Budget Cuts of Oklahoma Education Oklahoma as of today is ranked 49th nationally in per-pupil expenditures and ranked 48th in teacher pay (Klein 2). Putting Oklahoma as one of the worst states to be educated in the United States. “Oklahoma is consistently ranked near the bottom for education funding and teacher pay” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth And Job Creation” 3). When there are state cuts that need to be made, the departments of education are one of the first that usually tend to suffer. Since the 2008 economic crisis, Oklahoma has continued to cut the budget for education; even though the economy has since then gotten better (Perry). Budget cuts in education affect all parts of the education process for the students. “Some school districts have ordered teacher layoffs and shorter sessions” (“Oklahoma Makes the Poor Poorer” par 4).Schools are now struggling to keep their heads above water. Each year from the budget cutting, schools have had to lay off teachers, cut entire programs, and have limited resources used to educate the students. Even the teachers’ retirement system is suffering, being one of the top poorly funded pension programs nationally (Ash par 3). Seeing as that the schools have to cut down classes and programs, administration has had no other choice than to increase class size, overwhelming teachers tremendously. “Oklahoma has 1,500 fewer classroom teachers and 40,000 more students since 2008-2009” (“Investing In Education Is Key For Growth
In taking a brief look at the Oklahoma education system, one need not look far before issues of significant underfunding and understaffing come directly into view. Many different proposals regarding what Oklahoma needs to do to resolve this problem have been suggested in the past, but very few of these proposals outline an answer regarding how these fixes will be implemented. How Oklahoma's educational system can increase the effectiveness of its limited funding is something that can be addressed with simple cost-effective steps and strategies that have proven their effectiveness in other states. Additionally, the issue of understaffing can be looked at from a fresh perspective in order to understand what the Oklahoma education system can do to bring in new teachers and keep these teachers. Finally, in joining with national-level movements and interest groups such as the National Education Association which can help with budgetary issues and Teach for America which can help to bring in new, trained and enthusiastic teachers into areas of Oklahoma that have seen poor performance from students in the past.
To Get A Better School System by Gene B. Preuss explores the journey of educational reform of Texas through one hundred years of inequality, threats, and disagreements. However, the Supreme Court decision regarding Morath vs. Texas Taxpayers has highlighted that even in 2016, additional reforms are needed. Funding for public education is not a new issue and has been a pressing matter since the creation of the Texas educational system. Throughout the process of educational reform, Texans have mainly fought over public education funding in regards to bridging the gap between the portion of funding spent on urban areas and the portion spent on rural areas as well as the small earnings that teachers make. Yet, another area of concern, as pointed out in the article “Texas Supreme Court Upholds School Funding System”, is the Texas Legislature which severely limits the number of available avenues that the state can take when addressing the issue of funding. Together, the past issues of how to fund education and the inequalities that arose in spending, combined with the current issue
The center for the Future of Arizona should help fund the implementation of a new education system that will effectively meet the needs in order for Arizona to become one of the best in K-12 education in the nation. According to the report done by the National Center for Education Statistics for the 100 largest school districts in the nation, in the fiscal year 2013 the total expenditure of Mesa Unified School District in Arizona was of only $7,110 per pupil. On the other hand, the Boston City Schools in Massachusetts had a total expenditure of $19,066 per pupil. Arizona has been funding the state 's education for half the amount that states such as Massachusetts invest. It is relevant to compare Arizona with this state because it has been continuously ranked the best in the nation regarding education. “Massachusetts has led the nation in all but one NAEP reading and math exam given since 2005” (Dawsey, 33). The NAEP, National Assessment of Educational Progress, is the largest representative and continuing evaluation of educational progress in the nation.
The Texas Constitution guarantees an "efficient system of public free schools," but schools have recently found themselves unable to provide an adequate education to the more than 5 million students in Texas because of the many problems within the education policy in the state. Such issues involve school financing, lack of preparation for college, early childhood education, teacher quality, and school choice. Tough all of these conflicts pose a potential threat to the school system’s competence and effectiveness as well as to Texas’ economy, there are a broad number of possible adjustment and reforms that could be placed to improve the adequacy of Texas’ school system.
