Posted on 11/15/2004 9:23:00 AM PST by crushelits
PITTSBURGH — A suburban Pittsburgh school district is reviewing whether it should be paying for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's children to use its Internet-based school, since the Pennsylvania senator and his family live in Virginia.
The Penn Hills district has spent $100,000 educating the Republican's children since 2001-02, said Erin Vecchio, a school board member who requested the review. She also is head of the local Democratic committee.
"I'm concerned because [he is] taking away from my kid. That $100,000 ... could be going to my kids, a computer or something," said Vecchio, who has three children enrolled in Penn Hills schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Wow, I would love to have $100K to spend on a computer...
If so, this is just Democrat bitching over nothing.
Wow, I would love to have $100K to spend on a computer...
LOL I think we have done that over the years!
How would she feel if she just gave his family a voucher and he sent his kids to private school?
Where did the 100,000 number come from? That is unheard of.
Ah... something is amiss here:
"The Santorums' Penn Hills home was assessed for $106,000 last year, records show. The couple's home in Leesburg, Va., was assessed at $757,000 this year, according to records."
Looks to me like they REALLY live in Virginia!
"That $100,000 ... could be going to my kids, a computer or something," said Vecchio
That would be some computer!
can you say "politically motivated smear"?
If he owns a home in that Penn district, then
he woould be receiving a prop tax bill each quarter.
MV
It appears the liberals are ready to start the campaign against Santorum's reelection.
See #7 and read the WHOLE article. It's a tad outrages on behalf of the Republican.
Wow...$100,000. Just think what I could do with $100,000.
And how many times!
Does paying property tax equate to residency? I seem to recall someone in Kansas City saying that he was entitled to vote in both Kansas and Missouri since he owned property and paid taxes in both states.
No, paying property taxes does not equate to residency. Sen. Santorum must establish that he is a resident of the Penn Hills school district. He should be able to do so. But the fact that he pays taxes will have little if any bearing on that determination.
Santorum owns a two-bedroom house and pays property taxes on it. But he doesn't live in it.
To be fair, the man has atleast 6 school age children.
Nonsense. If the children are doing internet-based distance education, the marginal cost to the school district is almost nothing.
No, it's not. They really live in VIRGINA.
This Pennsylvania school district spent $100,000 to have them access the internet FROM VIRGINIA. This is NOT right.
He's NOT paying $100,000 in taxes for his house in PA.
"The Santorums' Penn Hills home was assessed for $106,000 last year, records show. The couple's home in Leesburg, Va., was assessed at $757,000 this year, according to records."
Looks to me like they REALLY live in Virginia!
An opening salvo in the campaign against re-election in '06.
I'm a little upset that he sends his kids to public school instead of parochial school, though, I have to say.
No wonder he's weak on the Specter thing.
They are setting it up..
I'm telling you right now.. Bob Casey will crush Santorum in 2006. We are going to lose that seat. Bet the bank on it!
re: your tagline,
I love that ESPN commercial...
http://espn.go.com/withoutsports/home.html
Schools in Loudon County, where Santorum lives, are not that great. And he certainly does not make enough as a Senator to send six kids to private schools in Virginia; they are astronomically expensive. But he may just be trying to have his cake and eat it too. He can campaign and say he is sending his kids to Pennsylvania public schools, even though they don't live in Pennsylvania.
I thought Santorum lived in Mt. Lebanon before moving to Virginia. So he bought an inexpensive house to keep a house in that school district?
He is a Senator from PA and, therefore, must have a residence in PA (Penn Hills). However, he is about as pro-family as they come and simply wants to have his family actually be with him where he needs to be to do his job (Virginia).
It really is that simple. Would you prefer that he not have his family be with him while he is in Washington working?
This is the first of many attacks you'll see against the Senator between now and 2006 (and beyond). This is politics - plain and simple.
A $750k home is slightly above normal for northern VA. Were not talking mansion, just hyper-inflated real estate pricing. Consider that a basic townhouse is getting over $350k and won't stay on the market for more than a week here.
If the story is true.
I agree. Santorum is in trouble in 2006. His seat is the Dems No. 1 target in 2006. They ran a nobody against Specter because he was on their team, but they'll set their top gun on Santorum for sure. It should be Casey, but you never know...Fast Eddy make make a run for it... and I'm sure other big name Dems will take a crack.
My reaction is that this is a politically motivated smear. The rest of the article does nothing to dispell that reaction.
lol good one
And what is the cost of the illegals enrolled in the school district? Much more than 100k I'd bet.
