Less Funded Future Leaders Of America

In the state the lower class Texan is currently at right now, the state of Texas provides minimal funding to schools in low income areas. Texas currently spends an average of $8,998 per student; the national average for education is $11,674 ranking Texas 46th in educational spending among the 50 states and the District of Columbia (Stutz, 2014). However, despite the continuous debates on television and radio, the topic of funding education in Texas has been a problem since 1973 with little to no improvements as prior to the legislative session of 2013, Texas ranked 49th in educational spending among the states (Stutz, 2014). Furthermore, despite what ex-governor Rick Perry might state, Texas’ education is not a “…national leader in education reform and student achievement.” (Perry, 2011) It is a real problem the American people need to address.

Texas is continually changing and developing. Like all change some would say it comes with the bad and the good. As discussed in the Texas Politics, The recent revision in to the state tax system successfully placed a tax cut on property but did very little to fund public schools. Education is the basis in which we mold our future generation and should be treated with such high importance.

I can personally say that I have had teachers put in so much extra time to help me, because I was struggling in class. They aren’t getting paid for the extra time they put in; they just do it because they care about the future of their students. If we didn’t have teachers who care for the future of young kids then Oklahoma’s education system would be no existent, we would be dead last and on the brink of having the worst economy in the United States. I have grown up and lived in Norman Oklahoma my whole life and I don’t want to see our education system crumble into nothing or just barely hang on and struggle like we have been for a long time now. I want to see our education system start to work its way to the top and see the teachers who have taught me since I was in Kindergarten finally get paid the salary they deserve. I have traveled all over and have been to more than 30 states and multiple countries and I can honestly say that Oklahoma has some of the most caring, hardworking, genuine, give the shirt off their own back kind of people. So we need to start acting like it and come together as a community and raise the salaries of the people who are some of the most compassionate and caring humans around and that’s our teachers. Some people would say that they are the backbone of our community because they are the ones grooming the kids who will someday run the community and

The Texas AFT wants to influence the legislator because the school districts have been left to try to make up for inadequate state aid by raising local tax rates, even as the state has continued to make it much harder for them to accomplish this. Basically, all they want to do is handle the budget crisis in the school districts of Texas. To analyze the successes and failures of Texas AFT in influencing legislation is short and sweet; school systems are still under budgeted and local taxes are still being raised to help the schools. The only break educators have received was in 2006 with “surplus” dollars tax swap for which the bill is now belatedly coming due.

The state budget cuts have also taken a toll to both teachers and parents’ pocketbooks. According to (Kloberdanz-Modesto, 2011) “As parents have quickly learned from this year’s long donation list and increased frequency of car washes and bake sales, it really may take a village to run the local school.” I have experienced firsthand for the past five years how much the donation lists have increased. From only having to purchase school supplies for my son, I now also purchase supplies for the classroom just to ensure my child has all the tools he would need in order to get his education. When my son first started school, I remember his school supply list requested only for a couple of pencils, erasers, and color pencils. Now his list has contains his personal school supplies and donations of hand sanitizer, paper towels, computer paper, lined paper, packs of pencils, packs of erasers, white board markers, and the list goes on. I honestly do not mind, but what about the other parents who cannot afford it? Just this previous year I got close with a parent whose child was also in my son’s class. I remember her asking if I would mind for her to purchase the “not so expensive items” from the list because she was tight on funds. I could see in her facial expression that she was embarrassed to ask the question, but without adequate financing what are we to do as parents to ensure our children receive the tools they need for their education? We dig into

According to the save Texas school, “According to the Texas Comptroller’s office, the State Data Center estimates that the number of public elementary and secondary school students will grow by about 900,000 between 2010 and 2040.” But due to the lake of educational institution and fund it is hard to provide education for all. If I become the Texas representative then I will try to provide fund for needed people and also try to make various law that lead to the expanding of the educational institution. Texas has additionally observed a huge increment in the quantity of monetarily distraught understudies in its state funded schools.

