School funding for public schools has collectively been cut by $7.6 billion since 2002, forcing schools districts in Georgia to a tipping point. The 2001 recession had a major effect on Georgia’s fiscal condition, which consequently had a major effect on the financing of K-12 education in Georgia. School budgets are used to describe a district’s plan for the upcoming year as pertaining to anticipated revenues and expenditures. Each district’s budget heavily relies on the amount of money they receive from the state’s general fund and since that number has significantly dropped in recent years schools are not able to provide the best education for our students. The budget for public schools in Georgia should be increased because teachers are losing their jobs and schools are being forced to eliminate valuable programs that are instrumental in the education of our youth.
Many schools consider art, music, and physical education programs ‘fluff’ classes, which is why when schools are looking for a place to save money those are some of the programs that are first to go. Claire Suggs, Senior Education Policy Analysts for the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, found that “about 42 percent of districts are reducing or eliminating art or music programs and 62 percent are eliminating elective courses” (“Cutting Class” #1). Art and music programs should not be cut because they allow students to explore their creativity and improve problem solving skills. On the
Young 2 other hand, obesity accounts for about 13 percent of children in the United States, which is why physical education programs should be one of the last things to go. They also help students release the stress they have built up through out the day and teach them the ...
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... 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.
The Chicago Public School District is the third largest school district in the United States educating around 400,000 students. Back in 1987 CPS was named “the worst in the nation”(). Moving its way up to the top, since then, CPS had completely rebuilt its structure, appointing leaders and reformed ideas. Now, with a deficit projected to be around $1 billion CPS is headed back in a downwards path, money being the biggest issue. The United States Federal Government already has financial issues of its own, which makes dealing with a CPS budget a problem within a problem. CPS, with a $6.6 billion FY2013 budget, is now taking a new strategy based upon a flawed “Student-Based Budgeting System”. The Board of Education is also struggling to solve the debt they have reached, and with their FY2014 plans this year’s budget book is argued to be “one of the most poorly written budgets”(). The way CPS is handling their budget is not benefiting the lives and education of students and is leaving CPS at a loss with giant financial issues.
In order to develop a better job with school finances the administrator had to dedicate time, and consider many factors not just the monetary aspect, but also, an administrator has to have are where to allocate the funds, the amount available, and resources provided. Also, the importance that the financial system sees public education as an important source for the future of the children and their investments are guide tours the education (Rose, 2013). Finances at schools allows them to obtain programs to enhance the education and encourage to keep a good attendance. All schools and districts need to be somewhat strong financially in order to provide students with a higher quality education as well the technology advantages.
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.
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.
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.
To begin with, “the great recession state school finance systems suffered an unprecedented reduction in general state aid, resulting in lower overall spending,” this would make the schools try to save money by doing budget cuts and getting rid of things that seem unimportant to the school. Students are being sent to schools based on their parents’ income “black or hispanic student attends a school where nearly two-thirds of their peers are low-income.” and “private schools continue to siphon off a significant share of children from higher income families.” Which comes to the conclusion if whether or not schools actually care about giving students equal opportunities for a proper education or if they only want students for their
For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused elsewhere, particularly in the inner city schools.
Florida’s students at all levels are feeling the crunch with education spending levels down and worse performance on standardized tests. When Governor Rick Scott took office, he proposed nearly $3.3 billion in cuts to education (Bousquet & McGrory, 2014). Spending money on education is significant for teacher development, added resources to students, and facility improvements that are necessary to ensure students’ success. Florida’s educational system is changing at all levels; therefore, I have provided some insight and recommendations on improvements that need to take place.
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.
Physical education exists in schools to help students perform physical activity in schools and promote healthy lifestyles. It is extremely important that physical education teachers promote physical activity and healthy diets to young students because they are the ones who will be at risk of developing health issues such as obesity. Physical educators need to teach the younger generation the proper way to stay healthy so that they will continue to be physically active outside of phys...
I learned that school budgets not only inform us of priorities, but they can also serve as a communication tool for the whole district. I feel as if our school could use the budget as an opportunity to discuss progress as well as our strategic plan, but they don’t. Teachers and parents rarely hear about the budget’s educational and operational objectives and accomplishments. This is definitely something my school could improve on, since the school budget should reflect the community and their values. I also think there is a skewed public, and even faculty, perception regarding the school budget. Some of these views include that the school budget is wasteful, administrators are overpaid, administrators are not forward-thinking, and money is spent in the wrong areas. These adverse perceptions of the school budget are often heard during difficult economic times, such as when our school district recently went on fiscal distress. However, I have learned that without meaningful involvement of the community, educators, and staff, these perceptions will never
Under the pressure of budget cuts, many educational institutions have no choice but to reduce professional teaching staff and increasing class size. However, this short-sighted solution can pose a threat to a school’s future. The consequence could be lower graduation rates and declines in enrollment. Traditionally, the state funding is set by a “quota formula” in which the Central Office dictate the number and types of positions that schools are to receive. According to the report on CPS Budget in the Fiscal Year 2014 (FY2014), the former quota formula “created disproportionate impacts, where one extra student coming or going could mean the difference in a full teacher position gained or lost”. In improving the budgeting system, in the FY2014,
All throughout the United States for the past several years, states are “hurting because of falling state revenues,” (Emeagwali), and schools are trying to cope with tremendous budget cuts that are resulting in less funds provided for educational services. These cuts are putting pressure on everyone invested in the education system, including students, teachers and any other administration within them (qtd. in Johnson 2), and the reduced budget is not solely affecting any particular level of schooling either. All levels of education, ranging from primary learning to advanced, have been affected (Emeagwali). Additionally, it is not just one or two states having to adjust their budgets; by 2002, “at least 40 states [had] been forced to consider budget cuts,” and these cuts have taken their toll on the amount of funding designated towards educational opportunities (Feldman). As pressures hit hard on state governments, a rise in educational budget cuts has resulted in deleterious effects on the level of education provided to students. As a result, researchers and infuriated teachers and parents have begun supporting education as it is ignored by government administration.
Over the past five decades, the number of teachers as a percentage of school staff has declined substantially. Since 2000, the ratio of teacher to school staff has decreased. Thus causing classrooms to be overcrowded, while the administrative staff continues to grow. The ratio of support staff to students also has seen a decrease, which indicates a need for restricting and reallocating of resources (Burke, 2012). This paper discusses the student-teacher ratio, classroom size and the reallocating of resources in order to increase effectiveness of expenditures and budgets.
With more technology to feel the gap of physical labor for humans and poor nutrition, obesity is rising and people are not living up to their potential. Children have been spending more time indoors with a screen in their face and a controller in their hand. Lack of physical activity not only causes obesity, but lack of brain power and achievement. Children and their families need to be taught the proper ways of how to be healthy in physical education classes to maintain their health across their life span. By incorporating in more lifelong knowledge about health into our physical education systems, obesity rates will drop and students will do much better in school.