Corbett unveils education plan for Pennsylvania

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett wants to overhaul Pennsylvania’s teacher evaluation system.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett wants to overhaul Pennsylvania’s teacher evaluation system.

Visiting a York charter school with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Corbett unveiled his education platform.

Corbett wants to change the way the commonwealth’s teachers are evaluated by looking at student testing data, but also creating individual benchmarks for each educator.

“Where do I need to improve?” Corbett asked rhetorically. “Do I need to improve in my skills of sitting with a student and taking them through my classroom presentation? Am I capturing the interest of my students?”

“Teaching is a very unique profession,” he says. “We’ve all known we’ve had very good teachers, and some not so good teachers.”

Corbett says he supports the Rendell Administration’s increase in state basic education funding, but he wants to improve accountability benchmarks to make sure schools are taking advantage of the money.

Corbett is calling for an A through F school grading system, which would include student test scores, graduation rates and other factors.