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Congratulations! Philadelphia public schools made national news last week because of the unique budget restraints under which teachers have been forced to work. According to slate.com, the yearly school budget for books and supplies for our public schools is (drumroll, please!) $160. That’s books AND supplies. Is there budgetary trickery here, you ask? The “trickery” (perhaps “shame” is a more appropriate word) is that the low figure (you can’t buy five paperbacks, a ream of paper and a few pencils and pens for that price even in Staples) presupposes that teachers will pick up the difference out of their own pockets.
Are we Philadelphians outraged by yet another example of shortchanging our children? The answer is “yes” if it’s your children, and “no” if it’s the other folks’ children. Yes, we ousted the incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett in the recent election (the odds against that happening if one uses historical fact were roughly equivalent to any Kardashian staying married for life), but in this city having a “D” next to your name on the ballot is pretty much the only qualification you need to get our collective vote. In fact, two-thirds of us stayed home on Election Day, and the folks working the polls thought, based on their own experience, the turnout wasn’t half bad.
The dirty little truth is most of us don’t care about Philadelphia’s public school kids if they happen not to be in our extended family. The crowds protesting the skin-flint way our politicians deal with our public schools are mostly composed of teachers, students and their parents. Too many of the rest of us are like some of the folks who write to this newspaper or call the local talk shows complaining that teachers have it too easy. Our outrage is reserved for the fact that teachers don’t want to give back their benefits to help balance our budget. I love it when working class folks holler that if they’re getting screwed by their employer, why not screw the teachers, too? That’s what we call real “class solidarity” in 21st century America. I think screwing the other worker is inscribed in the plank of the Grand Old Party.
The same Slate online article mentions that there is funding help on the way. And, of course, we will have a new governor come January, though in the “wisdom” of the electorate, we have surrounded him with the mossy remains of that other party that is responsible in the first place for the credo “Frackers first — Teachers last.”
In Pennsylvania, our lottery proceeds go toward benefiting senior programs — at least 27% of every lottery-collected dollar as mandated by the State. Your columnist is one of those seniors who enjoy the benefit of riding free on SEPTA. Here’s a thought — why not us seniors take the lead in helping our desperate public schools? Many of us can afford a paltry dime to ride around the city. I’m a little backward on my math, but if we asked the State to take a dime per senior rider out of the lottery coffers, we might ensure that there are enough textbooks to go around for each public school kid. Playing the lottery would mean more than watching the benefits all flow back to us. Caution, my friends, is in order. As John Oliver pointed out on his HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” 21 out of the 24 states that currently help fund schools through their lottery do not actually use that money to increase school funding, but to lower corporate taxes. But we would never have to worry about the Republicans in Harrisburg doing anything so underhanded as that, would we?
Speaking of funding our schools, we have already run into a stumbling block on the cigarette tax, something I modestly admit I mentioned as a possibility in this column a number of weeks back. You remember how the 2% cigarette tax was decided upon as a way to funnel some money to our schools, don’t you? I pointed out at the time that it seemed odd to me that at the same time we are imploring folks not to smoke, we are becoming dependent on them to keep smoking for the good of our public school system. I seldom predict stuff with any accuracy, but you can be sure that those few times that I do, I will mention it in this column. You would be surprised at how many different ways that I’ve discovered to write “I told you so.”
It seems that the stores located near the city’s boundaries that sell smokes are not selling smokes anymore since the new tax was imposed. Have those smokers been struck by the fear of God (otherwise known as the American Cancer Society) into suddenly not smoking? Cynic that I am, I believe these smokers may be taking advantage of crossing into the suburbs to buy their cigarettes.
Don’t fear, I have another idea. Let’s implement a “border patrol” to guard City Line Avenue (I do think the idea of an electrified 300-foot-high fence is a bit premature, but definitely a possibility). If need be, we should invite Sen. Ted Cruz to come and take a look and give us his assessment. He’s known as being pro-fence.
Cruz can use the occasion to announce his candidacy for president.
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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