Actually they have a gripe. for residency reasons, he owns a cheap home in PA, pays little taxes, never resides there. He owns $750K home in VA pays a bundle of taxes. School district in PA pays nearly $8000 a year for each of his 5 kids.
Santorum is just another politicians, do as I say not as I do.
Little bit early for chicken little to be running around screaming "The sky is falling!"
My wife is the technology coordinator for this Internet school system. They do take very good care of Mr. Santorum and brood as well as everyone else who is enrolled. This is a political smack-down.
Did I miss it or did they explain why it cost $100,000? Is this just a funny money tally... fixed costs associated with an internet system that would have occured whether his kids were participating in the internet classes or not? Sounds strange $100,000 just to give a few kids access to a system.
I'm a PA resident and am constantly on my local school district to trim costs in an effort to lower property taxes. $100K to educate 6 kids since the 01-02 school year is a tremendous bargain. The average cost to educate a student in PA is somewhere between $8K-12K. Do the math! They should be touting this as huge savings to the taxpayer.
It's never too early to start painting your target into a corner. I'm sure the GOP would pay you big bucks if you could come up with a credible and effective response to this future attack ad.
Well, I'm just thinking how schools do accounting ... they take the school system's total expenditures and divide it by the number of students, and then claim it "costs" $10,000 a year per pupil.
In the case of the extension service, they probably took the entire costs of the program, including all its start-up costs (much of which probably came from Federal funds, but who's counting?) and then calculated a per-pupil-per-year cost based on that.
As a Catholic homeschooler, I'm disappointed in the Santorums for using public schools :-), but I don't buy these numbers' being "their" cost for a minute! We've have 4 "school-age" children this year, and I spent less than $1,000 on curriculum.
Loudoun County schools are fine - as far as public education goes. I think he is semi-home schooling and this is a loop hole that allows him to say they go to public school in PA. Obviously they are not.
You hadn't seen that, yet?
Hilarious. Even though I have no dog in that fight, I thought it was brilliant.
Casey is there #1 bet, and they know it.
If the Dems bungle this up and don't get him nominated, they will NEVER return to power anytime soon.
I think Rendell likes his job right now. He'll be marginalized in the Senate.
Huh? So you're saying something that should cost between $48,000 - $72,000, but really costs $100,000 is a bargin? Is this that new math?
In PA the cost to the school district of someone attending cyber-charter school is around $5000 (don't know the exact figure), whereas typical school spending per pupil averages over $8000 in PA. So bull - the school district still "makes" $ 3000 at least towards the brick-and-mortar schools even tho the kids never darken the doorways. As usual, public school idiots (sorry, administrators) can't do their math.
He has 6 kids - each probably somewhere between 8-10K per year, for 2 years. You do the math.
Is that MY fault that he lives in a county with lousey schools? Should a school system FUND his kids education while he lives in a $757,000 house ELSEWHERE?
I don't think so. He does okay as a Senator. There is NO reason for this. It's wrong.
Leesburg, VA median home price = $275,000
So what size are the two homes in western Pennsylvania and suburban Washington??? Number of bedrooms?
As for the $100,000, I thought I read that Santorum has a lot of kids, and they may have taken the average cost per student in his district and multiplied it by the number of kids he has. It MUST be cheaper to educate a kid in cyberspace than in a bricks n' mortar school!
Probably far less than meets the eye here!
Not a chicken little at all.
Bob Casey Jr. will beat Rick Santorum by 5+ points. If the Dems nominate him, we lose the seat. But the Dems have bungled things before, so we'll see what happens.
Santorum's spokeswoman, Christine Shott, said the senator and his wife, who have six children, have divided their time between their Virginia home and the one in Penn Hills since they bought the Pennsylvania home in 1997. Shott wouldn't specify how much time the Santorums have spent in the Penn Hills residence, but said Santorum pays taxes, including school taxes, on the property. Under Pennsylvania's 2002 cyberschool law, the district in which a student lives must pay the cost of tuition for students enrolled in online schools. Virginia has no such provision. The Santorums' Penn Hills home was assessed for $106,000 last year, records show. The couple's home in Leesburg, Va., was assessed at $757,000 this year, according to records. Cyberschool students access their assignments and teachers primarily through school Web sites using their own computers, which can be located anywhere. As part of his duties as a senator, Santorum is required to travel often; his children often travel with him, Shott said. Penn Hills School Superintendent Patricia Gennari said the matter is under review. "As we would do in any case for any citizen if there is a question of residency, the staff is looking into it," he said.
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