Rationale

Public School Funding Research Rationale:

            I begin my paper by announcing my topic and issue (Public School Funding) and explaining why I’m writing about it (to call attention). The points I will be making are background information about Public Schools, support for increasing funding and what the future of our schools could look like. I want to highlight these three subtopics in my paper because I think it is important that my audience understand these to understand the argument I am trying to make. This will allow my audience to understand why I am arguing this and why this is important. Stating my thesis statement at the end of my introduction will allow my audience to have an idea of what I will be discussing in my paper and make me look like a strong candidate to discuss the topic.

            The next section my paper will focus further on is the background on our schools. Going further into depth so my readers’ grasp the full understanding of what is involved in funding schools and so on. I want to provide my readers with a very basic overview of the way the school system works and highlight key ideas dealing with funding. I have broken this section up into two categories. The first category discusses how schools are funded, from the state, government or both. I find this to be highly important for my readers to understand because if they don’t understand the way schools are funded they won’t understand the issues. For my paper to be successful I need to emphasize on why this is so important. Here I will use sources that provide an overview of what is involved when the federal government is involved to fund schools and the unfairness that occurs with state funding to schools. The next part I will be discussing is how schools can gain/lose funding due to certain initiatives/acts being passed or denied. This will allow my readers to see the power they have when they cast a vote and also what the outcome of those is. Both these categories tie together and make a very information filled paragraph that will allow my readers to form an opinion and is key for their understanding.

            The next section I move on to is the support that is provided to increase the funding to public schools. I will begin by using a source that is describing why increasing funding is important, which I will provide sources that back that claim up. Showing this will show my readers why it is important to have well funded schools and what the effects can be when funding isn’t taken seriously.  In this part of my paragraph I will use examples of underfunded schools, discuss school closures and talk about extracurricular activities. My next section in this paragraph is going to involve a counter argument. Here I will look at why some may see the positive gains from decreased funding. This is where I will acknowledge these claims but I will disclaim they quite quickly. The purpose of doing this is to highlight the other side but disclaim it with my side. This is important because my readers need to hear the other side of the argument but they also need to understand why that side isn’t as strong as the side that I am arguing. The purpose of this is to emphasize why funding is important and creates a cause and effect type theme.

            The last section I will be discussing for this paper is what the future for our schools is. This is my last chance to convince my audience to pick my side.  I will be showing a positive path in where our schools can go and a negative path. Both of these paths depend on what decisions we make. First I will highlight the positive path our schools can take. Here I will bring up how we can learn from others. I will bring up England and their use of funded “academies” and how we could use this to model onto our own education system. Another important concept I want to bring up in this paragraph is that funding isn’t the only thing that will fix our school systems. That funding is a start but it won’t fix all of our problems. I find this to be important because I want my readers to understand that extra funding isn’t the only thing our school system needs, it is one of many things that it needs. After presenting them with the positive side, I will show them the negative path our schools could go down. This is to give them an idea if we don’t change anything and continue to go down the same path. Here I bring up if cuts continue everything will continue to go downhill.  I want them to have an image in their head when they are reading. I want them to understand the seriousness of this and why it is important. This will be last chance to provide them with facts that will help build my case. This makes my audience pick a side. They either want to continue down a slippery slope or start-figuring things out that will benefit not only the schools but also themselves.

            In my conclusion I will say that we have to see our education system is falling apart. We are no longer doing our job. I will end my paper with a thoughtful ending that if we do something now new opportunities will open up for us in the future.