Letters: Party-line vote 'insanity'

HAVING READ the advertisement in your paper from the carpenters union about being locked out of the convention center and now the School Reform Commission ripping up the teachers contract, all I can say is come Nov. 4 both unions will continue to back and persuade their members to vote for all the Democratic candidates on the ballot.

When will you get it?

Doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity.

The Democratic Party running the city for the past 70 years is the cause of all your problems.

Until you vote to change your own situation, everything remains the same. If you are unhappy, get out and support someone who has better ideas.

Dan Dvorak

Phoenixville

It's time to end this multidecade game and close all public schools in Philadelphia. Parents (those who care) have had enough, alumni have had enough, teachers are leaving a profession they worked all their lives to perfect and all the district has done for years is point fingers at everyone but those really responsible for this mess - City Hall!

John Street, as mayor, was to become part of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that included four other poorly funded districts in the state (because Philadelphia is the biggest) but a deal was made that funded stadiums for millionaires and the district got nothing.

As mayor, Michael Nutter continued the waste of much-needed money and resources by hiring a superintendent who has done nothing but close schools and lay off employees. Mr. Nutter could have that done himself and it would not have cost us taxpayers another dime! Raising property taxes in poor and working-class neighborhoods while giving 10-year tax abatements to the well-off and out-of-town landlords isn't the answer.

City Council President Darrell Clarke went from stealing people's houses in North Philadelphia for Temple to raising every tax he can think off to fill the shortfall, a short-term solution to a problem they took years to make.

The district wants the teachers union to give further concessions even after it took away the best students (charter schools), went from little to no security and even took what little sanitation they had. The state mandates what can and can't be taught in schools, yet the perception is that charters are better. The difference between public and charters is that the charters can say no to admitting a pupil and the public schools have to take every child (regardless of academics or social behavior) in a 5-mile radius. Save some money by closing all public schools effective next September, and tell the charters (whose payments have taken from the public schools for years) that they must now do what the district schools have had to for years: take all students. The elimination of staff and structures will save money that can be passed to overtaxed Philadelphia residents (who receive nothing for what they pay) and let's see how much superior the charter-school experiment really is. It's time to put up or just shut up forever about the public schools in the city of Philadelphia.

That's my take as a sad graduate of Martin Luther King High School ('86) and working taxpayer for a city of disappointment and disillusion.

Eric Johnson

Philadelphia

You have to really feel sorry for the Philadelphia teachers.

For more than 50 years the state paid into their pension. However, in the past 18 years the state of Pennsylvania has not paid one dime into their pension fund. The current governor attacks their pensions and claims that they are unsustainable.

The state passed Act 46, which supposedly provides the SRC with "special powers" over the teachers and their contracts especially if the district is "financially distressed." The current governor then reduces the school district's reimbursements for charter schools, which was nine digits, thus creating a huge school-district deficit. He then demands that the teachers pay some portion of health care. But no one takes into consideration that their salaries are among the lowest in the state and they are dealing with inner-city children with some problems.

For almost two years of negotiating, there has not been any new contract made between the teachers and the SRC.

On Oct. 6, the SRC canceled the teachers' contract and has unilaterally required various changes in their benefits. This was done without enough of a time frame for any taxpayers' input before the SRC vote.

If you were a teacher, would you sign a contract with people on the other side of it?

Mayer Krain

Philadelphia