An entrepreneur with valuable experience inside state government, Meloyde Blancett has the right combination of skills and experience to represent House District 78 in the Legislature.

Blancett is one of several candidates we have met this summer who say the state’s unacceptable record in supporting public school funding motivated a jump into politics. The state’s teachers are dreadfully underpaid and underappreciated by the state’s leadership, she says. At the same time, a complex set of forces — poverty, mobility, single-parent families and the needs for accountability and results — are making the tasks of public education more difficult.

She’s right, and the solution she offers makes sense: Increased funding for sure, and matching that with a blue ribbon task force that brings together the state’s best thinking on the issue in search of reforms with proven track records of success.

While schools are first on her agenda — and that of her constituents — Blancett also has thought out critical issues of health-care policy, crime and prisons, and taxes.