Needless to say, Governor Corbett is regularly subject to
unnecessary criticism. Of all the topics his opponents blast him for, none is
more absurd than that of his education performance. With the election coming
this year, Democratic candidate Tom Wolf has released a number of campaign ads
claiming that Corbett is anti-education; he states (often) that Corbett cut spending
for education and has subsequently harmed our schools. However, Wolf’s ads are
blatantly wrong, as an overview of actual data shows.
We’ll start with the main issue: Pennsylvania’s educational
spending. Wolf claims that Corbett cut over $1 billion for education, but the Commonwealth
Foundation finds this false. While there was a large decrease initially
during Corbett’s term, it was not due to his administration. Rather, the $1
billion “cut” was from the expiring of temporary federal stimulus funds. In other
words, the decrease in funding was solely due to the federal government ending
a stimulus program that was designed to have a limited life, not from state
actions. Obviously, it makes little sense to blame a state governor for the
actions of the federal government.
On the state end, Corbett has helped to increase state
funding for education more that any Pennsylvania governor ever. Looking at the
state’s budgets from
the Governor’s Budget Office, Corbett has increased the amount of money the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gives for education purposes every year he’s been
in office. Again: he has not cut any state funding for schools. Instead, according
to a Yahoo News article, the amount allocated for education in the
2014-2015 budget once again breaks the state’s record for funding with $12
billion budgeted. Fascinatingly, the last two times the record was in 2012 and
in 2013, both under Governor Corbett. Clearly, saying this administration
hasn’t adequately funded schools doesn’t seem to match up with facts.
That being said, it is true that public schools are
struggling financially, but the causes for these troubles are much more
complicated. Pennsylvania is currently undergoing a pension crisis for its
public school teachers, with $50 billion in pension debt that school districts
across the state are struggling to budget for and pay, according
to the Washington Examiner. These underfunded pension plans, more than
anything else, constitute the reason for our schools’ budget woes and,
ultimately, why property taxes continue to rise. The multitude of this debt is
too large to fix simply by allocating more money to it from the general budget,
as Corbett’s opponents tend to claim. Rather, PennLive
reports that Corbett has advocated the best possible solution: shifting
teachers’ retirement plans from pension-based to a 401(k) style. Such a shift
would save school districts up to $13 billion and be enough to fund the debt. While
the plan was struck down in the Pennsylvania Congress earlier this year,
Corbett has vowed to continue pressing for it.
In conclusion, Governor Corbett has done everything he can
do to keep Pennsylvania’s education top notch, and his opponents’ arguments are
not based on fact. Pennsylvania has never spent as much on education as it has
under the current administration. The only “cuts” to education were due to the
discontinuation of federal stimulus money, which is far outside any governor’s
control. Finally, the real causes for the state’s educational budget troubles
were from improper retirement planning for more than a decade, and Corbett’s
plan would adequately solve the problem. In short, Corbett has proven to be
completely pro-education regardless of what Tom Wolf says, and, as a college
student, I could not be more thankful for his support.
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