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To Pittsburgh's City High Charter School, which adopted a longer school year and has emerged much better for it.

While the school's 186-day calendar is just six days longer than the state-required 180 days of instruction, those 186 days are spread across the entire year with about a month off three times a year. This sort of instructional continuity helps students retain more of what they've learned. The proof is in the performance, as the award-winning school was chosen by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top high schools in the nation.

Among the downfalls of the American education system, according to critics, is its relatively short school year. Those critics include President Obama, who said of our education system, "We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day."

The president makes a good point, one raised in the landmark "A Nation at Risk" report of 1983, which concluded that the lackluster amount of time students spend in school is among the factors contributing to "a rising tide of mediocrity" in the U.S. school system. The report also found that American students spend on average about six hours a day for 180 days a year in school, while their peers in other countries spend eight hours a day for 220 days.

No wonder the test scores of American students lag way behind those of students in other nations.

To state Rep. Steve Santarsiero, D-31, who has called for the state to suspend its contract with the office supply giant Staples, which owes back taxes totaling more than $850,000.

"It is unfair to reward companies that don't pay their taxes with lucrative state contracts when residents and other businesses continue to pay their taxes on time and in full," Santarsiero said.

The ex-Lower Makefield supervisor and former teacher continued, "I don't intend to let up on this issue until either Staples pays its back taxes or it is debarred from further state contracts."

To state Senate candidate Bryan Allen, who, if elected, said he'd reform the way lawmakers are paid by eliminating their automatic cost of living adjustments. A fair and reasoned proposal considering that a lot of folks in the private sector have either had their wages frozen or cut.

The Democrat, who's running against state Sen. Tommy Tomlinson, shouldn't stop there. The incredibly generous benefits and pensions lawmakers receive are way out of line with the real world as is the reimbursement system for the unaccountable expenses they can claim. And that's just the short list.