Rough Draft

Rough Draft:

            For my research project, I looked into the funding of our public school systems. This topic has been very popular in the news with many initiatives trying to be passed to benefit our school systems. For example, in our state Initiative 1351 will help decrease class sizes in our state, which ranks 47th for having large class sizes among the other states (“Class Size Counts for Washington Kids!”).  The best way to save our school system is to understand where we are failing and to start from the beginning, while many believe that just throwing money at the problem will fix it they are mistaken, taking accountability and funding our schools properly is the right start onto a successful path. Sources for my project fall into the following categories background information, support and what the future of our schools could look like.

In order to understand the background issues with the funding to schools, it is important to understand where funding comes from and how it is provided to schools. To begin, schools are funded by the state where they receive most of their funding and by the government. The one issue with receiving funding from the government is that there is a different expectation that comes from the government when funding is granted. For a school to be considered to receive government assistance they must meet at least one of sixteen priorities (Rust). The sixteen priorities are,

“(1) Improving Early Learning Outcomes, (2) Internationally Benchmarked Academic Standards, (3) Improving the Effectiveness and Distribution of Effective Teachers or Principals, (4) Turning Around Persistently Lowest-Achieving Schools, (5) Improving School Engagement, School Environment, and School Safety and Improving Family and Community Engagement (6) Technology, (7) Core Reforms, (8) Increasing Postsecondary Success, (9) Improving Achievement and High School Graduation Rates, (10) Promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).  Education, (11) Promoting Diversity, (12) Support for Military Families, (13) Enabling More Data-Based Decision-Making, (14) Building Evidence of Effectiveness, (15) Supporting Programs, Practices, or Strategies for Which There Is Strong or Moderate Evidence of Effectiveness, (16) Improving Productivity” (Rust).

Now when a school receives money from the government because they have had to meet one of the guidelines, the expectation of the money they have received must go towards solving their problem. This means the school doesn’t have a say for where the money goes. Another way schools are funded is through the state. Now this tends to be very unfair because our public schools are funded through our taxes and more specifically our property taxes. For example, let’s say we have two schools; one school is in a rich neighborhood while the other is in a low-income neighborhood, and both of these neighborhoods would pay completely different property taxes. This plays into funding our public schools because this is where they receive their money. The school that is located in the rich neighborhood will receive more funding than the school in the low-income neighborhood. As Joshua Arocho, a writer that did an article for Michigan Law Review said, “Yet our commitment to education is not reflected in the structure of our public school financing. Unlike many developed nations, the United States has a decentralized primary and secondary education system that has led to fragmentation and inequality within and among states” (Arocho). This is where problems began to occur; these schools are placed onto two separate playing fields where one will win while the other loses. Schools have tried to fix the problem; “States have taken conflicting approaches in attempting to solve the issue of disparate funding between school districts. Some state legislatures, like New Jersey’s, have sought to enact laws aimed at creating parity between district funding—a true attempt at equal education for all of their students” (Arocho).  The problem with the funding of our public schools is, “Other states, however, have declared that education is not a fundamental right and continue to use the local property tax schemes that cause such great inequalities. For example, in Lake County, Illinois, there remains an enormous disparity in per-pupil funding: in 2010, Rondout Elementary spent $24,244 per pupil, whereas Taft Elementary spent a mere $7,023” (Arocho).  This example helps display how corrupt a system can become. How the value of education can be destroyed and bring down everything in its path. As Arocho quotes in his paper, “As Cohen and Moffitt note, “[m]oney alone cannot cure [the] weak schools, but a chief source of academic weakness in these schools is the badly educated teachers and poor working conditions that inadequate revenues . . . underwrite.”” Money isn’t the answer to all of our problems; it has to come from somewhere deeper where it means something. The value of education needs to come through and speak for itself. Our education system is often placed into the faith of a vote, where many initiatives either pass or fail which affect the outlook of our schools. One act that was introduced when President Bush was in office was the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which became active in 2001. The purpose of the NCLB was to make sure students didn’t get looked over and they were given equal opportunities. According to Charles Ellis’s paper, “For a local school system to receive a portion of these funds it must submit a plan to the state education agency. The local plans must detail assessment plans, identify at risk students, include coordination with other agencies and programs, and define parental involvement strategies to name a few of the required elements.” This is important because these plans hold schools accountable and the funding they are provided with is similar to a reward system. Here in the state of Washington we had Initiative 1351 on our ballot this fall. This initiative was to benefit our schools in reducing class sizes. For this initiative to work funding would have to be increased to account for increased staff that would make smaller classes feasible (Finne).  The way this initiative is funded is by, “I-1351 would let school districts increase local property taxes by $1.9 billion through 2019” (Finne).  As I mentioned in my introduction, Washington State schools rank 47^th out of 50 in highest-class sizes (“Class Size Counts for Washington Kids!”).  This initiatives purpose is to decrease our class sizes, which results from an increase in the budget. In California, they passed Proposition 30 that resulted in a tax hike that helped fund education.  This is being achieved by, “The measure increases personal income taxes on high-income taxpayers for seven years, and sales taxes for four years, to be used for education” (O'Donovan).  With the extra funding these California schools are receiving it is giving them the opportunity to restore many things that had to be cut, for example fine arts and sports, restoring the school days before the budget blow and improving schools. The one thing that links all of these together is money. To improve our school systems we must provide a plan for increasing the budget and allow it to be attainable.

