Pennsylvania’s neglect of its public K-12 schools and universities is well documented.
Penn State and Pitt have the highest tuitions of any public universities in the nation.
Well, at least Pennsylvania is first in something.
Several state universities (East Stroudsburg, Mansfield and others) are cutting staff and programs, again.
For today’s discussion, however, let’s focus on our school districts.
On Monday night, Northern Lebanon school board President David Hauck made the following comments during a discussion about the future of the district’s four elementary schools:
“We have a governor who has kind of abandoned public education. He has given us the same funding we had in 2008-2009, but our costs have gone through the roof. Last year, we got 13 teachers to retire early. We outsourced our cafeteria. We did many things to save money. Class sizes ballooned.
“You need to call your senators and representatives. We don’t need more money. What we really need is relief from pension costs and unfunded mandates.”
Hauck is almost entirely correct. I would argue that his district does need additional funding just to keep up with the inflation of the past five years.
But pension costs and unfunded mandates are a huge problem. So are the astronomical costs of special-needs students, whom public schools must accommodate.
Tom Corbett seems like a nice enough guy — I bet he’d be a good neighbor — but he seems to have a pathological hatred of public education. And his Republican buddies who control the General Assembly and Senate aren’t interested in doing anything to help public education either.
In fact, they are not interested in much of anything other than cashing their paychecks. They have done nothing to address public transportation funding (do we need a bridge or two to collapse before they get the message?), pension reform (a problem created by Tom Ridge and Republican legislative leaders) or privatization of the state’s liquor system, which in theory are Corbett’s three priorities.
Property tax reform? Not happening.
Business tax reform? Not much going on there either unless it’s related to the gas industry.
Harrisburg and Washington are similar: In both places, government’s inability to function well is due largely to the civil war under way in the Republican party. Republicans can’t agree among themselves about what to do. In both Harrisburg and D.C., Republican senators are generally less conservative and strident than their representative counterparts and they dislike each other on a personal level.
It’s not a secret that Senate leaders in Harrisburg dislike Corbett as much or more than Democrats do.
Meanwhile, as Hauck noted, pension costs and other mandated expenses are spiraling and our governor and state legislators continue to do nothing. It’s shameful behavior and the next time you see Mike Folmer, RoseMarie Swanger or Mauree Gingrich you should tell them.
They are part of this mess — their party controls state government — and it’s time they took ownership of it.
Follow along on Twitter @sesnyderleb.