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Funding Gaps and Government Funding
Not only do the families of impoverished children lack resources necessary for success, the school districts themselves lack vital assets as well. In reference to the PISA exam, “the average American PISA reading score for higher-income schools exceeded that of all other developed countries, while the average score for lower-income American schools was far lower” (Friedman). Extreme funding gaps and lack of proper government funding are the main contributors to this drastic distinction in educational success.
Funding gaps, or differences in income between school districts, are primarily due to location; Friedman has determined that “less than 10 percent of school revenue comes from the federal government while about 90 percent comes from the state and local governments” (Friedman). Because of this, “schools with the highest poverty rates received on average nearly $1,000 less per student than schools with the lowest rates” (Friedman). This governmental subsidy is extremely important because without proper funding, districts proceed to lose other essential assets.
The United States Education Department, or ED, established in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter, is a combination of several federal agencies. The goals of the ED, according to the SteveSpanglerScience educational research company, are to establish policies on federal financial aid for education and distributing as well as monitoring those funds. The goals consisted of: collecting data on America’s schools and disseminating research, focusing national attention on key education issues, prohibiting discrimination, and ensuring equal access to education (Wells 1). The ED was given roughly a $68 billion budget to create these benefits for imp...
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...m for youth programs and high school classrooms. They give children a chance to obtain mentors specialized in areas of weakness. (EPIC Curriculum). Both of these organizations work closely with the Rotary Club of Indianapolis. Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide, who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. (About Us 1). Volunteers and sponsors sponsor impoverished kids, supplying them with their specific needs such as; clothing, educational help, meals, etc. Supplying impoverished youths the education required for success in the future, is part of their mission.
Many steps will need be taken in order to improve the United State’s poverty crisis, but a worthy place to start is with the building of a foundation of a sustainable education.
The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While increased spending may help, the real problem is often rooted in the complex issues of social, cultural, and economic differences. When combined with factors involving the school itself and the institution that supports it, we arrive at what has been widely known as the divide between the suburban and urban schools. Can anything actually be done to reverse this apparent trend of inequality or are the outside factors too powerful to change?
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.
Achievement gaps in schools across America impinge on racial-ethnic and socioeconomic status groups. For generations school systems focus on improving the achievement gaps for low-income and minority students. Statistics have provided evidenced that the school systems made enormous progress between 1970 and 1988, but came to a halt thereafter. Presently in the 20th century the gap has widened and the need for improvement is challenging for the school administr...
Students who live below the poverty line have less motivation to succeed, and their parents are less inclined to participate in their child’s education, often because the parents cannot provide support for their children. Although it’s logical that school districts from poorer communities cannot collect as much funding as the richer communities, people stuck in these low-income communities often pay higher taxes, and still their school districts cannot accumulate as much money.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Frank Johnson, a writer for the National Center for Education Statics, “Disparities in Public School Spending.” Reported in 1995, public education expenditures per student are higher in the nation's smallest districts whereas students receive an average fully adjusted expenditure of $4,862 versus $4,216 in the largest district’s 10,000 students and above. (Johnson 4)
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.
For years, people have been trying to figure out ways to equalize the divergent academic achievement rates between rich and poor children. A study published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2010 found that, since the late 90’s when they first started monitoring over 2,000 children, media
The federal government of 1980s attempted to reverse the trend of expansion and relaxed the monetary support of education. According to Christopher Cross (2010), the era of Reagan and George H. W. Bush was marked by “grants consolidation, more decision making at the state level, and extensive use of the federal bully pulpit” (p. 71). Reagan and congressional Republicans first passed the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act in 1981 to integrate and reduce the multitude of programs recently created. It returned authority to the states by granting more flexibility in how funds were to be distributed (Cross, 2010, p. 74). Even though the Reagan administration loosened the fiscal ties on education cutting federal funding by 30%, it relentlessly
Develop an argument on or some ideas of understanding about curriculum as multicultural text by relating the works of Darling-Hammond, French, & Garcia-Lopez, Delpit, Duarte & Smith, Greene, Nieto and Sletter to your experience of curriculum, teaching, and learning as affirming diversity. You could think specifically about the following questions: Is there a need for diversity in curriculum studies and designs? Why? What measures do you think will be effective in incorporating such a need into curriculum studies and designs? What is the relevance of diversity to your career goal, to education in your family, community, and school, to education in Georgia, and to education in general? In which way can you develop a curriculum which helps cultivate empathy, compassion, passion, and hope for citizens of the world, and which fosters social justice?
