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Un-freaking-real.

Gov. Tom Corbett is proposing to roll back public school education spending by 8.8 percent and gut higher education funding by more than 50 percent while calling for caps on school taxes, the elimination of some teacher salary perks and installing a statewide pay freeze for all public school employees, according to his first budget since winning election in November.

Corbett's proposed $27.3 billion budget for 2011-12 would set the basic education funding levels back to 2008-09, which amounts to a $550 million cut over this year's federal stimulus-infused basic education allocation of $5.7 billion.

"Mindful that salaries are determined at a local level and arrived at by contract and collective bargaining, this budget calls for all school district personnel — administrators, teachers, and support staff alike — to accept a one-year salary freeze to help minimize spending cuts," budget documents state. "Using conservative calculations, the Pennsylvania Department of Education estimates an educator salary freeze would save local school districts approximately $400 million."

The budget also calls for eliminating teachers' salary bumps when they earn master's degrees, a move Corbett estimates will save taxpayers an additional $200 million.

No, there's more.

Corbett's budget calls for a slight decrease in early childhood education for preschool and retains all special education funding.

The basic education funding essentially ends former Gov. Ed Rendell's and the Legislature's six-year push through the so-called costing-out study to add more money to the coffers of poor districts with weak inventories of local real estate taxes.

Corbett's proposed $5.2 billion basic education funding would supplant the costing-out study, which began in 2008-09, with a voucher program that would give either tax money to families or tax credits to businesses to help finance the education of children at private and parochial schools.

The basic education reduction is not the only thing that will affect schools. Corbett also plans to eliminate Rendell's popular "PA Accountability Grants."

I'm not done yet:

In addition to the budget cut, Corbett proposes to lift some unfunded mandates school districts pay, such as allowing districts to lay off teachers for economic reasons, increasing bid threshold limits and relieving "burdensome advertising requirements" for public meetings and public bids.

Corbett also wants to revamp teacher tenure rules, allow more flexibility to earn a teaching certificate, and tie teacher pay to student testing performance through a merit pay system.

Finally, Corbett takes a page from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie by recommending local taxpayers be given the right to referendum votes on school budgets when tax increases would go above inflation rate.

Ok.... wow. I'll start positive, I'm generally for referendum. Let's just walk through this insanity though.

• Cutting higher education 50%= spikes in tuition for Pennsylvanians.
• Cutting public education 8.8%= property tax increases locally, teacher lay-offs, and extra-curricular cuts everywhere.
• Got a Masters? Who cares, you still will make sub-private market pay, which isn't that great either.
• Early childhood education begins to be cut, as it will be for the whole 4 years of Corbett.
• Poor districts, where the parents won't just pay more to keep up the quality, will see their budgets hammered, and deep local cuts come into play. Teachers, extra-curriculars, reasonable taxes? Bye-bye.
• Vouchers. Seriously? So we take away from the public schools, give it to the private schools, and hope to see better results. Oh yeah, and I don't have the details yet, but my money says the voucher is for less than tuition at most private and public schools. So only the well-off can use them.
• No bid contracts, firing teachers because you don't feel like paying them, and don't advertise your meetings. That all sounds great!
• Merit pay=don't teach in districts with high poverty and students who are unprepared for schooling when they start, you won't pay much!
• Changing the rules on getting a teacher certificate= make it easier for us to hire less-qualified teachers, and get them to take lower pay.

Unbelievable. What a step backwards! State Representative Jennifer Mann (D-Allentown) has already put out a statement that skillfully takes apart this joke of a budget. She has it spot on:

“The most troubling cuts in my opinion are the ones to schools. The governor’s proposal cuts a half-billion dollars from elementary schools and high schools, cuts funding in half to state system and state-related schools like Penn State, Kutztown and East Stroudsburg and cuts 10 percent off the top for our community colleges that are key resources to retrain laid-off workers.

"Without a solid school system we won’t have a well-educated, well-trained workforce for companies looking to locate in the Lehigh Valley and help improve our economic recovery," she said.

For their part, Penn State came out with a strong, yet civil, defense of itself today.

Pennsylvania is officially on the wrong track.