















































Commonwealth Matters


COMMONWEALTH Matters

J. WESLEY LECKRONE
Editor-in-Chief

This issue marks the beginning of a new format for COMMONWEALTH. 
The journal was founded in 1987 as a general-purpose political science 
journal open to all fields of the discipline. Over the years it gradu-

ally attracted more scholarship on Pennsylvania. The Executive Board of the 
Pennsylvania Political Science Association noted this transition and decided 
that the journal would have a solid future if it were rebranded to focus exclu-
sively on Pennsylvania politics. Temple University Press agreed, and together 
we have partnered to publish the newly reconstituted COMMONWEALTH: A 
Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy.

Temple University Press will publish three online issues of COMMON-
WEALTH annually. The first will be a special issue published in January to 
coincide with the beginning of the state’s legislative session. The special issue 
will be devoted to a single area of public policy that is of importance to Penn-
sylvania. The remaining two issues of the journal will be published in the 
late spring and early fall. These two general-topic issues will be composed of 
traditional research-based articles, expert political analysis of current policy 
dilemmas in the state, essays, and book reviews.

COMMONWEALTH and Temple University Press have also partnered to 
offer an annual “Year in Review.” This hard-copy volume will be a compen-
dium of the best COMMONWEALTH articles of the year. The articles will be 

COMMONWEALTH, Volume 18, Issue 1 (June 2016). © 2016 The Pennsylvania Political Science Association. 
ISSN 2469-7672 (online).http://dx.doi.org/10.15367/cjppp.v18i1.79. All rights reserved.



2 J. WEsLEy LECKRonE

augmented by an introductory chapter outlining Pennsylvania’s major policy 
events and appendices with statistical data on the budget, state demograph-
ics, and election returns. The first edition of the “Year in Review” will be 
published in time for classroom use in Fall 2018.

I would like to thank Christopher Borick (Muhlenberg College), Paula 
Holoviak (Kutztown University), Joseph McLaughlin (Temple University), 
and Michelle Atherton (Temple University) for all their hard work in actu-
alizing the new mission of COMMONWEALTH. I would also like to thank 
Mary Rose Muccie and Aaron Javsicas of Temple University Press for help-
ing us reconceptualize the journal and for guiding us through the process of 
transitioning to a new online format.

Special thanks go to Joseph McLaughlin and Michelle Atherton, who are 
serving as the Special Editors of this issue on education policy in Pennsyl-
vania. They took a chance in organizing the first issue of the new journal. 
Through their diligent work they have created a template that can be success-
fully implemented in the future.

More information on the new format of COMMONWEALTH and guide-
lines for submitting manuscripts is available on the Temple University 
Press website at https://tupjournals.temple.edu/index.php/commonwealth/
index. Issues of COMMONWEALTH published before 2016 are available at  
http://www.papolisci.org/journal-commonwealth.




