Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

Enhancing Public Education

Steve understands that economic security and investing in education go hand in hand. With his background in teaching, education will always be a focus of his work. Investing in a strong and accessible education system that opens the door to opportunity for all students is the best way to move our country forward.

Studies show that pre-K is critical to the development and success of a child over time. If we are serious about providing our children with the brightest possible future, we need to invest in them early. At the other end of the spectrum, after high school, we have to make sure that college is accessible to all students because regardless of the economy statistics repeatedly show that the further someone goes in their educational career, the better they perform in their chosen careers, and improve their earning potential and quality of life.

That means we have to be able to make college affordable. The proposals by Hillary Clinton are a good starting point to have a real conversation about student debt and the factors that are truly driving the colleges' costs.

Pennsylvania ranks second in the entire country in student indebtedness. That is why Steve will fight for lower interest rates on student loans, refinancing for existing loans, and more grant opportunities. He understands every child having access to a world-class education is in the best interest of all of us.

As State Representative

Steve has a record of fighting to protect funding for public education. In his first term, he voted for two budgets that increased funding for basic and higher education while at the same reducing overall spending. As a result, education funding increased without the need for an increase in state income and sales taxes.

Steve understands that dealing with enhancing education will require partners. That is why he created a volunteer-based after-school program for middle school students in Pennsbury called "Z Period", which was funded by a grant from the United Way, which offers students who are not on sports teams after school activities.

Research Community

The researchers, faculty members and educators that make up our vibrant university and science communities play an important role in the health, technology, and education sectors of our economy. Therefore, they deserve fair labor practices just like any other workforce. Researchers should not be required to secure a majority of the funding for their own positions; it is an investment on the part of the research institution to have researchers doing critical work. Given the classroom teaching and mentoring roles that researchers fulfill, they should not have to seek more than a quarter of their salary from outside sources. This commitment by research institutions would free up funding from sources like the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other grant sources that could then be invested directly toward research rather than paying for overhead and salaries.

The NIH and NSF fund research that enrich our body of knowledge and improve our quality of life. The goal of research grants is to allow the research community to focus on their work but all too often, valuable time, effort, and dollars are wasted on overhead, administrative costs, and efforts to secure funding. By offering longer term, renewable grants (rather than the two year, non-renewable R03 grants), the research community can focus its efforts on continuing to innovate rather than worrying about the funding sources before projects are even complete.

In Congress, I hope to advocate for more grant funding and a smarter, more efficient system that better fits the needs of the research community.

Return on Investment

A major reason I am running for Congress is to be a part of the solution when it comes to growing our economy. I believe that both government and the private sector have a role to play, and I hope to be able to bring all parties to the table to figure out how we can work together to bring business and investment into our communities.

While I believe that our universities and our country need to prioritize research and innovation, I understand the need for a return on that investment. Our current system makes it difficult to see a return without a long-term horizon. By better streamlining the process for approval with the Federal Drug Administration and the Patent Office, the sooner the research community could realize profits; then investing in research would be more of an economic driver.

We need to come up with a system that is both safe and straightforward to allow new drugs and technologies to come to market. We also need fair patent terms so that researchers, research institutions, and their sponsors can recover the developmental costs by generating revenue from their work. Updating these systems will better allow us to compete in a 21st century global economy that is constantly expanding and innovating, and offer an incentive to the universities and private sector to invest more in critical research.

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