In her article “Why Poor Schools Can’t Win at Standardized Testing,” Meredith Broussard examines the devastating effects of uneven distributions of school funds and how it is tied to test scores for underprivileged students. The cycle of poverty takes on a context of education because in order to get funding for their schools, students must perform well on standardized testing. However, the schools themselves cannot afford the expenses for their students to even access the resources needed to succeeded on such tests. The complexities surrounding unequal school funding can no longer be ignored due to its inevitable domino effect on the problems of the education system, one after the other; thus people should not stand by and tolerate such unfairness
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.
The public school funding system in the United States fails to uphold fairness as unequal funding results in an unequal distribution of resources into American classrooms. Local funding mostly consists of the commercial and residential property taxes that the local government collects to fund for the local school district. Therefore, the property wealth of a district often determines the quality of the region’s schools; thus, students who are born into a disadvantage situation don’t have the same equal opportunity to learn as those who are born into affluent families. When I was in elementary school I was on the receiving end of this inequitable system. I was part of this inequitable system, but it was working for my benefit not to my detriment. I live in a relatively wealthy school district, so I was able to get a good education and get into Chadwick in sixth grade. The educational hegemonic norm was the situation I was in, and the system makes it unfair for the people without the same situation as me or a less fortunate
Bill Clinton once said “It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.” An education provides endless opportunities for the nation such as; informing people of ways to control unnecessary spending of their money, paving the way to better career opportunities, and preparing people for the stressful conditions faced in the real world. While education is a huge factor in breaking the nation’s cycle of poverty, it is not the only key to ending the cycle of poverty. People must also have the desire to succeed, outstanding assets, and support from family and loved ones. Breaking the cycle of poverty in the nation requires enforced education and the efforts of those living in poverty.
A study conducted by Marguerite Roza, a University of Washington professor and a Gates Foundation Advisor, was reviewed by Jay P. Greene, a professor at University of Arkansas and a member of the George W. Bush Institute; it has shown that money in school systems is placed in places that differ from where educators say it will go. While teachers say that they want more funding for low-income individuals in the school system, most spending per student goes towards the students with higher incomes; similarly, other educators say that resources should be focused on core academic subjects such as history, reading, history, or math, but “per-pupil spending tends to be much higher for electives [and] extracurricular activities” (Greene). Also, teachers tend to be paid unequally; they are paid “according to their credentials, seniority, and ‘additional’ work assignments and not at all according to subject taught, number of students served, or the difficulty or importance of their assignments” (Greene). Since salary may be based on an educator’s past and not on their present, a more educated teacher may choose to serve a school or district that offers them more money. This means that the less-learned teachers with lower funding may generally end up teaching the low-income students, allowing for less pay for the subjects that these teachers teach. Schools like these, and the schools with the more experienced teachers, receive “slightly more funding from the district, with higher WSI (Weighted Student Index) by 0.01 and 0.04, respectively. In other words, these schools typically received 1 to 4 percent more than the district average, or $15,000 to $60,000 per school of 500 students in a district where the average school expenditure is $3,000 per pupil” (Guin et al). The inequality of expenditures in
I knew I had some pre-conceived ideas and did not understand the “hype” about the effects of poverty on teaching and learning in the United States, specifically between Washington, D.C. (considered a state for educational purposes) and Arkansas Public Schools. However, even though I grew up and graduated from Washington, DC Public Schools, through research I have found that there are many similarities when when it comes to the effects of poverty on teaching and learning whether you live in North or the South. First, the statistics are astounding. The January 2011 Children's Defense Fund's statistics reveal that the number of poor children in the District of Columbia is 29.4% and the number of children in extreme poverty is 18.8%. In comparison, the number of poor children in Arkansas is 27.2% and the number of children in extreme poverty is 12% . Yet, Washington ranks 3rd among states in per pupil expenditures while Arkansas ranks 37th. Since per pupil expenditures does not seem like a major factor, we must consider the concept of at-risk and the challenges that include diversity, achievement gap, student motivation to learn, lack of readiness to learn, relationships with and involvement of parents and families and brain based research, learning and poverty as outlined by Karen M. Pillino.