            Understanding the support of increasing funding will allow the positive aspects of increased funding come to the surface, while also paying attention to some of the short term benefits that can be benefited from decreased funding but also paying attention to why these are only short term benefits. The first thing to understand is why increased funding is so important and what our schools can gain. For example, a school in New Jersey’s Abbott District is a perfect example of what increased funding can do for a school district. The school district felt a blow, “The downturn in housing prices, employment, income, and business activity contributed to smaller tax revenues and larger budget gaps. As a result, state and local governments were unable to maintain the same level of support for New Jersey’s schools as in the past” (Chakrabarti and Sutherland).  This was a problem nationwide and budgets were cut resulting in schools failing at their job. The one incredible thing that did occur in New Jersey is that with failing schools and with a low budget they were able to bounce back when the budget was increased. Another issue we see is with schools receiving a lower budgets result in schools being closed. This has been experienced nationwide and even in our own community. This is brought up as support to better funding of our schools because school closures have a huge impact on student and we need to understand the problem before we continue to make the same mistakes. The problem many of our schools are facing is, “Districts across the country are struggling to balance their budgets in the face of decreased local revenue, cuts to state funding, and the disappearance of federal stimulus packages” (Lytton).  With the lack of funding we face the very few solutions to stay afloat, one of those solutions many schools see is shutting down schools. Closing schools has its affects on students, “Neighbourhood schools play multiple roles, not only providing facilities for teaching and learning, but offering resources to help meet the social, recreational, health and personal needs of the community” (Lytton).  Another factor that plays into shutting down schools is when students leave the area, “California for example, one school district predicted savings of USD 700 000 through consolidation, but ended up losing some USD 2.4 million in funding as hundreds of students pulled out of the public system within months” (Lytton).  Students play a huge role in maintaining and keeping their local schools around. When schools lack funding they tend to have to cut programs that aren’t seen to be as important, such as clubs and sports teams. There has been an idea that has been introduced called “Pay to Play” which helps support extracurricular activities. The whole idea behind “Pay to Play” is to allow these extracurricular activities to be continued without being cut due to budget cuts. Instead of the school providing the funding to support these activities the students pay to participate and provide the funding themselves. This is seen a better alternative than completely cutting the programs (Roth).  After looking at the positives that can be gained by increasing the budget let’s look at the positives that decreased funding could have. Now there aren’t very many positives to be had when a budget is lowered, but according to Alan Haskvitz he believes that there are positives to be gained from a lowered budget. Many believe that only negative things can come from a reduce school budget but, looking at it optimistically you can find what you many believe to be some positives. Some of the claims Haskvitz makes can be justifiable at first glance but they do not hold a strong case. For starters, according to Haskvitz we will gain more educated teachers from budget cuts, “Districts are looking for teachers with a variety of certifications. The benefits to those who stay in school longer include becoming educators who use their additional training to integrate lessons more easily and provide more learning experiences to students” (Haskvitz).  Now this may stand true, but the one problem with this is that many people who see how bad the job market is for teachers won’t spend their money to be educated in that field of work. A variety of certificates for one teacher would be wonderful, but if the job market isn’t hiring those teachers won’t be hired due to the lack of funding that can’t pay and obtain those new and bettered teachers. Another claim Haskvitz makes is that, “Extracurricular programs may also be cut due to the recession. Coaches, art and music teachers, and even foreign language courses may be eliminated. This opens up opportunities for teachers to form alternative classes—and to earn extra money” (Haskvitz).  This is highly possible to happen, but the likelihood of teachers that have been cut and opening up there own side business to form these alternative classes is very unlikely. Teachers will go where there is a job for them. Another thing that counters this is that when the schools have to make budget cuts it tends to also reflect the community that the school is in. Like we discussed earlier, schools are funded through property taxes, which reflects the type of community the school is in. If budget cuts occurred, it most likely would mean that parents wouldn’t be able to afford these alternative classes outside of school resulting in no money and these alternative classes being shut down. The last claim I will be discussing is his claim that there would be a lower drop out rate, “In this bad economy that holds little hope for obtaining a job—especially for those without a high school diploma—students may stay in school longer. As unemployment figures remain high, staying in school may look more attractive to potential dropouts” (Haskvitz).  This is a logical assumption, but unfortunately it doesn’t mean it rings true. Staying in school may seem more attractive than dropping out. But when a student is in a classroom with 40 other students and isn’t receiving the proper education and one-on-one time they deserve they will find a place that will, providing them with what they need for the time being. With many of Haskvitz points being valid at first glance they don’t really provide justice on why lower budget really holds that many benefits.

