Local Controls Funding Formula And Local Control Accountability Plan

Whether on the scale of a school district, a state, or the nation, achievement gaps exist. Wealth seems to be the deciding factor, with race coming in at a close second, but these do not (and should not) be deciding factors. The State of Texas has developed The P-16 Initiative which seeks to close theses performance gaps between the poor and wealthy. Our textbook reads: “The P-16 is an effort to work with stakeholders collaboratively to foster a more integrated education system, while addressing issues of college readiness standards, teacher education, and educational

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.

The gap between the nation’s best and worst public schools continues to grow. Our country is based on freedom and equality for all, yet in practice and in the spectrum of education this is rarely the case. We do not even have to step further than our own city and its public school system, which many media outlets have labeled “dysfunctional” and “in shambles.” At the same time, Montgomery County, located just northwest of the District in suburban Maryland, stands as one of the top school systems in the country. Within each of these systems, there are schools that excel and there are schools that consistently measure below average. Money alone can not erase this gap. While

“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).

After conducting the interviews and analyzing the data I have to come to the conclusion that it takes every stakeholder, parents, teachers, and administrators, to be involved for African American students to be successful. We can no longer point the blame at one party. Teachers can not blame parents and parents can not blame teachers, we all have to work together. There has to be an open line of communication between home and school. We have to all remember it is about the student, the child, and we have to do whatever is necessary to ensure they are successful.

Probably one of the most important issues when it comes to Family/Community Partnership is trying to get the families/community involved in what we are doing. By engaging parents, it will help us to see what we are lacking and what we need to do in order to have our families fully engaged. I feel that if our families/communities are not engaged in our program then we need to reevaluate in order to encourage their participation. By reevaluating our program we can further access what we need to work on. If parents/communities feel that they are not valued as part of our team, they won’t engage in our program. Both the parents and the community play a big role in the education of our children. Parents are their first teachers and the communities have valuable resources for the children.

“Unintended Educational and Social Consequences of the No Child Left Behind Act” Journal of Gender, Race and Justice, no. 2, Winter 2009, pp. 311. EBSCOhost. In this peer-reviewed academic journal article, Liz Hollingworth, an associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Iowa, explores the history of school reform in the United States, and the unintended consequences of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Hollingworth states that the great promise of NCLB is that schools will focus on the education of low-achieving students, reducing the gap in student academic achievement between White students and African-American, Hispanic, and Native American student populations. Hollingworth states that an unintended consequence of NCLB was that teachers and school administrators had to shift curriculum focus in an effort to raise test scores, but in some cases, they had to also abandoned thoughtful, research-based classroom practices in exchange for test preparation. NCLB also affected teachers, highly qualified teachers left high-poverty schools, with low performance rates especially those schools where teacher salaries are tied to student academic performance. Hollingworth concludes her article by stating “we need to be wary of policy innovations that amount to simply rearranging the deck chairs on the

If the current system not the administration calculates that the annually will increase as a chance to reinforce the district where it needs the assistance. While increased funding not necessarily equate to improvements in student performance, it’s funding and where it is clearly needs to be addressed. Ambitious effort to lift student achievement and, fundamentally, to undermine the idea of public

Recently there has been an issue that has been plaguing the Louisiana state government and school board that a new superintendent has managed to draw attention to. The budget crisis involving too many scholarships being currently provided by TOPS, a program that helps student pay for college. As of now, 91% of freshman students attending ULL are having some sort of financial aid from TOPS and some may not be able to pay for college without the help from the program.

The defeat of Initiative 42, Mississippi’s best hope for adequately funding K-12 public school education, was devastating to Mississippi public school educators and their many supporters. Since the defeat, the question has been, “What do we do next?” Like so many others, I questioned if there was any need to even try to fight the system any longer. However, after a lot of thought and soul searching, I am resolved that it is more important than ever before to continue the fight. In fact, I have a plan of action that may sound farfetched on the surface, but it just might work. The plan is at least a step to rekindle the flame that educators and parents must keep burning on this issue.

Our teaching experience revealed the discrepancies between student academic achievement gaps and curriculum mandates required by generally standardized education policies. Many of their students were from low-socioeconomic backgrounds where high-end educational resources needed to function in the general education environment are often not available in spite of the federal mandates indicating all children have the right to a fair and equal opportunity learning experience.

The message that I wish to convey to the parents of Hardin Elementary School here in Burkburnett Texas is what our PTO does for the teachers, students, and other parents. I want to make sure that parents know what we do, why we do it, and how they can help out as well. I feel as if most parents think that there is only a small group of parents that help and that is it, no one else can help. This is not the case. The PTO board may be a small group but PTO as a whole can include everyone. I wish to show the parents everything that we are involved in, in hopes of capturing their attention and getting them involved.

affects San Diego schools for the better is through webinars. Webinars are online seminars that provide information, such as how you can best represent your child. The spread of knowledge is invaluable because it is important to be informed when making decisions for a child. There is a website specifically for San Diego and the PTA, https://sdcouncilpta.wordpress.com, this website contains tons of information about education, including laws, programs, and events. Lastly, the PTA impacts the lives of children and families by organizing volunteer work and other events that benefit students by raising funds for their school. All in all, the PTA impacts the lives of the students and families in many ways and just a few of which are programs, webinars,

My district faces much less severe complications than Chachagua, but I could not be a bystander and watch as it fell apart. Teachers protested, organized “sick-outs”, and had the support of parents and students for educational reform. I participated in a school exchange for a day to witness educational disparities myself, and attending Birmingham Groves opened my eyes. Instead of ignoring these problems, I applied for a grant to launch a tutoring program in my community called Owning it: Our Education (OIOE). After painstakingly working on a budget, video, and extensive paperwork, I won the grant and received ten thousand dollars to mitigate the achievement gap between my community and its suburban counterparts. OIOE consisted of tutoring for students of all ages and offered workshops for FAFSA, college choices, first generation students, admissions essays, and standardized test-prep. OIOE has become a movement in my community and now has a fifty-thousand dollar budget that is used for the development of students in

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” It is difficult to prevent temptation within the student population when it comes to the harmful aspects of our society and the effect it has. Most students strive to be “cool” or “popular” or simply fit in when they attend grade school. Although not all students fall into the wrong path, every student deserves assistance and the opportunity to grow and prosper. In the Pasadena Independent School District (PISD) about 90% of the students are minorities. Meanwhile, in 2015 the highest percentage of drop outs within ethnic groups was 9.6%; it belonged to a minority. Although minorities tend to have higher dropout rates, there are nonprofit organizations established such as the Communities In Schools After-school Centers on Education program (CIS-ACE). As an employee of this particular organization, I can confirm that our main focus is student success in the Pasadena ISD. Regardless of all the positive effects is has within our community and the hard work we put toward the program, it is no longer receiving a grant to furthermore continue this program even though it is evident that students in Pasadena ISD would be benefitted more than most compared to other school districts. This is because there is not enough support from the administrators in the district and because those who distribute the grants deliberately decided to give it to another district.