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Senator
Charles Copeland
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I plan to continue
to focus on the three issues on which I first ran:
1) control government
spending (we spend 40% more per person inflation
adjusted than we did 12 years ago -- Are our Government
services 40% better? Health and Social Services?
Education? Crime Rate?);
2) improve/increase
education opportunity and choice (school accountability
has stagnated, three-tiered diploma's are a dismal idea,
protect our charter schools from bureaucracy); and |
3) improve our quality of life
(finish the review of the Cherry Island Landfill and work
towards an appropriate recycling program).
Representative Joseph Di Pinto
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Here are my
priorities, not necessarily in order of importance:
1) To
provide a balanced operating budget, characterized by an
acceptable level of growth and a continuing improvement
in the level and quality of delivered services.
2) To
achieve a meaningful reduction in the rate and level of
the gross receipts tax, which is the state's 'hidden
sales tax'. |
3) To enunciate a
firm State commitment to provide a full array of high quality
services, in the least restrictive environment, for ALL mentally
and physically disabled citizens by a date certain (perhaps
2008) and to continue to make progress in achieving that goal.
4) To eliminate the
three-tier diploma system.
5) To readjust the
student accountability system, so that the standardized tests
are used as only one of many performance measures- and therefore
will no longer be regarded as high stakes tests.
6) To complete the
transition to scientifically-based methods to teach reading at
all grade levels.
7) To
comprehensively study approaches to early childhood education so
that we can promulgate public policy which offers the most
effective platform for learning. This study must be based on
solid verifiable data -- including cost -- to justify and
support the new and ongoing investment.
8) To resolve the
staffing and compensation issues within the corrections system. |
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