            Our schools can go into one of two directions. The choices we make now will dictate where the future of our schools will go. If we choose to go down a positive path we will have to learn that the way we are going about things isn’t working. We need to observe and see what is working for other countries and their school systems. Using England as an example, we could introduce sponsored schools called “academies” to our school system and find features that would realistically suit our needs and work in our schools. The way these schools work is, “Sponsored academies are created by the sponsor. Sponsorship is a ‘key element of the academies model for school improvement’ and sponsors have ‘the legal right to determine the vision and ethos of the academy’” (Gibson and Bisschoff).  These are similar to charter schools, but the difference is that charter schools are funded by the state where instead a sponsor funds these “academies”. As Gibson and Bisschoff write, “Forging a new link between private and state education is one of two big challenges facing education today,” these academies give off the feeling of more of a private school feeling, but they are available to the public at no cost. One thing that should be taken away from this is that education is a fundamental right. Everyone deserves a chance to receive a well-rounded education, taking some of these ideas of having private sponsors and bringing them into the education world could be changing. It would take off the pressure from the state and government to do all the funding.  Another important thing to understand is that funding isn’t the only thing that will fix our school system. Communication is key to fix reoccurring problems. In an article by Eamonn O’Donovan he says, “Management and unions must work together in the face of an unprecedented funding crisis for public schools” (O’Donovan).  For funding to fix the problems the school’s management and unions must work together and make a solid working unit. Funding can only fix so much and unless there is communication occurring the problems will just keep appearing. Schools are facing pressures; “there is severe pressure on school districts to rein in costs, given that there is little hope of increased funding from states, which are facing severe budget cuts to all services. School districts will have to enter another round of belt-tightening to balance budgets” (O’Donovan).  If we don’t learn from our mistakes will continue down a slippery slope where the future of public education doesn’t look so bright. If cuts keep occurring our schools will fall farther behind. We will see more layoffs, shorter school days, larger classes and more extracurricular activities being cut. A lower budget doesn’t allow schools provide their students for what they need, “Education is on the chopping block, and both the Republican governor and Democrats in the state legislature have proposed scaling back the budget for K-12 schools by $2.5 billion. The Democrats want the cuts targeted to specific programs to try to allay the effects on classroom instruction” (“Budget Woes Could Mean School Cutbacks.”).  These shortfalls our schools are facing will continue to get worse and the cuts will occur more often.

            Our education system is falling apart. Our education system is failing our students. Instead of working to better our schools we are going backwards. School funding isn’t the only problem our schools are facing. Increasing funding won’t solve all of our problems and make everything okay. It is going to take work and we are going to have to understand where we went wrong. An increase funding won’t make all the problems with our education system disappear, but it will make those problems more prominent and easier to solve. Taking this step will allow the education system to build and create new opportunities we once we unable to do.