The State of Ohio is letting down their students with some of the lowest test scores in our country. According to OSU Research News, reporter Doug Downey states, “up to three-quarters of U.S. schools deemed failing based on achievement test scores and would receive passing grades if evaluated using a less biased measure, a new study suggests” (“Many Failing Schools Aren’t Failing When Measured on Impact rather Than Achievement" par. 1). Above all, teachers feel that all they do is just teach students how to pass assessment tests. Thus, some students feel stress and frustrated, as if all they do is practice and study on how to pass achievement tests. In addition, with the economy effecting property taxes, which have been going down in recent years has affected the school funding. Furthermore, Ohioans are starting to see more states moving towards a year-around school system. Therefore, Ohio fails the students in education, due to lack of state funding, classroom time, and quality teachers.
First, let us begin with the problem that faces Ohio’s education and how it funding has some causes for Ohio’s students to fall behind. To explain further an article posted on About.com in titled, "Ohio Public School Funding Reform,” which states that, Ohio's public education funding system depends largely on property taxes. Schools districts in less affluent areas receive less money to spend per child than other, wealthier districts that collect more in property taxes" (Clarke, par. 4). For example, the lack of state funding can be seen in many different aspects such as, old school buildings that have been patch over and painted to hide its flaws. According to the article, "School Funding: Has Ohio Fix it?," The Columbus Dispatch, ...
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"Reinventing Public Education | Ohio Education Matters." Changing Ohio Education for a Changing World | Ohio Education Matters. Ed. Ohio Education Matters. KnowledgeWorks Foundation, 2009. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. .
Siegel, Jim, and Catherine Candisky. "SCHOOL FUNDING: HAS OHIO FIXED IT? | The Columbus Dispatch." The Columbus Dispatch. Dispatch Printing Company, 30 Mar. 2007. Web. 27 Oct. 2011. .
Von Hippel, Paul T. “What Happens to Summer Learning in Year-Round Schools?” Columbus: Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, 2006. 1. PDF file.
School funding is a recurring issue in the modern era. Debates ranging from give schools more money, to get rid of the system in place and reform a new idea have been plaguing the world over the years. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed in 2009, provided more than $100 billion in education aid to offset budget cuts..” (School Finance). Later, “Congress provided an additional $10 billion in 2010 to avert mass teacher layoffs (Education Week, "Total Recovery Act")” (School Funding). These numbers are just a sample of the struggles in school funding, that is costing a ton of money to keep afloat. “There are many ways schools fund varying from state to state and even school to school. Income taxes, corporate taxes, sales taxes, and other fees provide 48 percent of the elementary and secondary school funds. 44 percent of local districts draw money from local property taxes. The federal government makes up approximately 8 percent of state education budgets. These funds are a dealt out on a per-student basis, and categorically to ensure enough resources for each special program or facility” (School Funding). These funds play a huge role in every student's education, either positive or negative. The three main areas that need to be addressed in the school budget are extracurricular funding, building and equipment maintenance, and last but not least staff funding.
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 ...
The United States of America has placed low on the educational ladder throughout the years. The cause of such a low ranking is due to such heavy emphasis on standardized testing and not individual student achievement. Although the United States uses standardized testing as a crutch, it is not an effective measure of a student’s ability, a teacher’s competency, or a school’s proficiency.
The most powerful aspect of this essay is not the essay itself (as you will see) but, rather, the fact that it was written by an American college student.
With this many students, both state and federal representatives have made efforts to adopt reforms designed to make a solution to the funding inequality. The disproportion of funds first and foremost effects the amount of programs offered to children that vary from basic subjects such as: English, Math, and Science. This created the motivation to improve the quality of education for low-income neighborhoods by targeting resources other than property taxes and redirecting the states budgets. The goal the school districts all shared was the need to increase instruction, add after school activities, promote a well-rounded education, physical innovations to facilities and classrooms, and to update the academic resources. The popular demand that the funding to public education needs to correspond throughout all the school districts. Wealthy tax payers often argue that a region that depends on property taxes is the “American way.” This argument derives from the ideology that American success relies on perseverance and hard work, but if the playing field is uneven the higher born student has an advantage. “High property taxes—the burdens and perverse incentives they create, the rage they generate, the town-to-town school funding inequities they proliferate—…represent an endless New England nightmare…” (Peirce and Johnson, 2006). In the attempt to
... past decade has not only affected teachers and valuable elective programs, but mostly importantly the education of today’s youth. The Georgia school districts have exhausted almost every way to make up for the billions of dollars of lost state financial support and they have reached the tipping point. Since over 9,000 teachers have lost their jobs, students are being forced into already bulging classes where they do not receive the kind of individual attention needed in order to boost student achievement. If Georgia leaders expect student achievements to improve, they must invest the necessary economic resources needed to achieve this goal. At the end of the day, one of the most important things in life is a good education, so we need to start putting more money into the K-12 school funding and help build back what years of austerity cuts have nearly destroyed.
