Funding for Public Education in the United States Essay

There are many problems in the American public education system today. Some of those include the quality of teachers, who have no real passion for the job, and are only allowed to remain in the position because of tenure privileges. Another issue is the state budgets that are allowed for public schools, with some states investing billions of dollars, and others prioritizing it lower on the list. In hot debate today is standardized testing, and the negative effect that it has on high school education, with the limits it places on teachers and what they have time to teach in the classrooms.

Should the federal government have a role in setting national policies for public education - or should that be left to the states?

One of the drawbacks mentioned in the article “Technology: A Catalyst for Teaching and Learning in the Classroom,” is that technology is very expensive, requires ongoing support and constant upgrades, and is not as cost effective as other investments in education (Valdez 21). Some critics think technology is a waste of scarce resources in education (Valdez 22), because overspending in technology can leave inadequate funds for other pressing needs in education. The funds invested in new technologies can instead be invested in other ways such as arts, science laboratories and shops that allow for more hands-on learning (Valdez 21). Well balanced funding for all essential elements in education is an important strategy to follow in the reality of scarce resources in education.

The word education is absent from the U.S. Constitution. Based on this fact, how is Federal involvement in public education justified?

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.

In Underfunding for Public School by Marcial Macias, he specifically addresses how are schools going to provide the proper education to students if schools don’t have the proper funding? This question prompts a wide variety of answers and opinions due to the fact that everyone has their own opinion on this query. This question seems to interest the majority of people in the American society. Therefore, I can see many people such as parents reading Macias’s essay.

During the 1980s, various issues are likely to emerge concerning public and Federal interest in education. These issues include the extent of education to be provided at public expense; the relative share of the education fiscal burden to be borne by local, State, and Federal revenue sources; public funding for nonpublic schools; equal access to education for all students; national performance standards; declining rate of growth in resources; and competition for funds among various social service

Public Schools can, undoubtedly, achieve great things by supplementing their budgets with money from corporate sponsorship; however, this activity is dangerous for public schools as it could put them in a position where they would be expected to support a corporation’s politics while possibly being made to forgo convictions for their own standards and ethics. Since the early 1900s, with the influx of immigrants and the increasing number of children enrolling in schools due to lack of employment opportunities, there has been great demand in education reform with regards to laws and funding (Grubb).

Since 1983 public education has been an issue in America. The system has been constantly changing every year with reforms. This constant change has been driven by the American people’s perception that education has declined and something should be done about it. First there was an increased emphasis on basic skills, making school years longer and more graduation requirements. Second, many began focusing on increasing teachers professionalism. Third, they began restructuring many things such as how the schools were organized and how the school day was structured etc. Now today the most of the American people believe that not enough money is given to public schooling. They associate academic improvement with the money the school is funded.

Today, however, it seems as if the public has lost track of the importance of a great educational system. The main issue today’s public schools faces are funding problems. There is not enough money allocated to support the growing needs of school across the nation.

Education is an issue that touches everyone’s lives in one way or another. Whether you are a parent, student, teacher, taxpayer, or employee, the effects of education on society can be seen everyday. For this reason, public schools are a top concern among political leaders. Over the past twenty-five years, confidence in the nation’s public school system has dramatically declined. While the public for the most part seems to support their school district, criticism is not lacking. Recent years especially have shown dissipating support. It appears that the prevailing view is that public education, as a whole, is in bad condition and is in need of a renewed effort to fix it. Private schools seem to fare

The formula budgeting approach is the method most commonly used by states, including Georgia, to determine K-12 educational funding levels for public schools (Green, 2014). This approach utilizes a fixed method to allocate funds and, as maintained by Green (2014), is intended to provide an objective, efficient, and equitable manner to distribute state education funds to local schools districts. However, as observed with Georgia’s own funding formula, this budgeting approach falls short when full funding is not provided. As a result, funding inequities do occur as local sources of revenue vary across the state.

Within the federal government’s budget education is among the most important yet in the year of 2012 the federal government only spent $107.6 billion out of 3.7 trillion which amounts to 3% on education. Compared to other funding categories in the government’s fiscal year of 2012's budget it's clear to see that education isn’t as important to the government officials as they would like us to believe. Many Americans today are lead to believe that education is important to government officials and it receives an adequate amount of funding because they don't know how much funding is put into the other categories of the budget. The funding put into education in the year 2012 is only 1/8 of social security spending and 1/5 of Medicare

Today, schools are being pressured more and more to improve the technology they use and teach in the classrooms. Parents are placing this pressure on schools so that their students have the skills needed to compete in the real world job market. Students are placing pressure on the schools to improve technology by having more knowledge of

Technology has made great strides in the past 20 years. It plays a very important role in our lives today and even plays a critical role in the way students learn all over the world. Unfortunately, students now rely on technology instead of learning key fundamentals. Technology has replaced the need to learn and most answers are just a google search away. Technology has also become expensive and lower socioeconomic school districts have found affording the newest technology difficult because of their lack of funding. Technology is a great learning tool when used appropriately. The lower socioeconomic school falls behind in the expanding frontier of technology in the classroom because they cannot afford it compared to their counterparts and results in a gap in education. The development of technology in the classroom has caused students to fail the learning of fundamentals and has exploited lower socioeconomic school districts.