Special education costs across Pennsylvania are rising, while state funding hasn’t kept up. As a result, districts across the commonwealth are relying on increasing property taxes to cover the gap.
A new Lancaster museum dedicated to statesman Thaddeus Stevens and his housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton Smith, focuses on their roles in 19th-century abolitionist movements and the fight for freedom. The Thaddeus Stevens & Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy opened in May on the site where Stevens lived and practiced law. Sixteen exhibition galleries cover a range of topics, from what Lancaster was like in the 1840s to the Civil War and Reconstruction era, focusing on Stevens’ role.