if we want proper funding for Pa. public schools, we just need to turn them into prisons

[JPZenger]

http://stoganews.com/2012/03/op-ed/school-budget-cuts-wrongly-punish-students/

Excerpts:

"Nathan Bootz... proposed in a letter to the editor that schools should be turned into prisons. I completely agree. ... on the bright side, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s new budget plan, turning schools into prisons allows them to receive more funding, remedying the increasing budget deficit that many districts ... currently face. That’s why I also propose the School Districst turn their schools into prisons.

...While schools are in dire need of revenue to maintain high educational standards, instead of allocating more money to the state’s education system, Gov. Corbett announced in his 2012 budget address that the bloated prison budget would remain intact. As $264 million is cut from education and medical assistance, the Department of Corrections’ $1.8 billion budget remained unscathed following last year’s 11 percent funding increase. Another $685 million is being invested in the expansion of Pennsylvania’s prison system.

While the state spends about $32,059 annually per inmate...In addition, students will also be provided with free dental care, free health insurance, laundry services, three meals a day, funding to earn a degree and free housing, without having to sacrifice the facilities already accessible at school like Internet access, library access, computer labs and weight rooms.

Some may argue that putting all students behind bars is unjust. However, without proper opportunities offered to students through education to keep them away from violence and from making bad decisions, there’s an increased risk of illicit behavior. Thus it’s very likely that most will end up in prison one day or another. And since Pennsylvania’s incarceration rate is increasing faster than any other in the nation, it’s much easier and more economically prudent to put all students in prison instead of using money and resources to track them down after they’ve committed a crime."

[MyOwnPeace]

1. He's the best!

What a marvelous example of how this magnificent governor has "saved" the state of Pennsylvania. And when the "inmates" graduate they'll probably be going to an out-of-state college because the "state-supported" colleges won't exist!

[JPZenger]

2. Article on Recent Conference on PA. School Funding Equity

http://www.citizenscall.net/schools/arcadia-conference-confronts-corbett-education-budget-head-on/

(scroll down that page a little bit to read the article)

Excerpt:

"PA continues to lag behind 40 of the 50 states in its proportion of state funding for education, according to Hardy. Haywood pointed out that the state devotes twice as much in funds to prisons as it does to higher education. “The Governor says we can’t afford more. How can we afford that?” asked Haywood.

Hardy said that unlike NJ, PA has no guaranteed equity structure. The PA Supreme Court has rejected the concept of a funding mandate for disadvantaged districts, unlike the Abbott ruling in NJ. The NJ Supreme Court revisited the Abbott decision in 2011 and determined that the state’s 31 poorest districts should share an additional $500 million in state aid.

Gov. Rendell, said Hardy, made an attempt to move in the direction of equity funding with early efforts to address the findings of the Costing Out Study, but progress was halted under Corbett. He also emphasized the high level of localization in the Commonwealth’s educational structure, and the stiff opposition to consolidations of its 501 school districts, which, he said, tends to correlate with a lack of effort to address funding disparities in poor districts.

Overbrook’s Johnson put it this way: “A long-term structural problem needs a structural solution. We need a school funding formula. Education is a human right; we need to fund it that way.”