For Vanessa Nickerson-Griffith, a member of the Chester-Upland School Board, it's important to raise the level of educational resources, such as computers, up-to-date books, a curriculum that includes music, theater and the fine arts, and quality teachers. "We're not all basketball," she told me. Othea Maisonet, the mother and grandmother of children in Chester's schools, sees graduates who can't fill out job applications and can't exercise basic civic functions, like voting, because of reading deficiencies. She knows that more equitable funding will provide social services for troubled families and after-school programs, especially for children of single, working mothers.

The Good Schools PA reform agenda not only promotes adequate and equitable funding for all districts, but also high academic standards and assessment systems, quality administrators and teachers, and, most important for taxpayers and legislators, accountability systems. These include a mix of rewards, based on student achievement and assistance for schools with problems, and sanctions for consistent failure -- key elements of a restructuring program that has been successful in Kentucky and Texas.

Challenging the cynics has been state Rep. Nicholas Micozzie, a Republican from Delaware County, who, before flexing his political muscle in Harrisburg, pumped his brain cells managing a computer laboratory at the division of General Electric Co. on 32nd and Chestnut streets. His Successful Schools Subsidy System bill demonstrates that this man has done his homework, first by determining the cost of a "successful" per-student expenditure based on the small number of high performing school districts scoring over 1,350 on state achievement tests, then by factoring in the incidence of disability, poverty and lack of English proficiency.

We in Pennsylvania have paid the lowest state income tax in the nation -- currently 2.8 percent. By substantially reducing real property taxes and raising the income tax to 4.8 percent, Micozzie anticipates that over time an additional $3 billion a year could be raised to meet the "successful school budget subsidy" level. Although he acknowledged to me that despite 17 public hearings and 27 supportive editorials, "most colleagues remain afraid of the issue." He adds, "Unless we do something, the quality of life of everyone is in jeopardy."

A harbinger of change came recently when the Maryland legislature enacted a new education financing system with accountability measures. Despite a dodgy fiscal climate, they acted upon a blue ribbon commission to increase state funding for schools by $1.3 billion, almost 35 percent, over the coming years, with a large share directed to low-wealth districts and those educating high-need students. And we now have gubernatorial candidates, Ed Rendell and Mike Fisher, who have made school-financing reform a key priority.

Before the Lincoln Memorial on that hot summer day in 1963, Dr. King asserted, "We refuse to believe there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation."