Video Reflection: Schools Urged to Cushion Budget Blow
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Video Reflection: Schools Urged to Cushion Budget Blow
School districts are currently grappling with the key goal of cutting costs while maintaining the quality of their basic instructional curriculums. In the video by Education Week (2017), a discussion ensues on cost-cutting strategy approaches to help schools operate within the limited finances at their disposal. The video conversation proposes an all-inclusive approach of identifying unnecessary expenditures and reallocating funds to priority areas. The focus of the acknowledged method is to concentrate resources to areas pertinent to attaining transformational student performance. However,
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Evidently, these outcomes would achieve some cost-saving benefits; however, the success would be at the expense of the quality of learning. The impact on education is seen in the declining replacement rates of departing teachers, the increasing redundancy of classroom support staff, and the growing workload on instructors from larger classrooms and longer working hours (Bowser, 2017). Additionally, these cost-saving approaches weaken the ability of schools to build intelligence and creativity in children (Leachman, Albares, Masterson, & Wallace, 2015). Basically, the negative impacts of budget reallocation measures on the quality of education hampers the improvement of student performance. However, these budget-cutting approaches remain the best alternatives to ensure schools operate normally in hard economic …show more content…
The agreed approaches revolve around reducing budget expenditures, reallocating funds to academically crucial areas, and promoting innovation. The effectiveness of these strategies would be based on the realization of improved student performance. However, this is never the case as the outcomes of these approaches reduce the quality of instruction in schools. Conversely, tough financial times, strained resources, and lower state funding constrains schools to moderate their expenditures and careful monitor usage of existing resources. Consequently, the use of reallocation and stricter budgeting approaches is justified.
References
Education Week. (2017). Schools urged to cushion budget blow to classroom [Video file]. Retrieved from http://video.edweek.org/detail/video/105845341001/schools-urged-to-cushion-budget-blow-to-classroom?autoStart=true&q=School%20Urged%20to%20Cushion%20Budget%20Blow.
Bowser, P. S. (2017). The abandoned mission in public higher education: The case of the California State University. New York, NY: Routledge.
Leachman, M., Albares, N., Masterson, K., & Wallace, M. (2015). Most states have cut school funding, and some continue cutting. Center on Budget Policy Priorities. Retrieved from
The evidence suggests that increasing class size will not only harm children’s test scores in the short-run, but also in their long-run human capital formation. Money is saved from increasing class size will be more substantial social and educational costs in the future. In addition to high costs, reducing class size have unintended consequences. When California lowered class sizes in 1996, they realized that they did not have enough teachers to meet the challenge. Schools were forced to hire new teachers and add portable classmates to accommodate the state
In the article “The New Normal” by David Brooks, he states that there are many issues involving the national budget that need to be addressed. Brooks first exclaims that in order to begin to solve the issues, the citizens of the nation need to make it so that everyone is affected by the different cuts. Not just one group of people. The author also states that we need to trim from the elderly to invest in the young considering many schools and their programs are experiencing sizable budget cuts due to lack of funding. The final law that Brooks discussed was that government officials should, under no condition, cut without an evaluation process.
money for both school and states, because school can cut down the number of teachers to hire and
In 2013, the state lawmakers restored almost $3.4 billion of the $5.4 billion in public education cuts made in 2011 and changed graduation and testing requirements. Last year, the legislature restored $1.5 billion into schools, which wasn’t enough to cover the previous $5.4 billion cut, when adjusted for enrollment growth and inflation.
Since last spring, Philadelphia school district leaders have been sounding the alarm about this year’s fiscal budget. Even after months of discussions and headlines, schools have opened with fewer resources than last year. On March 28th the School Reform Commission approved a lump sum budget which showed a need for an additional $220 million in revenue in order to provide schools with same resources as the “wholly insufficient” 2013-14 school year (McCorry). There will be many inadequate funding impacts on the quality of the education. Classroom resources would be stripped to untenable levels. The district would reduce as much as $2.2 million funding to the districts’ multiple pathways to graduation program which affects estimated 300 students. Another $1.5 million could be reduced from the elimination of preparation and professional development time for teachers at the district’s high needs promise academies. The district’s building maintenance budget could have reduction in amount of $9.6 million. Schools will be cleaned less frequently as a result. Building maintenance will also be curtailed as a result. District’s school police budget could also have reduction in amount of $2.4 million. School police officer vacancies will be unfilled, leaving an additional 27 elementary schools to share an officer.
As the newly promoted director of student achievement for Washington, D.C Public Schools, I am fully committed to the expansion of current program offerings as well as the creation of additional programs. To achieve this, I will make use of the principles learned in my graduate budgeting course to assess the current financial situation, plan the department’s future direction, create and implement the new annual budget, and lastly, evaluate the success of the programs and the budget in preparation of repeating these steps.
Funding for Oklahoma schools has fallen dramatically in recent years, with Oklahoma spending $706 less per student in inflation-adjusted dollars that it did in 2008, and Oklahomans are worried about it, and rightly so (Gene, 1). In looking toward a quick-fix, many have argued that Oklahoma need only reduce its administrative costs, thus
The National Conference of State Legislatures said, “School budget crunches have been a trend over the past couple years and span the entire nation” (qtd. in Van
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
I believe that education is essential to America’s future generations and how well we can compete with the rest of the world in diverse fields, therefore school funding should not be cut. The budget for the Department of Education has been reduced and cut in many ways. Some solutions the government thought they had found, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, turned out to increase the budget, rather than reduce it. The cutting of teachers’ unions and reduction of class sizes have also been suggested to reduce budget. Although some of these sound easy and appealing, they won’t necessarily help reduce the Department of Education’s spending.
School funding has seemed like a top priority for most people. It has been said that since the budget cuts of
In addition, insufficient funding of schools along with quality teachers that are retiring are some of the problems we encounter in the education system. In some parts of the United States, there is a lack of adequate access to materials for reading and writing due to budget constraints. In Allen D. Kanner’s article, “Today’s Class Brought to You By…” he mentioned that with the baby boomers retiring, and a high turnover among new teachers, who are asked to teach subjects they are not properly trained for, are causing difficult classroom situations (280). Similarly, Governor Jerry Brown’s statement last January 11 pointed out that K-12 education has ‘borne the brunt’ of the state’s budget cuts with more than $18 billion in cuts over the last three years. This resulted in larger class sizes, programs are cut, and over 30,000 educators laid off. These teachers are very valuable in our society because they provide our youth with the knowledge and social experiences that they will use to better their future and the future of the entire world. As a student, I have suffered the consequences of triple digit fee increases and the lack of available classes offered. The high cost of education has put the burden not only on the students, and many of their parents, but educators, as
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.
There is an abundance of importance in the public school system. Most successful careers start with elementary, middle and high school education. So it is safe to say it is vital to maintain a major funding for all public school’s systems across the country. Of course funding isn’t the only broken piece of a perfect school system because not every school is in an appropriate environment. There are many factors that follow what type of funding each school gets and also how much. Many schools are placed in low income or areas in poverty, this causes students to have harder learning environments. The question is what would be a strategy to fix the gap in public school funding and where and how do you spend it? This could be solved by smart public school allocation, better pay structure for
In today’s world people need to compete globally for jobs and one of the most important factors in getting a good paying job is education. However, even the best schools cannot overcome some of the obstacles placed in front of the students that walk through their doors. Poverty, chaotic home environments, discrepancies in exposure to technology, and lack of funding for schools all negatively impact the effort to educate children.