Our government is spending more than the taxes it takes in. This has gone on for a while, and happens on all levels of government (federal, state, and local). Lately the states have done so with the help of the stimulus package a couple of years ago. It just ran out and the states have to figure out how to deal with that problem.
Step one seems to be accepting this fact and taxing more or spending less (the latter in the case of PA). Step two is who to tax or who to cut. This article seems to move from step one into step two of this process for education. In other words, how should the state properly allocate the cuts more efficiently?
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I wish there was an easy solution to this problem. I would like to say tax the rich more but that has already been done. I think that the one's who need the education the most are going to lose out and the end result might be a revolution of the poor versus the everyone who is not poor.
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Sara Rooney
ReplyDeleteEducation is not the place to cut budgets in any way. It is the most important thing, to shape younger generations of the future into potential leaders of the United States. Raising taxes may alarm and upset people, but it would be better than getting rid of buses and transportation for kindergarten to learn fundamentals of life, as well as social skills. Kindergarten shapes a child's life and helps build relationships with peers and learns right from wrong, in addition to basic math and reading skills. Cutting the funds for that is definitely wrong and it is extremely upsetting.
It's an unfortunate and harsh reality school districts are being faced with. It seems as though the emphasis on the importance of education there once was, is now long gone. With proposals to shut down schools, close programs, and lay off thousands of teachers, I wonder where is the incentive to fight through this crisis and continue providing educational and developmental services to the children in our communities. It is important to recognize that there is a scarcity for funds but I am not confident that the solutions that are being proposed in this article are the most effective. I just wonder what effects these changes are going to have on the children and what about all of the unemployeed teachers? Where could they go to teach again, or will they be expected to go into a different field of work?
ReplyDeleteLidiaybeth Custodio
As someone has already stated, education is not the place to cut funding. Although the article gives some alarming facts, it does not serve as a means of providing an answer. As our American culture as easily pointed out to us, education is not valued. From that, I think it is fair to say that our future as a democratic nation is not valued, it is at least changing. I think the later is true because as cuts in education increase, the effectiveness of the education system is decreasing. As students receive poor education, more students will not pass state mandated tests and schools will try to save themselves from receiving less money by labeling these failing students as having special needs. These wrongly labeled students will not actually receive any extra attention because the special ed teacher will be recently laid off. Students will grow up thinking they are stupid and will either drop out if high school or not go to college. They will not get high paying jobs and become our lower class, non-voting citizens. The fortunate few who are able to afford private school will most likely go to college and claim those jobs the other students will not have, and they will be our upper class. The voting will become more polarized and the objective of democracy, to give everyone a voice through the vote, will no longer be met. This is a dismal result. I do not know much about the economy and budgeting, but the effects are clear. Money needs to be cut elsewhere, funds need to be given to schools, our national values need to change, and we need to empower our youth because after our current leaders try to fix this is spend like a group of shopaholics buying nothing but some flowers that will look pretty for awhile and then die in a couple days, these youth will have to figure something out. However, without the education, our nation may just conquer to get worse.
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This situation is one that is only getting increasingly worst as time passes on. And the article even states that by next year education funding will be in an even deeper hole. However since the stimulus package is now non-existent, the government is undergoing changes in order to prevent extreme crashes. If they can figure out a method of funding that is simular to the stimulus package then cuts may be allocated more efficiently. It is really a matter of finding other funding to decrease because every student should have a fair shot at education. Allocating cuts on different aspects of the state (other than education) may also help the unemployment rate because as the government is proposing these cuts many area school employees are loosing their jobs. If another portion of state funding is cut then more people will possibly be able to keep their jobs. Overall, education is something that should not be taken away due to funding. It is beneficial not only to those being educated, but our nation as well.
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