Pennsylvania teachers deserve better than a tax credit

When I was in elementary school, my teachers were as quick with a BandAid or a tissue as they were with an approving smile

(or disapproving glare). I made Popsicle stick structures, crafts from construction paper and paper plates, and I never had to look far to find a pencil.

Lawmakers in Harrisburg are considering a tax credit for teachers who spend their own money on these kinds of school supplies. There is already a federal tax credit of up to $300.

The state credit would be capped at $500 per teacher and limited to a statewide total of $15 million per year. That’s enough for 30,000 teachers. Since there are four times that many public-school teachers in Pennsylvania, it may only go to a lucky few.

The teachers I know routinely pay for classroom supplies. Tissues and pencils have always been at the top of the list, but also posters, whiteboard markers, and books. In fact, many of the books and educational games on a teacher’s shelves were paid for out of the teacher’s pocket.

Teachers start acquiring these things early in their careers, when they are being paid the least. Many teachers make requests of parents at the beginning of the year for supplies. My children’s district discourages this because the administration does not want it to seem like classroom budgets were somehow short.

This has just placed more of the burden on teachers.

It is deeply concerning that we are seriously considering this measure instead of finding a way to provide each teacher with a budget that will cover all the things they need to create the kinds of environments that will ensure success for all students. It is hard to tell which is more troubling: that Pennsylvania is only just now considering this tax credit or that our teachers find themselves having to pay for supplies in the first place.

Online retailers and big-box stores ensure that supplies cost pretty much the same everywhere in Pennsylvania. But teachers are not paid the same. Wealthy districts can offer higher salaries, and teachers can spend more on supplies. This will make their classrooms better equipped than those in districts with smaller budgets, thereby worsening the gap between haves and have-nots.

We have had a problem prioritizing education in this country for a while. How is it possible that we can justify paying 53 grown men the same amount to play football a few Sundays a year that we spend educating 10,000 students in Pennsylvania? It is not just sports, a Leonardo da Vinci painting can set a museum back twice as much. Patrons of the movie “Avatar” have spent enough over the years to educate 139,000 students. The cost overruns alone for building the USS Gerald R. Ford could have educated 190,000 students (the cost of the whole ship could have educated 633,000).

Teaching is the most important profession on Earth. When I am really old my doctors are going to be people being educated right now, so I want them to have really, really good educations. So should you.

We should not have to worry that students who could have gone on to be the best doctors, scientists, policymakers, or whatever just didn’t have any good books to read in fifth grade, so they never found the inspiration to take their education seriously. We should not place the burden of supplying those books on our already over-stretched teachers.

While we probably need this legislation right now, it seems to tacitly accept that we will never give teachers the funding they need to do the job we want them to do, so instead we are going to try to make buying school supplies a little more palatable.

Surely we can do better.