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What are the pros and cons to school budget cuts
What are the pros and cons to school budget cuts
What are the pros and cons to school budget cuts
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School budgets are being cut lower and lower year by year. For the past 6 years, after the recession, the funding for education has decreased tremendously. The new budgets are providing less and less per-pupil funding to kindergarten through 12th grade. At the same time, the nation wants graduates to excel in their technical and analytical skills, although the decrease in educational funds are contradicting and raising concern. The budget cuts in education systems delay the school district’s ability to deliver high- quality education to their students. Restoring of school funding should be a top priority.
This is unacceptable. Most people would think this overwhelming majority would similarly demand the resources needed for success. Instead, many of these so-called reformers turn their backs on our children and our public schools .For the 2013-2014 school year, at least 34 states are providing less funding per student. Thirteen of those states have cut back on the funding by ten percent. Fifteen of the states are providing less funding to the school district than they did the year before. Despite the fact that most states are experience, a tax increases. 44 percent of the school funding comes from state funds and, decreasing those mean the school districts have to scale back the educational services or raise local property tax to cover to cost; some might have to do a combination of both. Budget cuts on education began in July 2008 with reducing the number of teachers and other employees, however as of August 2013, 324,000 jobs nationally since 2008 were lost. Some states increased funding for the current school years but not nearly, enough to compare to what was cut the previous year. New Mexico for example had an increase of $...
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Why is school funding continuously being cut? How can we cut school aid when there is extra money in accounts for tattoo and body-piercing shops, tanning facilities and pawnbroker regulation? It is time to make education funding the priority we all claim it should be. The path we are headed down dooms the future of our nation’s children. The city’s leaders should do what it takes to give enough money for well-rounded educations in every public school. The children of this nation deserve better. They deserve more.
Works Cited
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/14/la-youth_n_1277182.html
http://www.pbs.org/parents/education/music-arts/the-benefits-of-music-education/
http://list25.com/25-compelling-reasons-why-education-is-important/
http://www.cbpp.org/files/9-12-13sfp.pdf
California is one of the largest states in the country and has one of the biggest state budgets, but in the past several years, its school system has become one of the worst in the nation because of enormous budget cuts in efforts to balance the state’s enormous deficit. The economic downturn at the end of the 2000s resulted in even more cuts to education. It is in environments like this one in which students from poor backgrounds become most vulnerable because of their lack of access to support in their homes as well as other programs outside of schools. Their already financially restricted school districts have no choice but to cut supplementary programs and increase class sizes among other negative changes to public schools. The lack of financial support from the state level as well as demands for schools to meet certain testing benchmarks by the state results in a system in which the schools are no longer able to focus on students as individuals; they are forced to treat students as numbers rather than on an individual case by case basis. An article from the Los Angeles Times showed that majority of Californians give California schools “a grade of C or below” and half think that the quality of schools will continue to decline (Watanabe).While the economic downturn affected the public school system in a negative way, it was not the sole root of its problems. It just simply exacerbated already existing issues.
An outdated education system is the largest problem Michigan faces because it affects not only the present, but also the future of the state. Important issues cannot be solved, nor policies created to remedy them, if the people attempting to solve them are not equipped with the skills and knowledge needed to make informed decisions. The state cannot run itself, let alone the nation as a whole, if its’ people are uneducated. The Constitution, the very basis of our government, relies heavily on the assumption that citizens of the United States are able to make knowledgeable and well-reasoned decisions, the types of which cannot be made when a person does not receive a proper education. This proper education is unattainable when low educational funding occurs. Lowering educational funding leads to lower standardized test scores, lack of resources, and an overall poorer education (Roy 2003). Even with these results educational funding has consistently been put upon the chopping block at all levels of government. Governor Rick Snyder’s budget cuts $470 per pupil for the 2012 fiscal year, while promising only small incentives to be added when re-balancing the budget in 2013 (Resmovits 2012). Snyder’s cuts in education stand in sharp contrast to the budget and policy passed in 1994, by then Governor John Engler. Engler, along with the House and Senate, created Proposal A. This policy increased funding to all levels of education, reduced the large funding gap between poorer and richer school districts, and opened schools of choice. Proposal A was largely effective in its’ objectives, but was unable to maintain the projected budget needed to maintain efficiency due to the recession, and Michigan laws requiring education cuts when school ...
