Over the passed fifteen years, the Bush and Obama Administration have cut spending in the education department dramatically. This translates into decreased pay for teachers, limited expenditures for each student, and limited expenditures within the classroom. This decrease in pay roll for teachers has even gone as far as laying off hard working teachers. With the contraction of spending allotted by the government, the absence of quality teachers has emerged resulting in the decline of student’s standard of education. The federal governments limiting budget has added to the universal achievement gap and should be attended to as soon as possible.
The education system is comprised of many…show more content… Accordingly, legislature should listen to this and other stakeholders’ outcry for more qualified teachers and reassess their decisions and or future ones. Of course the achievement gap is very complex, and only providing qualified teachers will not completely close the gap, but it will help to adjourn the issue.
The state of Arizona is facing a serious education crisis in the retention of qualified teachers. Personally, my school in Yuma, Arizona encountered an average of seven new teachers every year. Yuma High School District allowed for a teacher to teach chemistry when his/her Bachelor’s degree was in mathematics. According to the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ enacted in 2001, schools are required to provide “highly qualified” teachers to teach at all times (Educator Excellence). Having quality, long-term teachers is imperative to develop students in becoming productive members of society. Unfortunately due to federal budget cuts directly affecting education, Timothy L. Ogle, executive director of the Arizona School Boards Association, says, “Arizona has faced the most dramatic cuts to K-12 education spending of any state in the nation” (Lopez). As a result, administration is forced to have teachers make up for the lack of a certain subject by teaching it without qualifications. Due to this, out-of-state teachers leave within the first 5 years, and 25% all leave within the first year. Some reasons for this include a