School Funding Should Not Be Cut

The United States Government has fifteen Cabinet level agencies which include topics such as agriculture to foreign affairs however there is one specific agency that spends billions of dollars a year which may or may not be needed. The United States Department of Education is an agency that could be minimized. The United States Department of Education should be minimized and the state and local departments should be in charge of their own education policies.

In 2009, a great amount of the stimulus funds were designated for education spending. The 91 billion dollars that was supported by this fund did not cover the total federal spending on education of the years 2008 to 2009 which summed up to be 667 billion dollars. An estimation of 570 billion dollars was not supported by the total education bill of federal spending. It costs an estimated 35 billion dollars to cover kindergarten through twelfth grade on a yearly basis. (Voice,2011).

In our reading "Choices are Everywhere: Why can't we just have it all?" from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis we learned that social security, national defense and healthcare programs are the top government spending categories (2013). While I believe all three are good places, I also feel like that 528.4 million dollars could have gone to our education system (not all but definitely some). According to usgovernmentspending.com the United States, in 2014, spend $1,283,079.6 million on healthcare (this includes local, state, and federal) while $962,948.4 million went to education (Total 2014 Government Spending). That is a $320,131.2 difference between total healthcare and education funding. I believe that is the opportunity cost; some of the money that went to PP that could have gone to education.

This budget contains grants, reimbursements from schools, and payments that is from schools. $72.9 billion was set aside for public and higher education institutions. Most of the money is difficult to get if it is for a project that it was not intended for. Since the legislature cannot take money out of these two accounts when they would like, they just cut the budget. This is to give them more wiggle room in other areas that they would like to see the budget go to. There is a cycle that can be seen throughout the government. If the state wants money they need to spend what they have in order to receive federal

“California has cut $18 billion, one-third of state school funding, from money for kindergarten through high school over the past three years.” USA Today (Welch, 2011). Budget cuts to the California Public School System, which is the underlying factor in the deterioration of the quality of education, has had a negative impact on every facet of society. From students to teachers to employers, all have felt the effects of decreased funding of schools. The state of California is headed in the wrong direction by reducing school funding and unless a solution is found to minimize or put a halt to these reductions, our children will bear the

In the future there will be problems with poverty because that is an issue that will never die out no matter how many acts are created. There will always be problems with diversity, but, with the Department's hard work they will be able to help as much as they can and hopefully the future will look brighter overall for the Education system in the United States. But, with elections coming up this year there might be a change with the Department of Education. There is a fact that at least one candidate wants to decrease the Department of Education size. If that were to happen then there could be an even more decrease in the support of Education and our system could very well become weaker. We need to keep this Department in the cabinet so there is a chance of improvement in the

School funding has seemed like a top priority for most people. It has been said that since the budget cuts of

One of the important drawbacks of the budget was the cuts and delays in education funding. As published in the article “California lawmakers pass long-overdue budget” (2010), by Fox News “Under the deal, nearly $2 billion in payments to K-12 schools and California's community colleges would be delayed until the next fiscal year”. This was one of the consequences of the late deficit budget, which lawmakers agreed upon. Stopping payments to educational institutions was not seen as a positive feature of the budget. The delay in funding kept the educational programs on hold, which affected many educational

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

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.

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.

Education is the most important possession a person must have. It is the keys to success, wealth, and knowledge. It is the only possession that cannot be taken away from a person and it will open up the windows of opportunities. Education will help us grow as an individual, have better understanding of life, and give us a financial stability; but what happens when education get cuts down. By making budget cuts to education, is this helping out education or letting it down. In the news article, “Highlights Impact of Budget Cuts to Education” by State School Chief Jack O’Connell, his claim is that governor should not cuts down education budget, but instead protect education and invest it in the future.

Although nobody likes to cut the budget, I feel our budget can be cut in many different ways. We need to split the budget of the swimming pools in half because six public pools is a lot for one town and it’s too expensive. We need to cut some of the youth programs like the high school incentive programs because students shouldn’t have to be rewarded to get good grades they should just get them. We should only have two additional police officers instead of three because two is enough for this city and we don’t want to go over budget and have too many police officers.

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,

Currently the education system in the United States is funded mostly on a state and local level, who always borne over 90% of the public elementary and secondary education finances (need cite). The original Department of Education was developed in 1867 to collect information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems (need cite). Fast forward over one hundred years to 1980, when Congress established the Department of Education as a Cabinet level agency, and note that education standards and improvement continue to be of great importance to the government. It is important to note that the state and federal government play separate roles in the education of students, whereas the federal government has the means to