Thomas J. West Music

This image is making the rounds among my music education friends on Facebook right now. It is well-timed, as Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett (R) is planning to announce more devastating cuts to public education without considering sources of income such as taxing smokeless tobacco and taxing the Marcellus Shale oil reserve.

Corbett's cuts last year has put a near standstill on public school districts' ability to hire new or even replacement faculty and staff. As new college graduates enter the profession, they will be forced to leave the state or find other work. People very close to me are still hunting for a position, and struggling to pay their bills. Corbett pledged to decrease the Commonwealth's unemployment rate. This isn't helping.

Corbett's cuts last year hit the state university system so hard that Penn State, West Chester University, the University of Pittsburgh, and others had no choice but to lay off employees, outsource educational programs, and hike up tuition. This year's budget proposal is projected to hit them yet again. By the time my children reach college age, a college education will be financially out of reach for middle-class families if these practices continue.

Corbett's cuts last year hit the most economically disadvantaged districts the hardest. Read this article on Chester-Upland School District's dire situation. If this doesn't make you sick, I don't know what will. Corbett has since come forward and stated that he will financially support the school district so that they can finish this school year without shutting down. [LINK] The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is the one that created the failing budget in this school district when they took over operations in corrective action for continued Adequate Yearly Progress failures.

Corbett is following in the footsteps of next-door neighbor New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R), who made similar sweeping cuts to New Jersey education. In May of 2011, Christie's administration was ordered by New Jersey Supreme Court to release $500 million in additional funding to the 31 most under-funded districts in the state, stating that Christie's cuts to education were a “real, substantial, and consequential blow to the achievement of a thorough and efficient system of education.” [LINK]

54% of voters in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania said this is what they wanted when they voted for Corbett. I wonder if they have changed their minds yet.

This article (c) 2012 Thomas J. West. All content on ThomasJWestMusic dot com is licensed under a Creative Contributions Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Please contact the author before publishing on or off-line.

Subscribe by RSS Subscribe by email