“Shrinking state and local education budgets matched with the added pressure of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which sets rigid standards in reading and math that schools must achieve in order to receive federal funding, have created a new challenge for districts” (Van Harken).
Texas faces many problems with the current educational system and many of them continue to go unresolved due to the way Texas has established certain laws. A decline in education has been seen since 2006 when legislators decided to cut property tax which pays for education (Maule). Those policies only further hinder the progress of education improving, which is why policies like those do not need to be further implemented. More involvement with students is needed and that will be acquired by having more effective teachers. Many studies have shown that students with effective teachers do better in class than those with ineffective teachers. Not only do students do poorly with ineffective teachers, but “[s]tudies show that most students drop out due to poor academic performance. And studies have proven that the teacher in the
What will Oklahoma look like in 2040, will we be thriving in student education or will we even have an education program for Oklahoma students to thrive in? Oklahoma is already ranked 48th overall in education, what does the future entail if we don’t start trying to build our education system back up. Teacher salaries in the state of Oklahoma are a hot issue right now and need to be discussed. Low teacher salaries don’t just affect teachers they have a huge impact on students and their education. The people of Oklahoma don’t want to raise their taxes to increase teacher salaries but something must change for the future and sake of Oklahoma’s education system.
As somebody who has experienced the Oklahoma Education System first hand, I have came to the conclusion that it needs to be improved drastically. There were countless times that teachers just played a documentary instead of getting up and teaching the students and touching the children’s hearts. This might be due to them just being lazy, or the teachers feeling that they are not valued under the current system that was in place in Oklahoma. I believe that the teachers of Oklahoma should be valued highly due to the fact that they are the people who create doctors, scientists, politicians, and inventors. They need to be valued up there among the doctors and scientists and treated like it. This will raise test scores in children that usually do
High school teachers’ average salary varies across the world. The United States is said to be one of the richest countries in the world, yet our teachers are being paid one of the lowest amounts. The Education Intelligence Agency, author of the article “Ohio Teacher Overcomes Union’s Tolerance” published an International Teacher Salary Report ranking the fifty states by “how much the average salary exceeded per capita personal income.” According to the Education Intelligence Agency Ohio’s percentage rate is only fifty- five point one percent. According to the Education Intelligence Agency the lowest state percentage is in South Dakota at twenty- three point six percent and the highest state percentage is
In Texas when it comes to education spending there is a thing called per pupil funding. Per pupil funding is an average amount of money each pupil is funded. Little do we know,that Texas’s per pupil funding is decreasing. School findings are a major hindrance to the students in Texas schools. There is so much absence of support from the Texas School Board of Education when it comes to school funding.With that being said ,it is not astounding that Texas falls at or close to the base in various vital school measures. Texas positions among the most minimal in joined SAT scores ,47th out of the 50 states ,and is in the quarter broadly in perusing capability. As of
Thesis Statement: Oklahoma schools are now in desperate need of teachers; however, these positions are hard to fill because Oklahoma public school teachers are among the lowest paid teachers in the nation. To correct this issue, we must realize what is the problem, what caused the problem, and what is the best way to fix the problem.
Now a day’s Texas is growing profoundly, but as it cultivates so does its problems. One of the major issues facing Texas today is in the education department. The matter ranges from school funding to standardized testing. Not only are students themselves complaining about the matters at hand but also parents, some teachers, and even state legislature. There have always been five major issues in Texas education; school finance, school choice, expanding pre-kindergarten, school calendar, and testing. Of these issues you could never think of them separately because no matter how hard you try they will, in the end, affect one another.
The low pay for our educators is causing many negative effects. New York Times shows that the low income is causing sixty-two percent of teachers to have a second job outside of their teaching jobs. Just to have enough money to support their families and make ends meet. Most everyone decides to college to prevent having these struggles with money, and to avoid having to work multiple jobs, when they get older; however, not when it comes to living off of only a teacher’s income, the struggles to have enough money are interminable. This low pay is also causing most teachers to retire, and find new jobs. New York Times states, “every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the
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.
In today’s economic environment even the wealthiest states and districts are having to cut funding for education, while districts which were already teetering on the edge are now in an even worse position. In some schools children have to face not having enough books, paper for copies, severe overcrowding,