Letters: Governor’s education budget falls short; What’s behind GOP slogans

Governor’s education budget falls short

In early February, the Commonwealth Court found that Pennsylvania’s school funding system is unconstitutional. A month later, Gov. Shapiro’s billion-dollar budget proposed a 7.8% increase in basic education funding. Why aren’t we celebrating? Shapiro’s budget does little more than keep up with inflation. This leaves our schools, especially the poorest districts, treading fiscal water.

Level Up funding is a supplement for districts that have few resources to help meet the needs of students. Level Up funds were part of Gov. Wolf’s education budgets. Unfortunately, Level Up funds were not included in Gov. Shapiro’s first budget address. Level Up, a bipartisan coalition of education advocacy groups, is addressing this omission in the governor’s budget. Twenty percent — or 100 — of the state’s 500 districts are among the poorest due to low tax base. Several of these districts are in central Pennsylvania: Altoona, DuBois, Huntingdon County and Mifflin County.

It is well known that Pennsylvania has one of the most inequitable and inadequately funded public school systems in the country. Please contact your legislators and ask them to vote for Level Up funding to help close the equity gap for the state’s 100 poorest districts; the complete list of these districts and information on the Level Up coalition can be found at https://leveluppa.org/level-up-100/.

What’s behind GOP slogans

Despite the recent failures of the Republican Party, it’s now apparent that there is one thing they’re very good at: Attempting to fool the people by hiding behind their catchy, but dishonest, slogans.

Consider some of the well-known GOP slogans, and what the Republican leaders really mean when they say them:

• Election integrity: We never found evidence of widespread voter fraud in the last election, but we want to suppress the vote to rig the next one. We won’t accept the vote if we don’t win.
• Protect our freedoms: We want the freedom to take away your freedoms.
• Second Amendment rights: We don’t care how many are killed in mass shootings, we want more guns anywhere and everywhere.
• The climate’s always changing: We’re bought by the fossil fuel industry and we’re going to stay bought! Secondary meaning: We are so stubbornly partisan, over what’s a nonpartisan issue, that we refuse to see what climate scientists have been telling us.
• Job-killing regulations: We’re not interested in protecting the environment or securing a livable planet as long as corporate cash flows into our campaigns.

Readers should clip and save this handy GOP Slogan Dictionary. Understanding what Republican leaders really mean when they hide behind their dishonest slogans tells us why they are a threat to the future of our people, our country, and our planet.

A writer’s response

I appreciate Michael Biek’s response on Feb. 16 to my letter of Feb. 9 the way I appreciate John Brown’s response to injustice a little earlier at Harpers Ferry and the war that followed, involving 3 million men.

In England Wilberforce negotiated an end to slavery there in Parliament without firing a shot.

I have always felt that with sufficient patience, kindness and goodwill we might have done the same here.

This story was originally published March 17, 2023 at 7:00 AM.