{"id":124393,"date":"2023-10-30T22:29:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T02:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=124393"},"modified":"2023-10-30T22:29:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T02:29:54","slug":"house-education-committee-addressing-real-needs-of-students-and-their-families-not-culture-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=124393","title":{"rendered":"House Education Committee addressing real needs of students and their families, not culture wars."},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo from https:\/\/www.pahouse.com\/Schweyer<\/span><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

By House Education Committee Majority Chairman State Representative Peter Schweyer<\/strong><\/p>\n

I thoroughly enjoyed reading in high school.<\/p>\n

I related to Holden Caufield\u2019s teenage disillusionment in the Catcher in the<\/em> Rye<\/em>. My early political views were shaped in large part through novels like Animal Farm <\/em>and The Lord of the Flies<\/em>; and my healthy cynicism, and randomly, the embrace of my Irish heritage began when I read A Modest Proposal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My senior year English teacher, Ms. Barbara Psathas, knew that I gained much through reading (she taught me as a sophomore as well) and gave me an assignment to write a report on another important piece of American literature. This time, I wasn\u2019t going to read about someone like me, but rather about a little black girl growing up post Great Depression.<\/p>\n

Toni Morrison\u2019s seminal work, The Bluest Eye<\/em>, is not something I would have picked up at the Allentown Public Library or at my local Waldenbooks (yes, I am willfully dating myself with that reference). But being exposed to something that was so far outside of my comfort zone helped me developed a sense of empathy and humanity.<\/p>\n

This was 1996 \u2013 nearly thirty years ago while attending a conservative, mostly white religious high school (Allentown Central Catholic High School), in a blue-collar town (Allentown, PA).<\/p>\n

If I attended high school today, the odds are that I wouldn\u2019t read The Bluest Eye<\/em> as it is the third most banned book in the United States according to the American Library Association.<\/p>\n

Today, I have the honor and responsibility to serve as Majority Chair of the House Education Committee at a time when we are facing a major crossroads in education.<\/p>\n

Although I am a proud Democrat, as a legislator I know it is incumbent upon us to address major policy issues in a bipartisan way. We actively work with our colleagues from across the aisle and it is with immense pride that we have often achieved significant legislative wins with genuine Republican support.<\/p>\n

Together we have passed more than two dozen bills in the House that would:<\/p>\n