The Value of Public Education

By Tony Crocamo

The American public education system, once the glory of this nation, is being weakened and dismantled.

I oppose school voucher programs and other alternatives to public schools that draw money away from public schools and share these fatal flaws:

1. They don't improve underperforming schools.

2. They divert money from struggling school districts, making performance improvements more difficult to achieve.

3. They abandon children whose parents can't or won't participate in their children's education. Government should offer lifeboats to children in great need, not toss them overboard.

A government that works for you will:

• Reduce property taxes and impose a low ceiling on property taxes for citizens on fixed incomes (for example, a couple on a fixed income will pay no more than 1.5% of their taxable income in property taxes--$750 a year--for a fixed income of $50,000)

• Invest in Pennsylvania's future with increases in public education spending paid for by an extraction tax on natural gas drilling. PA is the only state in the nation without an extraction tax for gas and oil. We didn't have one for coal either--mine owners got rich, devastated the environment and abandoned the communities and the state. We can't permit that to happen again.