Tim Slekar: Pennsylvania Schools get the Shock Treatment
Guest post by Tim Slekar.
About a year ago I published a blog that detailed how Pennsylvania governor, Tom Corbett, was using the shock doctrine to dupe the citizens of Pennsylvania into believing that a $1 Billion dollar cut to public education was necessary to help with the state's budget deficit. I quickly pointed out that these cuts would actually weaken public schools and help push Corbett's real education agenda (dismantling public schools) and that in the end, no money would be saved anyway. However, these cuts would hinder real learning and create the appearance of failing schools.
So what has happened since last year? A large portion of schools "furloughed" teachers to start the 2011-2012 school year to help balance budgets that were dramatically reduced by Corbett's cuts to public schools. In fact, I also personally introduced readers to one of the furloughed teachers last year.
Across the state all public schools had to deal with less. However, some districts felt the pain more than others. For example, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were hit harder because of the inability to raise revenues from other
About a year ago I published a blog that detailed how Pennsylvania governor, Tom Corbett, was using the shock doctrine to dupe the citizens of Pennsylvania into believing that a $1 Billion dollar cut to public education was necessary to help with the state's budget deficit. I quickly pointed out that these cuts would actually weaken public schools and help push Corbett's real education agenda (dismantling public schools) and that in the end, no money would be saved anyway. However, these cuts would hinder real learning and create the appearance of failing schools.
So what has happened since last year? A large portion of schools "furloughed" teachers to start the 2011-2012 school year to help balance budgets that were dramatically reduced by Corbett's cuts to public schools. In fact, I also personally introduced readers to one of the furloughed teachers last year.
Across the state all public schools had to deal with less. However, some districts felt the pain more than others. For example, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were hit harder because of the inability to raise revenues from other
