This is the most revealing question of all, the responses and the comments. See more below . . .
Comments [Add Comment]
The Govern's Budget Will:
Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree
Ruin our State Universities
13% 27% 17% 27% 14%
Restore Fiscal Sanity &
Balance Our Budget
16% 31% 12% 23% 16%
Force Local School
Officials to Make
Tough Choices
56% 36% 3% 4% 0%
Everybody Has To
Do Their Part
25% 56% 9% 7% 1%
Our Local Schools
Will Suffer & Decline
43% 18% 4% 19% 9%
Comments on the Question
There is so much deadwood at PSU and I can imagine at the other state related schools, that they could do away with half the many layers of administration and still opperate their universities with in budget. It is time to trim the fat from these institutions.
Doesn't make any sense to make our future of this country to suffer by severely cutting education.
Union and non union employees, including senior management, must have succession. Education's heart tug is students; education is also a business. Not all have been making the business decisions.
The budget should focus on the best universities like Penn State to produce our leaders. Build a small number of outstanding schools and provide enough funding to ensure the best, most promising students can afford it. Funding the lower quality state colleges and providing degrees to questionable students is less important.
The tuition at PA colleges and universities is among the highest in the nation, without the budget cuts. There have been constant complaints about our students leaving PA after they graduate. This budget will cause them to leave PA to attend college, and PA will never get them back. It's a horrible budget decision that was not at all well thought out.
The local public schools need to reevaluate their system. This will force them to make better choices. I know some excellent teachers who put their all into teaching regardless of what money they have which was not alot prior to the cuts. It should be this way across the board ideally.
Why are the poorest school districts being made to suffer the most? Is Corbett trying to destroy public education?
How can you slash public achool funding and refuse to tax the Marcellus Shale natural gas and oil indutry. Smokeless tobaaco should be taxed like every other state and the $189 slush fund for the legislature should be abolishd immediately! Eliminate the Delaware Loophole for corporations. Make people who get free state police coverage, pay for their services.
Can we reduce costs of state government?
Unfortunately our school district is not telling the entire truth. We are looking at a ballot referendum to raise property taxes over 26% and our schools are using children as weapons to pass this increase. They are not willing to look at the $4 million surplus but are telling our residents that English, math and other subjects are going to be cut, even though many of the subjects they are threatening to cut are mandatory.
The budget will fail because the governor cannot get past being bought by the gas industry. It's ridiculous that we should give up a natural resource without receiving compensation. He sold out during the campaign and now has to say, "sorry, boys, but the voters are correct; we're imposing a charge on the natural gas being removed. That's not an income tax, so my promise is fulfilled. It's a severance charge."
Everybody has to do their part, yes. This means that big businesses need to pay their fair share. Right now the natural gas fracking industry is getting away with murder - maybe literally, if the fracking fluid spills continue into our streams and rivers. Make them pay taxes the way they do in every other state! Big businesses like Comcast pay no taxes because they have a sham office in Delaware. Close tax loopholes that cost billions; don't put the burden on people who can least afford it.
Cause permanent damage and set PA back, competitively. Promote more "brain-drain" and discourage younger people from staying here and coming here.
What about all the other programs the state funds. For the parents just sitting at home and not working. What about WIC, Planned Parenting, and Welfare......make them work and pay for stuff like me.
Since 40% of the compensation a teachers receives is paid after he/she retires, how does that benefit a student.
Our state constitution requires the state to provide an education to all children. For years the State has been ignoring this obligation and shifting an increasing burden on local districts with unfunded and underfunded mandates. In order to fix the problem correctly they need to reduce or eliminate the unfunded and underfunded mandates and allow teachers to do their job correctly instead of being forced to teach to the test.
Budget cuts will only cut quality of education for the vast majority of children who happen not be born into wealthy families.
Everyone includes the state house & senate
"Everybody" includes the wealthy and big business.
Everyone doing their part should include big business. For instance, oil companies expected to have to pay taxes when it was proposed in this current year budget. They pay everywhere else they drill. Also close the Delaware Loophole.
He should start in the 2 chambers and his own house to cut the budgit. Dump the fat !!!
Schools will be forced to cut the programs that don't give them supplemental funding, which doesn't equate to cutting the least valuable programs, just the least moneymaking programs.
define "decline", reduce waste for sure......
Governor Corbett did not run on slashing public schools and yet it is his first major initiative. Very deceptive on his part. Our schools are not the problem, today's families are! Low income families are not rearing their children properly. They are being spoiled by the popular culture and are learning negative values. Only parents can make their children succeed in school. I know because my wife and I raised three top students, including one valedictorian. ALL IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
Cutting school funding without truly providing mandate relief will only result in local school failing.
Graduating high school students will seek education outside the state universities if it is more affordable. The budget will never be balanced. Local school officials already have enough tough choices to make. If local school officials were paid hourly instead of salaried, their pay would be significantly higher. Everyone has not been doing their part...that is why the State is in this crisis. Local schools will suffer and students should not have to suffer and deal with adult problems.
too much money is given to so called minorities for colleges. Who is the real minority anymore. Kids going to college on grants are the ones who party and goof off.
Based on the current system of school funding the new budget will hurt already failing schools. We need to examine fundamentally how we pay for public school.
It is a sad statement in our state that we value the gas drillers more than educating our youth (through college).
All Corbett's budget will do is stall the inevitable. It will not address the true problem(s). A comparison to diabetes is that it cannot be cured. It can only be "controlled". Certainly, the fiscal problem could be addressed in a reasonable manner, but only if all politicians remember for whom they are supposed to be working. It is for the voters to decide which politicians are functioning in an ethical, truthful manner. If they are not, they can be excised like necrotic tissue.
"Schools are not declining because we are cutting subsidies. they are failing because we allow millions to be wasted on sports and other non academic programs. Also, we have allowed the left wing unions to take control.
We need to reign in the unions, just as they have in Wisconsin and other states.
Stop teachers strikes and expand the school year along with universal vouchers."
This country and especially PA has been built on a simple premiss - that anyone can obtain an education and realize their potential no matter their social status or wealth.
Everybody includes corporations and those who are well off who should share in the burden of fiscal responsibility by paying a their fair share of taxes.
