On behalf of all middle and high school leaders, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) needs your help to prevent funding cuts that will affect all schools across the country. NASSP is working hard to prevent something called sequestration – drastic, across-the-board cuts to education and other federal programs scheduled to occur on January 2, 2013 – but your Members of Congress need to hear from YOU, fellow school leaders on the ground. As Pennsylvania state coordinator for NASSP, I engage in advocacy at the federal level on behalf of school leaders like yourselves, and I strongly encourage you to lend your voice with me on this critical issue.

Sequestration – which is a result of the Budget Control Act approved by Congress in August 2011 – would cut Department of Education funding by over 8%, jeopardizing nearly 90,000 education jobs and dozens of critical federal programs that help our students succeed. Title I grants would be cut by $1.2 billion, hurting 1.8 million students and eliminating 16,100 jobs, and IDEA grants would be cut by $973 million, impacting 495,000 children with disabilities and eliminating 12,600 jobs. On top of this, since July 2008, the country has lost 312,700 public education jobs, meaning we have roughly as many local school jobs today as in December 2004. Yet, we expect to see 847,000 more pre k-12 public school students this coming school year than in the fall of 2004. For these and other reasons, we cannot let sequestration occur, and we need your help. State-specific data on Pennsylvania can be found here: http://www.nea.org/home/52610.htm

Please take 2 minutes to go to NASSP’s Principal’ss Legislative Action Center (http://app3.vocusgr.com/WebPublish/Controller.aspx?SiteName=NASSP&Definition=ViewIssue&IssueID=7535) and send a form letter to your legislators urging them to prevent sequestration, and instead to support policies that find a balanced approach to solving our nation’s finances.

Thank you!

Mark A. Korcinsky
Principal, Seneca Valley Senior High School
PA Principals Association/NASSP State Coordinator