What makes a community great? As an elected member of Cranberry Township’s board of supervisors, it’s a question I face all the time. Residents tell me they want to make sure Cranberry remains a place where employers want to locate and where people want to raise their families.

There are several secret ingredients in a great place. One of the most important is public education. A community’s schools, along with the job readiness of its workforce, are huge factors in determining where businesses choose to locate. Great schools and great jobs are closely connected. Evidence of this connection played out again with the recent announcement of PPG Coatings joining numerous other companies in choosing to locate operations in Cranberry.

Good schools and good jobs intertwine. An investment in a strong 21st century educational system is an investment in communities and our economy. Statewide, if we are interested in being an attractive option for businesses across the globe, we need to be competitive. A large piece of that is a strong public school system that is attractive to students, families and employers.

A critical step in creating a strong public school system is the creation of a full and fair funding formula for schools across Pennsylvania. One of just three states currently without a fair funding formula, Pennsylvania recently ranked 45th nationally in regards to support from the state level. In order to create a statewide system of high-quality schools, we must support a funding formula that allocates basic education dollars based on the student enrollment of a school district as well as the needs of its students.

Pennsylvania has taken some positive first steps to start a much-needed statewide discussion on a fair and equitable funding formula for basic education spending. Just this summer, the state created a Basic Education Funding Commission, which was tasked with recommending improved ways of distributing funding. While this is a good start and I am supportive of the concept, the state must also look at how it will sufficiently fund school districts such that it follows through on its constitutional responsibility of providing a “thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the commonwealth.” Adequate funding is equally as crucial a piece to this puzzle as fair funding.

A 2007 costing-out study commissioned by the Pennsylvania General Assembly stated that 475 school districts were operating with insufficient resources; only 25 districts were deemed to have enough funds to properly provide an adequate education. We can and we must do better.

Pennsylvania needs to commit to providing public school students with at least the basic education needed to meet Pennsylvania’s academic standards and graduate from high school career-ready, able to provide for their families and add to the vitality of their community. School communities, students, families and businesses across Pennsylvania are relying on our elected officials. They are counting on thorough and swift action to correct the unfair and inequitable funding of our public schools, a lingering problem that has harmed learning across this commonwealth for decades.

As an elected official of a community that has been impacted, I call upon our state leaders to devise a timely and efficient solution to the growing crisis of disproportionate education funding statewide and secure the future of millions of young Pennsylvanians.