Daily Archives: March 18, 2011

by | March 18, 2011 · 9:54 pm

Links for 3/18

A light day in terms of quantity, but important stuff.  The second article should make us fight harder, not rest on our laurels.  Our efforts, as new as they are, are already starting to make a dent–but they won’t finish the job unless we KEEP PUSHING.

 

Gov. Corbett’s Education Cuts 10 Times Higher in Poor Districts Than Wealthy Ones

I know some of you are less inclined to use a term like “class warfare” than I am, but the data and analysis in this piece make pretty clear that Gov. Corbett has no interest in serving the poor and working classes of this state (if you had any doubts).

If you have kids or family members in school districts that aren’t upper-middle class or higher, you should read this too–see what’s coming down the pike.

***********************

Corbett May Have Lost Some Budget Support

Aside from the assumption that he EVER had support for the kind of drastic proposals he’s made, the most interesting feature of this article is the way it exposes how out of touch Corbett is with his own state.  The usual “I don’t govern by polls” stance rings even more anti-democratic when the numbers are so overwhelmingly in support of the exact institutions (K-12, higher ed) he’s attacking, and in favor of taxing the very wealthy to pay for those institutions.

What’s hard about this, Governor?

***********************

Leave a comment

Filed under Budget, K-12 Education, Links, Poll numbers

by | March 18, 2011 · 2:07 pm

WCU’s Mark Rimple responds to Corbett’s budget proposal

On Wednesday, I posted the link to an interview with Corbett’s Budget Director Charles Zogby on Harrisburg radio station WITF.  If you missed it, you can read the article here. 

Our colleague Mark Rimple (College of VPA, APSCUF Corresponding Secretary) responded with a post that’s worth spreading far and wide.  Thank you, Mark, for saying something that needed to be said.  Now it needs to be heard.  Let’s all do our part to make it so. 

Wednesday, 16 March 2011 11:43 posted by Mark RImple

Clearly it’s Zogby and Corbett who have been living under a rock.

As a faculty member in a PASSHE school, I can attest to the continual budget-cutting under our previous governor. The mantra of the last five or more years has been “do more with less”. We have. We are as lean and efficient as it is possible to be, and our education is much more affordable than our private peer institutions.

Posters who like to denigrate the State System Schools have obviously not set foot in one to observe the hard work and dedication of our faculty, staff, and students, and have no idea how much preparation and research we put into our jobs and courses.

It’s pretty easy to speak from the armchair, without actual facts in hand. Just remember you’re flippantly condemning many families (of faculty and parents of students currently in the system) to economic ruin by doing so.

Times have changed, Gov. Corbett, since you went to school, and mostly for the good. Tenure and Promotion in Higher Ed in the good old days were often done largely in the back room, not the rigorous processes of peer review we endure now. Our searches for faculty bring in talent from across the nation and the world, exposing our students to a broad range of thinking and expertise.

Sadly, it’s the price that’s gone up, thanks to a slowly dwindling state appropriation.

Leave a comment

Filed under Budget, Collective Bargaining, PASSHE, Tom Corbett, Tuition increase

by | March 18, 2011 · 12:51 pm

Who Does That Help v. 3?

[This post takes up a thread I’ve been writing about on my personal blog since the January APSCUF Legislative Assembly in Harrisburg.  To see the original post, click here; to see the letter I wrote to Governor Corbett and posted as an Open Letter, click here.]

On March 8, I wrote the above referenced letter to Governor Corbett, asking him to answer a simple question.  If his proposed attacks on, I mean cuts from the PASSHE budget were to pass the Legislature and take effect, who do they actually help?  To date, ten days later, I’ve received no reply and am not the least bit surprised. 

I’m raising that here, on the new APSCUF-WCU blog, because I think it’s a question we should all be asking the Governor, his staff, his office, and any legislator who supports even one penny in cuts to the PASSHE budget–who does it help?  How does it benefit students?  How does it benefit employees?  How does it benefit the communities in which our universities operate?  How does it benefit the schools systems for which we train a sizeable chunk of teachers?  How does it benefit employers in PA if fewer people can go to college?  How does it benefit anybody’s ability to participate in civic/political life, to make informed decisions, to think carefully and talk well, to understand math and science? 

Who benefits from tuition that might have to go up as much as 30% to cover the barebones cost of operating the system? 

How does it benefit taxpayers across the state to see the public university system gutted, which will ultimately lead either to more expenses for all of us, or a shattered economy around the state?  Who benefits from that?

Who benefits from the Governor’s insistence that he won’t tax gas extractions or corporations that do business in PA?  Not the taxpayers who not only continue to pay our own taxes, but to cover for those who don’t pay at all (and I’m not talking about poor people whose incomes don’t produce tax revenues)? 

Who’s benefitting here, Mr. Governor?  The answer to that seems really, really clear to me, and I’m waiting for you to make even a vague attempt to dissuade me. 

We’re waiting…

Leave a comment

Filed under Budget, PASSHE, Tom Corbett, Uncategorized