South Carolina Education Department (2014). The Average Daily Membership. Retrieve on February 25th, 2014. Form https://ed.sc.gov/data/student-counts/AverageDailyMembershipandAttendance.cfm
The fine arts were once highly revered by the community and were a part of everyday life, yet today the fine arts must face their biggest competitor, that being sports. Sports have become a big business and many schools find it easier and better to cut arts programs due to low funding rather than athletic programs. Even though fine arts programs are not as profitable as athletic programs, they should be funded equally to athletic programs because they help student achievement, help students improve their cognitive skills, and encourage creativity.
Detroit is a story of a once flourishing city that has been on a long downslide for decades. There are miles of unoccupied homes and buildings, and crimes and unemployment are at an all-time high. Many aspects of the city are breaking down, including the school system. The Detroit Public School System has lost over eighty thousand students due to high enrollment in charter schools, the large economic decline, and the departure of residents. For many years no one has taken responsibility for the public school system. However, for Detroit to rise again, it is necessary for someone to take responsibility, make a plan, and make sure that children are safe, well cared for, and are receiving a high quality education when going to school each day. In 2016, schools are low-performing with poor test scores, are falling apart, and teachers and parents have decided to take a stand.
If economists took one thing away from the Great Depression, it should be that losing billions of dollars in a short amount of time causes colossal problems. Everyday in America that is precisely what continues to happen. One day the country will pay for it, but until then, America continues to limp along. The statistics of how much America actually spends could cause even Bill Gates to take a step back. In an article in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the situation is summed up quite horrifyingly: “The U.S. Census Bureau just released 2008 figures showing the national average total per-pupil funding from all revenue sources was $12,028” (Izumi). The article goes on to calculate that “if one multiplies $12,028 by the roughly 3.7 million students [almost all living in Texas and California] with illegal-immigrant parents, then one gets a national total funding cost of $44.5...
Although cuts have to happen they don't necessarily need to happen at schools, schools should never be making budget cuts when there's so many other things we can cut. Military equipment for example can be cut we just launched fifty missiles into our “enemies” missiles averaging out to a cost of millions of dollars. There is no reason why schools should be cutting programs just so we have other things like military weapons being funded.
The funding of public education has long been an issue for the state government of Texas. Starting before Texas was even a state, public education funding was at the forefront of politicians’ minds. In 1836, one of the reasons Anglo-Texans wanted to become independent from Mexico was Mexico’s lack of a public school system (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). This drove the desire of President Mirabeau B. Lamar of the Republic of Texas to create legislation that would grant public schools land (A Brief History of Public Education, n.d.). This act set aside four leagues of land per county for the use of free education centers and thus began the funding of public education by the state government (An Overview of the History of Public Education in Texas, 2016). In the last 177 years, the Texas Legislature and the Texas Education Agency have created numerous acts and laws regarding the funding of education, but it has been in the last 50 years that this topic has become highly contested, resulting in several lawsuits and endless efforts (by the school districts) to equalize the distribution of funds to Texas school districts (Texas School Finance History, n.d.). In sum, the complex issues and policies that surround the funding of public education are derived from a combination of the legislature, bureaucratic agencies, and local governments in the form of school districts.
The American public school system faces an education crisis. According to Benjamin Barber, American children barely surpass the lowest standards set for education, especially in literacy, throughout the county’s history. Barber supports the existence of this crisis in his essay “America Skips School”, but argues against a solution to remedy the numerous problems facing the system. Although he acknowledges no solution, Barber suggests a smarter flow of financial resources will address many of the issues, however, he fails to acknowledge the distribution of this money. Barber’s suggestion for smarter financial resources for schools can be effectively implemented through a structured committee focused solely on the distribution of money.
There are many other areas around the United States where urban schools suffer from lack of funding. In many of America...
