In the recent years, many changes are transforming the education in United States. New laws are being established that are reforming the educational systems and the many funding systems are experiencing a shift or shortage that will have an imminent influence in many educational programs. The courts have exerted considerable influence on the states to improve their school finance systems. New trends in education from public, private, and online education are making an impact in education in many ways, including the financial structures of schools. There are a variety of issues and factors that affect education today and the impact has and will affect the way finances are approached in the schools. Analyzing how the Lemon Test is used to align with the First Amendment, understanding the implications of distributing public funds to private schools, how No Child Left Behind has impacted schools, recognizing how church-state relations will affect future school financing, and discovering trends in court decisions regarding educational finance, will help schools brace for the possible outcomes these issues will have regarding education and educational finance.
Analysis of Lemon Test to Determine Alignment with First Amendment
The “Choice” Issue that has Implications for Diverting Public Funds to Non Public Schools
The educational choice issue has been a topic in education funding and financing that has been hotly debated in the national and state government (Brimley, et al., 2012). There is a belief that educational choice is a concept that could restructure the way education is implemented and financed throughout the country. In the year 2000, President Bush suggested some form of private school vouchers that could effectively...
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...ate Legislatures. Retrieved from http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/schoolchoicevouchers.aspx
Pardini, P. (1999). Church/State complexities. Rethinking Schools. Retrieved from http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/voucher_report/v_chur142.shtml.
Stutz, T. (2013). Dallas News: Texas House says no to private school vouchers. Retrieved from http://www.edchoice.org/Documents/SchoolChoice/Private-Schools-Laws-and_Regulations/texas.pdf.
U.S. Department of Education (2002). Public Law Print of PL 107-110, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/107-110.pdf.
Wolbrink, V. (2013). Church-State separation battles are bigger in Texas. American United for Separation of Church and State. Retrieved from https://www.au.org/blogs/legislative/church-state-separation-battles-are-bigger-in-texas.
Despite the controversy surrounding vouchers, the private school choice movement may be gaining support. In June of 1999, The Florida legislature approved a plan to give children in the state's worst schools taxpayer-funded tuition payments to attend qualified public, private, or religious schools.
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.
She realized that choice and accountability were not the answer, but that curriculum and instruction were more viable solutions to America’s educational dilemma. Ravitch suggests that to abandon public schools is to abandon the institution that supports our concepts of democracy and citizenship and to the promise of American life (Ravitch, 2011, p. 12-14). The idea of school choice is rooted in Milton Friedman’s essay concerning the government’s role in education. Friedman asserted that society should support and contribute to the maximum freedom of the individual or the family. He maintained that the government should provide vouchers to help support parents financially on their children’s education, which parents could use at the school of their choosing; so long as the school met set standards. Therefore, this creation of choice would stimulate competition, which Friedman believed would increase the development and improvement of nonpublic schools, as well as, create a variety of school options (Ravitch, 2011, p. 115). As a result of the choice movement, the public received three versions of school choice: voucher schools, private schools, and charter schools. Each of these schools receives public funding, but do not operate as traditional public schools, and are not managed by a government agency (Ravitch, 2011, p. 121). Charter schools became the most popular choice of this new
Neill, Monty. "The No Child Left Behind Act Is Not Improving Education." Education: Opposing Viewpoints. New York: Greenhaven, 2005. 162-68. Print.
Lockwood, Andrew. School Finance Reform in Michigan Proposal A: Retrospective. Lansing: Michigan Department of Treasury, 2002.
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.
Odden et al. note that their analysis of spending patterns across the 50 states is supported by the conclusions reached by the Finance Center of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE), although the results of their research did diverge in some significant ways. Odden et al. examined spending and staffing patterns at the district and school levels. They also scrutinized staffing patterns of expenditures by function and program and spending across curriculum content areas in California, Florida and New York. Their major conclusion was that while there had been considerable national investment in public education during the 20th century, as a rule the funds were distributed unfairly and used ineffectively.
In this paper I will detail the reasons for my support of school choice, because its success does not necessarily rely on a change in all of the educational institutions involved. Rather, school choice allows a fundamental shift in how we participate in the education of our children. It involves the act of volition, and constitutes a practice that had generally been reserved for most other aspects of American society: free choice.
Public School Choice is an easy program to understand and it contains many advantages but also many disadvantages. Public School Choice is when parents can elect to send their children out of a school that has not made adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years into a school that has made progress. (McClure, 2002) If there are no available schools within the original school district, then a family can choose to send their children to another district. This only happens when the other schools in the original district are all labeled as ‘underachieving schools’ and have not made the adequate yearly progress. (McClure, 2002)
In 2001, the federal government enacted its greatest reform to public education. William Hayes, the author of No Child Left Behind: Past, Present, and Future,
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.
U.S. Department of Education. (2006). No Child Left Behind executive summary report. Retrieved September 14, 2006 from http://www.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/execsumm.html
Stecher, Brian M., Georges Vernez, and Paul S. Steinberg. Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind: Facts and Recommendations. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2010. Print.
The Public Choice For some parents, deciding on a school for their children can be a difficult decision. Many parents do not spend much time thinking about it; they place their children into the local school designated by where they live. Others attended a private school themselves and found that it was a beneficial experience and therefore want the same for their kids. But which is better: private schools or public schools? While there are many advantages and disadvantages to each (nothing is going to be absolutely perfect), we are going to focus on the benefits of an education in the public school system, or in other words, schools funded by the government that are for anyone to attend.
Many people in today’s society believe it’s wise to send their children to private schools. In making the decision on whether to put children in public or private schools, they look to four main factors: curriculum, class size, the graduation rate, and cost. When people have to pay for something, their first thought is, “Will I be getting what I’m paying for?” With a private school education, the amount you have to pay is usually well worth it. Public schools offer diversity. Here students can find people who are just like them and can associate better. Wherever you live, you have to send your child to the closest school. There’s no choice on what public school you can send your child to, whereas for private schools you can pick to send your child there. It’s not an easy choice for parents to decide, but many factors point toward a guarantee that a good education would be achieved, which is most important.