“If you would just get up and teach them instead of handing them a packet. There’s kids in here that don’t learn like that. They need to learn face to face. I’m telling you what you need to do. You can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell ‘em.” Texas student, Jeff Bliss, decided to take a stand against the lack of teaching going on in his class (Broderick).
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.
With less than 5,000 residents living in Smallville, Ohio, it is an ideal small town where everyone knows each other, multiple generations of families live and grow and barely any crimes are committed. The main road leading into Smallville is like a never-ending run of corn fields, silos and dairy farms. It's an old town with old traditions. As brief as my residency was in Smallville, I witnessed the social injustices and educational issues that plague small town living.
The state of the Louisiana public school system is among the worst in the union. Among the 50 states Louisiana consistently ranks in the bottom in public education. The National Center for Education Statistics ranked Louisiana as the 49th state in the country for public education (Todd). Louisiana also ranks 48 out of 50 in science education, and 47 out of 50 in mathematics in the country according to the American Institute of Physics (Todd). In addition, to low outcomes in these measures Louisiana has a high school graduation rate of 67 percent in 2010(Todd). This considerable proportion of students failing to graduate high school has a negative impact on economic growth, when one considers that lower educational attainment is correlated with, lower earnings and unemployment (United States. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). With these low levels education attainment and economic opportunity, poverty rises and income falls. This is shown by the fact that Louisiana poverty rate is 18.4 percent, which is 4.1 percentage points higher than the national average (Louisiana Quick Facts from the US Census Bureau). Furthermore, the per capita income in Louisiana is over 4,000 dollars below the national average (The US Census Bureau). All these statistics show how Louisiana is a state that is suffering from a public education system that fails to prepare its children to enter the work force and become productive citizens.
Over the years schools have been losing money due to budget cuts in the districts. According to Michael Leachman, an expert on state budget and tax, most states in the US are spending less money to support young students than before the great recession. Around 31 states provide students with less money for education than in the year 2008 (Leachman 1). Schools today are getting less money than they ever have. Students are now paying for this issue with
Even in this time of struggle, with billions of dollars going towards various war efforts overseas, America still has managed to keep taxpayer investments in education higher than that of funds for national defense (U.S Department of Education). In the 2004-05 school year, there was an estimated amount of 536 billion dollars set aside from taxpayer investment for education purposes. Without a doubt, education is a priority for the American government, and if these funds are used in the correct way, there is no reason why each and every kid in the United States shouldn’t be getting a quality education. However, the organization of the financial system is flawed, funds are not handled proportionately at the state level; rather, this system favors the wealthier districts and hands more funds to them while the less wealthier districts are handed a smaller pool of funds. This really affects America’s quality of education, which also reflects upon how America fairs on the world stage when it comes to competition in education with other countries. The disorganization of funds in the United States can be seen in the Hoover City School district, which has bought every student in that district an iPad for use in school. The first problem with this is that this school district does not even have a viable bus system that can transport students to and from school. Secondly, not even 20 miles from this district lies the Birmingham City School district where a little more than half the students are graduating, compared to Hoover City Schools where a bit more than 90 percent of the students are graduating. If anything, the state should be working towards improving educational standards in lower-income communities rather than debating on the log...
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.
As child growing up some of the frightful memories include a visit to the dentist; an evil man with scary drill whose solve purpose is to hurt you or the first day in elementary school you finally leave all behind the cozy classrooms and nap times of kindergarten and enter the big leagues. All of these are considered a cakewalk compared to standardize testing. Since the start of elementary school students in the United States are taught to test. In many instances students are held back or placed in remedial classes because of lower grades. But many don’t realize that some students are not great at testing taking and because of the lower grades some educators believe that these students are lower achievers. This leads to lower self-esteem and encourage students to drop out in later years. Also students are forced to memorize information merely as facts without sparking their creativity or enhancing their knowledge.
Many teacher 's jobs are threatened when their classes test scores are not at the level they should be. Frances Banales says, "We must get the testing scores increased...Everything is overshadowed by one high-stakes test.”(Overman 2) A teacher must teach the material that is on the end of the year state test in the allotted time of a school year. To fit all the material in a school year, a teacher must prepare the students and themselves for the test. This is not teaching the students anything besides how to test and that is why students are not ready for college. Richard says, "...the time spent on schooling students in the techniques of test taking--how to fill in answer sheet bubbles, whether to guess or not, what to do when time runs short, and so on?”(Phelps 1) Teachers are so focused on the test scores reflecting back on the teacher and not focused on if students actually learn the material. Students are taught to use their short term memory to remember the material for the test in a week rather than leaning the material for a lifetime. Students get to college and are lost because they do not remember any of the coursework. Linda says, "Individual teacher 's scores do not accurately reveal their ability to teach.” (Hammond 2) Stressing over test scores is what every teacher does, while students are not