As colleges’ funds dry up, colleges must turn to the public to further support higher education. By raising state taxes, colleges can collect funds to help improve the school’s budgets. The state provides funds from the taxes for colleges to receive a certain amount for each student currently enrolled. All community and traditional four year colleges collect these funds in order to maintain the school’s budget. As reporter, Eric Kelderman states, “less than a third of colleges’ budget is based from state taxes”. The school’s budget is how colleges are able to provide academic support programs, an affordable intuition, and hire more counselors. Colleges must now depend on state taxes more than ever for public colleges. Without collecting more funds from state taxes, as author, Scott Carlson explains how Mr. Poshard explains to senators “our public universities are moving quickly toward becoming private universities…affordable only to those who have the economic wherewithal to them” (qtd. in.) Public colleges must be affordable to anyone who wishes to attend. If colleges lack to provide this to students, it can affect dropouts, a student’s ability focus, and cause stress. The problem of lack of funding is that colleges have insufficient funds. Therefore, the best possible solution for the problem of lack of funding would be increasing and collecting more funds from state taxes.
Proper school funding is one of the keys to having a successful school. Americans believe that funding is the biggest problem in public schools. School improvements revolve around funding. There needs to be funding not only in the successful schools but also the schools that aren’t doing as well. In documentary, Waiting for Superman, it talks about how smaller class sizes will help students. Funding is what will help the smaller class sizes. State funding mechanisms are subject to intense political and economic scrutiny (Leonard). Studies have shown that funding is inversely related to accreditation levels (Leonard). School funding needs to be increased, but there must be accountability as well.
Many schools are being closed down every year due to the lack of money being put into those schools. Some of the money spent on the war could be allocated for these schools in order to keep them open. For example, after the Board of Education announced that thirty-four public schools would close by next fall the executive vice-president, Virginia Cantrell, of the Detroit Federation of Teachers said, “We are in a crisis” (Rummel par 2). Cantrell said the loss of more than half of the city’s population in the past thirty years and the growth of charter schools leaves fewer students in the public school system (Rummel par 2). In addition to keeping the schools open, the money would also help stop other problems such as the lack of teachers and poor teacher-student ratios. In November of 2000, students at Guy Benjamin Elementary School were sent home after the teachers who showed up left(McCracken par 1). The school closed at 11:30 when the principal had only three staff members remaining to supervise more than 100 students (McCracken par 2). The teachers were striking because of inadequate pay. The Territorial Court Judge ended the three week strike by ordering the teachers to come back to work (McCracken par 3). The money used for the war could be allotted to pay teachers more money to keep the people who currently are teachers and as an incentive to get more people to become teachers. This would eliminate the problem of people not wanting to become teachers solely because teachers do not make enough money. Furthermore, the money could be used to buy needed supplies. Many schools do not have sufficient amounts of books or computers, if any, that are in good condition. The money could also be used to renovate old schools that are in bad condition. Stu...
I learned a few things about my school and myself in regards to this area of leadership by participating in this activity. I learned that my school asks for very little participation from the teachers and community in regards to the budgeting process. But it could be an excellent venue to review prior year accomplishments as well as decide on future objectives with these stakeholders. If I were an administrator, involving the community and faculty would not only help in maintaining awareness, but I could also use this as a way to help those who may not be directly vested in my school, but who are helping fund it through their taxes, recognize effective administration in our efforts to reduce costs and provide needed resources to the various programs. I also feel that budget decisions cannot be solely programmatic or solely monetary. There needs
Some states want to have separation when it comes to the income of these schools. States argue that high class, wealthy, school districts should have more money than the lower class districts, because of the tax payers wants or because there are better opportunities for students to grow in the wealthier areas. According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 50 percent of lower end schools are not receiving the amount of money they should get from the state funds (U.S. Department of Education). This is what is preventing school districts in these areas from helping students with their education. The schools are forced to cut back on programs such as extracurricular activities that are suppose to encourage students to be active, or they would have to cut back on supplies where in some cases there are not enough textbooks for each student to have his or her own. The U.S. Department of Education also stated that teachers that are less paid and have less years teaching are often the ones dealing with the students in poverty. (U.S. Department of Education). This only prolongs the problem with children receiving the proper education. If they are taught by teachers who don’t know what they are teaching or those who don’t have enough experience, then the students are not going to learn the correct information or any information at all. While there are some schools