Students will be able to complete the tests more quickly, saving an average of 30 minutes per test. Teachers and administrators will be relieved of the burden of receiving, preparing, administering, boxing up and shipping back test booklets.

That will mean “less testing and more learning” in schools, Shapiro said. He said he would like to get rid of the federally required standardized tests altogether, but that would mean losing $600 million in federal aid.

Grades 3-8 take the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment in the spring, and grades 9-12 take the Keystone end-of-course tests, also in the spring.

Festival season is well underway, with events like Coachella drawing in crowds looking for a jolly good time.

Pennsylvania is no stranger to festivals itself, although some are more popular than others, of course.

Betway USA — an online gambling platform which “partnered with the best software providers in the industry to offer a long list of slot titles” as well as a bunch of other games — sent a study via press release which looked at the search volume of festivals which take place within the Keystone State over a 12-month period.

Keyword.io was also used for the purposes of the study, a SEO tool which helps one find “highly relevant keyword suggestions” to dive deeper into audience data.

The festival which topped the list was the annual Mummers Parade in Philadelphia followed by Applefest in Franklin in second and Bethlehem’s Musikfest in third.

For those unfamiliar, Visit Philadelphia explains how the jaunty, colorful Mummers Parade “struts down Broad Street” every New Year’s Day in keeping with a 124-year-tradition.

“For many Philadelphia-area families, Mummery is a tradition that spans generations,” explains Visit Philadelphia. “Mummery traces its roots to ancient Roman laborers who ushered in the festival of Saturnalia by marching in masks while exchanging gifts and satirizing the issues of the day.

“In the 1600s, Swedish settlers to Philadelphia’s outskirts honored Christmas by beseeching their neighbors for dessert and liquor by dressing up, chanting and shooting firearms.”

Other popular festivals included in the Betway USA study include the Kutztown Folk Festival in Kutztown (fourth); The Firebird Festival in Phoenixville (fifth); the Hamburg-er Festival in Hamburg (sixth); and, last but not least, the Odunde Festival, also in Philadelphia, in seventh.

Pardon, but where’s Picklesburgh?

Some lawmakers agree.

“We love our teachers, we need our teachers, and we need to keep our teachers,” said state Rep. Gina Curry, who represents the 164th District in Delaware County, and co-sponsored funding legislation in the House. “We know that it will continue to be inequitable if we don’t get the $75 million that we really need to cover every student who wants to be a teacher.”

One of the sponsors of the legislation, state Sen. Vincent Hughes, said most teachers choose the profession “because they have a passion to educate,” not because of the paycheck.

“But we ask them in the final part of their certification process, to give up 12 weeks without any income for full-day work,” Hughes said. “We’ve asked them to do that for far too long. That ends now.”

Hughes made his comments last week at the state legislature, with a host of Democratic and Republican House and Senate members, and education advocates who supported the effort.

Republican state Sen. Ryan Aument, was also a co-sponsor of the legislation.

“We know the critical role, the essential role that classroom teachers play,” Aument said. “If we are going to deliver a high-quality education to each and every child who enters this system in Pennsylvania, we must have a process that ensures that the best and brightest go into education and want to go into education. We know that this stipend will help remove an unnecessary barrier to ensure that the best and brightest can go into education, if they choose.”

Amber Bloom, a student teacher at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and vice president of Student PSEA, said that paying a small stipend to student teachers for classroom experience is a win-win.

“It is a win for the young people who want to pursue careers in the classroom, and it is a win for Pennsylvania because it removes a significant financial burden to becoming a teacher at a time when so many school districts are struggling with teacher shortages,” Bloom said.

But Bloom acknowledged that if she isn’t chosen for the stipend, she will likely have to take out a loan. Student teachers like her struggle to pay for commuting, food, and tuition, she said.

For his part, Shapiro said the stipend program is an example of lawmakers working across the aisle for a positive result.

“When these lawmakers and those who are assembled here today recognize the workforce challenges we have is, we don’t have enough teachers to educate our children, they came together,” Shapiro said.

Since Pennsylvania is one of the only states that have a divided government, with Republicans controlling the Senate and the Democrats leading the house, Shapiro said they must work together.

“That means for us to get anything done, it’s got to be common sense and it’s got to be bipartisan,” Shapiro said.