Budget Cuts In Public Schools

Schools do a “good” job in promoting certain healthy foods in their cafeterias. Yes, students do not enjoy eating them but it is for their good. The fact that schools sell the “baked” chips is a good and a bad idea. It is a good idea because they are healthier than the regular chips sold in grocery stores and smaller than regular sizes. The bad part comes to the fact that they are still being sold and most students prefer to purchase them instead of fruits. In my case, I know I would prefer to eat those chips instead of the fruits. Vending machines are rarely seen in schools but the schools that do have them do not have healthy items inside. Sodas and junk snacks are what are mostly seen in those vending machines along with others. Students

There is a dramatic increase in the number of children who are being affected by diabetes and obesity in America. Sugary drinks and unhealthy snacks should be taken out of the vending machines in schools and replaced with healthier choices to help stop this trend. Some may argue that taking out the options it is taking away a student’s right to choose what they will and will not eat. However, by taking out the sugary drinks healthy habits are encouraged, future diseases are avoided, and a healthier generation is brought up.

Our political leaders struggle to understand the impact they have on the policies they put into place to improve public education. We see mandates that are unfunded and have a significant impact on a school district’s budget. Special education continues to be an area rich with policy and yet additional dollars are not included in the decisions made for implementation. Title one funding is an area that falls into a blurry area of policy for school districts. In our district, we have policies for fiscal responsibility in our spending procedures and yearly audits to be sure we are spending our money in a proper way.

Since last spring, Philadelphia school district leaders have been sounding the alarm about this year’s fiscal budget. Even after months of discussions and headlines, schools have opened with fewer resources than last year. On March 28th the School Reform Commission approved a lump sum budget which showed a need for an additional $220 million in revenue in order to provide schools with same resources as the “wholly insufficient” 2013-14 school year (McCorry). There will be many inadequate funding impacts on the quality of the education. Classroom resources would be stripped to untenable levels. The district would reduce as much as $2.2 million funding to the districts’ multiple pathways to graduation program which affects estimated 300 students. Another $1.5 million could be reduced from the elimination of preparation and professional development time for teachers at the district’s high needs promise academies. The district’s building maintenance budget could have reduction in amount of $9.6 million. Schools will be cleaned less frequently as a result. Building maintenance will also be curtailed as a result. District’s school police budget could also have reduction in amount of $2.4 million. School police officer vacancies will be unfilled, leaving an additional 27 elementary schools to share an officer.

I believe that education is essential to America’s future generations and how well we can compete with the rest of the world in diverse fields, therefore school funding should not be cut. The budget for the Department of Education has been reduced and cut in many ways. Some solutions the government thought they had found, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, turned out to increase the budget, rather than reduce it. The cutting of teachers’ unions and reduction of class sizes have also been suggested to reduce budget. Although some of these sound easy and appealing, they won’t necessarily help reduce the Department of Education’s spending.

In today’s school systems, art and music classes are not mandatory to be taught. This makes them very vulnerable to budget cuts in struggling schools. It is estimated that more than eighty percent of schools nationwide have experienced cuts to their budgets since 2008 (Metla). Every child in America deserves a complete education, and a complete education includes the arts. Due to budget cuts, many students do not receive instruction in art and music and therefore do not receive a full education. Music and art classes in schools are just as important as core classes and should not be subject to budget cuts.

Most people believe that students do better in well-funded schools and that public education should provide a level playing field for children. Nearly half of the funding for public schools in the United States, however, is provided through local taxes, generating large differences in funding between wealthy and impoverished communities (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000a). Efforts to reduce these disparities have provoked controversy and resistance. Public school funding the United States comes from federal, state, and local sources, but because nearly half of those funds come from local property taxes, the system generates large funding differences between wealthy and impoverished communities. Such differences exist among states, among school districts within each state, and even among schools within specific districts.

