One of the most powerful arguments state Democratic challengers have against GOP incumbents this year is that Republicans made unpopular cuts to education spending.
Naturally, Republicans are trying to dodge accountability for education cuts by playing games with the baseline. They’re using this chart to try to argue that Ed Rendell is to blame for cutting the state contribution to education:
They want you to only pay attention to the green bars, and ignore the huge drop in the total funding. But obviously what people actually care about is the total funding, and the total funding is down.
When we look at this is in terms of per-student spending, it is even clearer. Per-student spending is down 1.2% in PA since 2008:
So when Justin Simmons and others say things like this, you should understand that he is trying to confuse you about what is happening:
“We have put more state funding into basic education K-12 than any time in the history of Pennsylvania,” Simmons said Friday.
Republicans cut aid to school districts, forcing cuts and tax increases there, and then they brought state contribution back to where it was in 2008, for a net cut to education spending per student in PA.
I don’t need charts and graphs. They’ve cut so drastically, I’m having trouble paying my property taxes. There’s no tax base in Southeastern Greene, inasmuch as the coal, gas, and power generation industries play the roles of “takers” and pay little to no local taxes on their pelf.
1.2%? Are you kidding me? My salary is down 23% and you are bitching about 1.2%? Bet your teacher salary isn’t down at all since 2008 is it? Just shows how disconnected public sector unions are from the real world. More More More for me… Screw you the tax payer.
Spending per student is down 1.2% since 2008. It should be at least the same level as 2008, and ideally higher since relying on local property taxes to fund education is terrible.
Posting another press release from Deely using numbers from the teacher union (that he used to be a president of until he was asked to not run again) as your own post hu? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
What are the numbers from the teachers’ union?
Well at least the teachers are still getting raises!! screw the kids!
http://www.teachersalaryinfo.com/average-teacher-salary-pennsylvania.html
Pennsylvania Average Salary Percent Change
Rank 2009 Rank 2008 Rank 2007 2008 to 2009 2007 to 2008 2007 to 2009
15 $52,913.33 16 $52,155.00 15 $50,520.00 1.45% 3.24% 4.74%
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