Defund the public schools?

As a result of this unprecedented public education defunding, by the time I left the west coast nearly two decades later, public schools had seriously declined. More private schools had sprung up, but they mostly served well-off kids whose parents could afford the high tuitions. University tuitions mushroomed, as did student debt. The promise of a gold-standard education at aluminum prices had been snatched away from millions of Californians of all ages.

In recent years, a pastor friend in Southern California has helped spearhead a network of homeless shelters for California college students. Some of the state universities now have designated parking lots where students can legally sleep in their cars.

If some politicians running for office in Pennsylvania have their way, the commonwealth’s bleak future is as predictable as what happened out west.

In campaign speeches and a recent op ed, State Senator Doug Mastriano alleges we have a “broken system” of public education in Pennsylvania, with overpaid teachers, bloated administrations, and underperforming students. His solution, declared during his gubernatorial campaign launch rally here in Gettysburg, is to defund public schools by eliminating all property taxes and allowing a free-for-all system of “school choice.”

Mastriano says that “the money should go with the students,” and that encouraging competition among schools will improve them all. But what money will fund this chaotic array of existing and start-up schools if property taxes are eliminated? Pennsylvania currently ranks 44th among the 50 in state funding of schools, with only about 38 percent from commonwealth coffers. Our schools receive 43 percent of their funds from property taxes.

Not surprisingly, the facts about public education in Pennsylvania are quite different from the senator’s dire conclusion that we have a broken system. According to U.S. News, which ranks all private and public schools nationwide, “The majority of the best public-school systems are clustered in the Northeast, and Pennsylvania’s is one of them.”

In 2020 the commonwealth’s 789 public schools ranked 17 nationally in educational quality. According to the National Education Association, Pennsylvania’s average teacher salaries and per-student costs fall right in the middle of the pack. And we have one of the lowest student/teacher ratios in the nation, which bodes well for kids getting more individual attention to catch up from losses during the pandemic.

There is no question we face huge challenges in education at all levels. I doubt many will dispute that all schools can be improved, and some are in desperate need of overhaul. Pennsylvania’s greatest challenge, like all other states, is more adequately supporting education in the poorest communities. The Wolf administration’s “Level Up” budget allocation is providing $100 million to the state’s 100 poorest districts to help close the funding gap that results from real estate tax differentials.

But shifting a higher percentage of school funding from local property tax to the state budget has serious pitfalls, as California has endured since the constitutional amendment nearly five decades ago. State income tax revenues rise and fall with economic cycles, placing school boards on a roller coaster as they plan budgets. This would apply to charter and private schools as well under an expanded “school choice” voucher approach. Shifting more of a state’s budget to education means less is available for other badly needed services and infrastructure. As we’ve seen Californians battle more fires than ever before in recent years, budget-deficient fire companies haven’t had the resources needed to meet the crises. Reduction in social services results in the rise of homelessness and poverty.

Mastriano’s massive defunding proposal with no plan to replace it other than vague advocacy for “school choice” is political grandstanding. Eliminating our property taxes sounds great, until you think about all the other taxes that would go up to fill the gap. Those other taxes—income and sales primarily—take the biggest toll on workers, renters, and retired folks at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Republican proponents of defunding schools do not have a good track record of advocating higher taxes on the wealthy to fill the gaps.

As frenzied political campaigns get underway once again, we will be bombarded from all sides by messages intended to scare us with half-truths, distorted and overblown assessments of “how bad things are.” We’ll do well to recall the wisdom of one who helped save the world for democracy, Winston Churchill. The savvy Brit once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”