The $1 Billion Lie Exposed

The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) took out full-page, color ads in several major state newspapers last week proclaiming Gov. Corbett “closed neighborhood schools” and laid off teachers in Philadelphia through massive education funding cuts. In the western part of the state the ad warns, “Don’t let Allegheny County be the next Philadelphia.”

These ads were grossly misleading. State funding for public schools is at an all-time high. The $1 billion in “cuts” was the expiration of temporary federal stimulus money. 

So we ran our own ad today correcting the record.

AFT claims Gov. Corbett and state lawmakers “cut $1 billion” in education spending in the state budget. But the real facts about education spending are something else entirely.

The 2013-14 budget spends nearly $10 billion and the proposed 2014-15 budget calls for $10.1 billion for PreK-12 schools—an all-time high, even exceeding when the state budget included federal stimulus funds. As you can see in the chart below, the AFT’s claims are simply untrue.

But the worst part of the AFT’s misleading campaign is how it was funded—by teachers’ dues collected using taxpayer resources. It’s time unions are held accountable for dishonest political ads they run at the expense of educators and taxpayers across the state.

We should stop this practice which gives government unions an unfair political privilege to engage in politics.