are dedicated public servants who have shown commitment to results for students and families rather than any one particular ideology, and reflect the governor’s emphasis on ideas and leadership over partisan credentials. Each has made a weighty commitment to the enormous challenge facing our schools and our city, joining those already made by Feather Houstoun, Sylvia Simms, and Wendell Pritchett. We applaud all five for their willingness to serve and look forward to their joint leadership.

We also welcome the governor’s proposals to invest in education, especially early learning, through additional K-12 and pre-K funding in the next state budget, and his call for a bipartisan solution to the pension problem that looms large for schools all across the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania’s ability to invest in its future has to be rooted in reform of the unsustainable if well-intended practices of the past. The task that lies ahead for Bill Green, Farah Jimenez and the entire SRC is essentially the same.