Shortly after the start of school in the middle of August, Governor Bruce Rauner finally signed Senate Bill 1. But neither Republicans or Democrats were completely happy with the entire bill, but at the end of the day they believe “the real winners are the students in the state’s 852 school districts” (Wall). By the governor signing this bill, it means that more money will go to poor school districts throughout the state in order to help the districts with their school funding. But at the end of the day several lawmakers believe this is what the state needed. Senator Kimberly Lightford, Democratic representing Westchester states “I think this is a moment that we all can be proud of. None of us can say we love it 100 percent, but it actually gets the job done.” While Senator Jason Barickman, a Republican representing Bloomington states “We’ve disagreed often, but importantly we’ve come together in

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

Diane Ravitch explores the corporate side of American public education and the reformists’ misled beliefs that the school system is in crisis. The school reforms in place are disguised as a means of improving public education, when in reality it has become an objective to “replace public education with a privately managed, free-market system of schooling” (Ravitch, p.4). Diane Ravitch supports her claim that the reformation movement has poor intentions with multiple sources of evidence. Among these facts she uncovers the truth behind test scores and the achievement gap. Furthermore, Ravitch exposes how the reform movement is a back-door way to privatize schooling with monetary motives in mind. In response to these problems, Diane

School districts experience changes in educations on a regular basis. Some of these changes occur as a result of local, state, and/or federal issues. One way to prepare for local changes that are related to revenue and expenditures is to stay informed. Attending school board, PTA, and city council meetings is a good way to stay informed on what is occurring in your local area. The problem of financing education once, considered the responsibility of only a few specialist with vested interests in the schools—boards of education, school administrators, state departments of education, and state legislatures—developed into a priority item for virtually all citizens. (Brimley 2008) All

The state of Pennsylvania is focusing on the debate over how the state has funded the education system, which means the public school system. All the candidates note that the state has a duty to ensure that their children are educated so they can continue on into adulthood. They also have tried to empathize with voters about how they feel that the government is failing to fund public schools in particular in an adequate enough way. During the campaigns, none of the candidates really presented any solutions to the issue besides to increase funding. One candidate, Christine Donohue however was heavily endorsed by Pennsylvania’s Federation of Teachers. This shows that this federation believes in her ideas and ability to reform the education sector of the state. Also, Donohue has come out and said the reforming the education system is something that she holds as a priority for her time as a justice for the state. This means she has a clear purpose, like those we learned in class for her campaign and potential in

As the general public reads these articles there are three primary outcomes that they could have: support, disinterest, or opposition. In Fikac’s article covering Davis’ plan for increased education spending we see the two extreme points of view. Davis with the support of the Democrat party supports increased incentives for qualified students to enter the field of education along with increased pay to teachers who are getting the desired results all while hopefully not increasing the current tax rate. The Republicans argue that Davis’ math makes little sense and that it is not possible to spend more without increasing taxes. (Fikac, 2014) When the public reads this article the media will have fulfilled their goal of getting the audience to think about the subject. The outcome will be dependent upon the reader’s views and expectations of the government in regards to education. The outcome is also dependent on the reader’s lifestyle. A person with multiple school age children will be more prone to considering The Houston Chronicles agenda then a

In recent years, Texas education has endured several rounds of reform, advancing, stumbling, bobbing and weaving, attempting to rebound, only to receive another jab at new curriculum standards or a punch in the gut of high school dropout rates. While valiant efforts have been made to generate highly motivated, well-organized, effective classrooms, several rifts remain. New programs, implemented to fight off the fatigue of reform, have only added to the burden, for the 2013 Nation’s Report Card outlines Texas success compared to the nation, revealing the number of Texas public schools with scores reaching “Proficient” stand below the national average, a still narrow 34%, and Texas math scores lag behind as

1 Christopher Garza Professor Sharifian GOVT 2306-71003 October 29, 2017 Financing Freedom: Interest Groups and Campaigns in Texas Winning an election for public office in Texas is no easy task. After one decides on their platform, they must condense that into a slogan, convince an apathetic public to vote, and most importantly, fund their campaign. Nothing in life is free. This includes public offices in state government. In a perfect world an individual would not have to spend a small fortune to get elected into office. We do not, however, live in a perfect world. Instead individuals attempting to win a position in the Texas State Senate can expect to spend between $70,000 and $430,000 if they want to win the election. While many

How could the government support women when there is a lack of funding in the education system? Not much money is going directly to the students or teachers. “Based on direct observation in schools, classrooms and of teachers in different countries of the region, the study concluded that Latin American students lose an average of one day of classes weekly due to teachers’ inefficient use of time” (The World Bank). Teachers have to go about their ways to make the class and lecture engaging with the little funding they are given. In a study conducted by Vegas, she states “A growing body of evidence supports the intuitive notion that teachers play a key role in what, how, and how much students learn. Attracting qualified individuals into the teaching profession, retaining these qualified teachers, providing them with the necessary skills and knowledge, and motivating them to work hard and do the best job they can is arguably the key education challenge”. The issue is not the lack of motivation among teachers is the lack of support that they get from the government in all directions. If teachers are prepared a little bit better the lives of these women would be very different.