Some people witnessing a rally at the state capitol in Harrisburg on Wednesday might have been swayed into believing that the Pennsylvania State Education Association and its local unions are blameless for the program cuts and layoffs that the commonwealth’s public school districts are enduring for a second straight year.

The PSEA merits criticism for trying to fool people into believing that only Gov. Tom Corbett is the problem because of his stance against increasing school subsidies amid serious state budget problems.

Actually, the governor is doing what’s necessary to avoid a state income tax increase and additional commonwealth debt. At the same time, the PSEA continues its stance of wanting more and more for its members while doing little to try to help the governor and local school systems weather the current financial difficulties.

PSEA members had the opportunity to lessen the financial burden for their districts for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which ends on June 30, by agreeing to a one-year wage freeze at this time last year. Teachers in only a handful of districts, including Mars, agreed to give up their entire scheduled raises.

Teachers in a few districts made a feeble showing of concern by agreeing to limited pay givebacks or other minor cost-saving accommodations.

Meanwhile, the PSEA has been nowhere in sight in regard to openly encouraging its members to agree to higher payments toward their health care benefits, as a way to help their districts’ finances.

Unlike most workers in private industry, teachers have been working under sweetheart pacts that require them to pay little or nothing toward their health benefits. Mars teachers are among those who pay nothing.

But the PSEA jumped to the spotlight on Wednesday, organizing a raucous rally aimed at putting pressure on Corbett to agree to a significant subsidy increase that the state cannot afford.

It’s within the PSEA’s rights to try to deceive commonwealth residents into thinking that teachers are being financially persecuted. However, it is wrong for it to do so, considering how well teachers have been treated in the years since the passage of the state’s public employees bargaining act in 1970.

Excessive pay raises and freebie employee benefits stemming from the threat of possible strikes, coupled with the current troubled economy, have left school districts with no choice but to lay off teachers and support personnel, increase class sizes, cut back programs and implement extracurricular activities fees for students.

But as demonstrated again on Wednesday, the PSEA continues to promote the attitude that sacrifice is appropriate for everyone but its members and that Corbett and the state treasury have the money to give the schools much more than they are scheduled to receive under Corbett’s 2012-13 budget plan.

The union conveniently doesn’t say that much of any funding increase would not go toward helping students. It would go instead to pay for excessive bargaining unit contract provisions to which school boards already have agreed during previous negotiations.

If people across the state weren’t experiencing so much financial hardship and school districts had plenty of money to spare, some excesses sought by the PSEA would not seem so out of line. But, all considered, the real culprit at Wednesday’s rally was not Corbett but, instead, the PSEA.

Corbett and the Legislature should stand firm on resolving the state’s financial problems, not kowtow to an organization that, where money is involved, has sympathy for nobody but itself.