Rendell is brilliant here in his pursuit of enhanced socialist corruption. He can pit (a) working people against (b) retired people owning a house and (c) the teachers union.
Using the RAT model, everyone can assume that spiralling education costs are due to increased expenses associated with things that directly educate students. That way noone will question $millions for high school sports complexes, band uniforms, school directors creating unnecessary "administrative" posts for their relatives, and adding "Why does Heather have Two Mommies" to the curriculum instead of outmoded things like math.
The Philly School Board itself admits that teachers are <50% of the total budget.
Teachers can think that the cost increases are due to their union "fighting" to get them a better wage. I doubt if teachers make much more today in real dollars than they did 20 years ago.
Retirees want their real estate school taxes to be paid by someone else. It is key to convince them that out-of-control school costs are inevitable. Enough retirees in Pennsylvania consider FDR as comparable with the Pope, therefore they will drink the Kool-Aid and plan their next trip to Las Vegas, happy that they won't have to pay for the next round of State level corruption.
This leaves working people. If they protest this tax increase, they will be demonized as anti-old people and anti-teachers.
This could have been prevented. The idiots are the money behind the Republican party in Pa. (who told Mark Schweiker they wouldn't back him). Mike Fischer has always been a non-entity.
Schweiker would have flattened either Rendell or Casey jr. last year.
Maybe not where you are, around here they do. The average teacher salary in the State College Area School District is about $60,000/year now. Their last 2 3-year contracts had 4-6% a year increases, even as inflation was down to 1-2%. They managed to hold their own during the inflation of the late 70's and early 80's, and managed all their contract negotiations since as if 10% inflation were just around the corner.
Rendell is brilliant here in his pursuit of enhanced socialist corruption. He can pit (a) working people against (b) retired people owning a house and (c) the teachers union.
Did you see the map of which counties schoold districts would end up with more money and which would end up with less under the Rendell plan? Might as well have been the election results map!
I have a lot of concern about the funding going to the state level, as it will only increase state control of the schools. Parents would end up with even less say than they have now.
As far as going to an income tax and reducing the property tax by some small amount, I'd have to pass on that. MAYBE if they'd eliminate the property tax in exchange for an increase in the income tax... but of course that's not what Rendell is proposing. Kerry Benninghoff and some of his fellow legislatures are working on a proposal to eliminate the property tax, and replace it with the sales tax. Rather than increase the sales tax (currently 6%, exempting all food and clothing), they would reduce the rate to 4%, but cover everything including food and clothing. I like consumption taxes better than income taxes, because I believe it's better for society if you reduce your spending than if you quit working over taxes...