By Clark DeLeon
Monday, Oct. 6, is another day that will live in infamy, now that the state’s School Reform Commission, in a Pearl Harbor-like sneak attack on organized labor, unilaterally ripped up the Philadelphia public school teachers’ union contract.
I haven’t changed my mind about the ultimate failure of public education in the city because of the complete lack of political will in Pennsylvania to properly fund a school system responsible for educating mostly poor, and mostly black or Hispanic children.
But I didn’t think the end game would be so badly played. Permit me to summarize:
After decades of annual financial crises, the fate of whether Philadelphia public schools would open their doors in September hinged on the approval in the state legislature of a bill that would affect Philadelphia nicotine addicts unwilling or unable to cross City Line to buy a pack of smokes to avoid the $2 tax.
I actually witnessed such a transaction at 45th and Baltimore Avenue, after the cigarette tax took effect. A guy in front of me at the cashier at 6:30 Tuesday morning had a 16-ounce container of coffee and he ordered a pack of Camel Lights. “What?” he said, when told he owed more than $9.
He hadn’t heard about the new tax. He looked in his wallet, but he had only $9. I told him that he could buy cheaper cigarettes in the suburbs. “Can I return the coffee?” he asked, and then left with the Camels.
With such a dependable tax base, school authorities expect to raise $230 million “in annual predictable funds.” Unless, you know, the tax base dies off or is inspired to quit or even walk across Cheltenham Avenue.
But within days of achieving funding salvation, the SRC turned on the very people who would deliver that salvation to the children of Philadelphia, the teachers and staff secretaries and nurses working without a net in the city’s public schools.
By breaking the teachers’ contract to require that union members pay up to $200 a month for health benefits formerly paid by the district, the SRC expects to save $70 million annually. But even with that money, a district official warned of another deficit next year.
What will they do then? Cannibalize pension funds? Auction off schools on eBay?
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