The government may not be the only responsible party for what is going on in America, Fast Food corporations have grown into a part of everyday life. Relentless advertising focused on children with the use cartoon characters and larger portions or extra sizes to entice people. Yves Engler, author of Obesity: Much of the Responsibility Lies with Corporations, points out it’s not only fast food restaurants where unhealthy products are being consumed, but also soft drink companies with high calorie soda pop who are giving money to cash-strapped schools to advertise their product on school televisions. Meanwhile targeting young children who get their parents to buy their products. Engler proposes a solution regarding the increase in childhood obesity by first stating that vending machines should be removed from schools and the

As most people will agree, education is an important factor to succeed. Educated people in a society stand for a successful society. The issue in Illinois is the universities aren’t being provided the funds promised to them by the Illinois State government. The schools are being forced to make budget cuts. The teachers at the schools are being forced to take furlough days, which are day they have take off with out a pay. The cause of all of these actions is due to the major debt the State of Illinois is in. The money the state should be paying the universities, the state is using it on other items. University of Illinois is one of the schools that has to take budget cuts. This is unfair to the University of Illinois because the State

If schools raise money by selling these products they are largely responsible for the future generation of obesity. Obesity is one of the key factors in many health related diseases, for example diabetes, heart disease and cancers. These illness will lead to death if left untreated and cost the nation millions of dollars a year in treatment.

Public education is under funded, especially in the state of Alabama. I attended public school in the state of Alabama and I experienced this first hand in my elementary and high school classrooms. Low funds for the arts department and many basic school necessities are just some of the areas that are affected by the low funding. In the 2012-2013 school years, Alabama had over 744,637 students enrolled in a total of 1,637 schools. Alabama’s school funding has gone down 14% since 2008. Many school systems have to spend additional money from local revenue on top of what the state provides because it is not enough. Alabama public schools are under funded and it is a problem that is affecting classrooms across the

(Brimley 2008) However, to equalize funds and maximize cost quality relationships grants and incentives are good places to start. School districts have to find ways to hire knowledgeable and committed teachers. One way to draw the knowledgeable teacher is to offer stipends for teacher shortage areas and sign on bonuses. Districts must continue to offer some type of incentives to maintain good teachers. Teacher tenure is another great incentive but can sometimes cause good teachers to become too laidback. Tenure grants educators “a right, term, or mode of holding or occupying something of value for a period of time.” (Tenure) Basically, tenure in the education realm grants what some would call stability or even security.

Are today’s students being cheated out of the best education possible just to balance the budget? The forthcoming of Pennsylvania relies on the education of the younger generations. Only time can tell whether adolescents, currently being educated, can maintain the high level of learning with the barriers they are going to encounter with the proposed budget. For a positive future in Pennsylvania, the youth must be educated intelligently and properly. Proposed Pennsylvania state educational budget cuts will deny students the opportunity to develop their fullest potential creatively, academically, and socially.

Budget cuts in schools cause turmoil and stress among the students and faculty. Drastic changes in the budgets have caused schools to negatively impact the people around them. With the lack of funding, schools are facing difficult decisions on what to do to stay within their budget. Supervision is facing much scrutiny on how to handle the lack of funding in their school districts. A solution needs to be made to improve the distribution of funding to our schools in order to keep them operating and thriving for our children to obtain their education. Budget cuts in schools have shown negative effects on employee positions, supplies, extracurricular activities.

We have seen the economy suffer due to financial problems over the last couple of years. The financial struggles are affecting more than just the citizens of the United States but also the Public School system. “Americans have seen the economy slow significantly. Over the past 10 years, the unemployment rate has more than doubled” (Sherk). “Many states reported limited and diminishing funds for public schools as a result” (Hungerford and Wassmer). The lack of funding for public schools are requiring schools to redo there education systems, and causing them to change curriculum. The schools are trying to keep a well-rounded educations but are having a hard time keeping everything that they have had before. They are playing the which class should we cut game and they all are deciding to keep the usual English, Math, Science and of course History. But, they are cutting the music education program that has huge impacts on the students. Some schools are offering a small amount of music class but most of them ended up cutting all of them as a whole. Music is not a cheap program for students to get involved in they have to purchase their own instruments and supplies such as books, music and other supplies. When schools had budgets for their music education they supplied most of the tools needed for the students needed to succeed. Now that there is no money in schools are relying on private donors. If a school still does not have enough money they are making students either pay a