Jan
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$300 Million. (Let’s Budget Wisely Now…)
January 30, 2008 | |
Since my last post touched on the underfunding of inner-city schools, the article titled, “Grants Would Finance Private Schooling,” caught my attention. It caught my eye because I have had the notion that inner-city schools are in need of money, not private schools. The article basically discusses President Bush’s proposal, announced in his latest State of the Union address, for a program that will provide tax-dollars to parents of lower incomes so that their children can attend private schools. The proposal calls for $300 million to fund this program entitled, “Pell Grants for Kids”.
My first thought on this article is that $300 million is A LOT of money. I wonder if Bush’s plan to send students in failing inner-city schools, that come from low income families, will do much to increase the level of student achievement. I think it’s great that Bush wants to bring attention to the issue of inner-city education, but I think that the $300 million could be budgeted in a way that will help the actual schools that are in less prosperous neighborhoods of our country. Maybe some of the money could go towards supplying the schools with adequate resources, providing salaries for more teachers, improving the physical conditions of the buildings, increasing after school programs… etc. But wait a second, I need to propose a question. Why are the inner-city schools failing? Are they failing according to the standards of Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative? If so, then why would the Pell Grants for Kids program give money to those schools? The article does tap into some of these questions I have, for it states,
” And some critics said that the president’s call for yet another education initiative only underscored the failure of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal law that Mr. Bush considers a landmark achievement of his first term.”
I have already stated this, but I feel like the money can be distributed in a manner that will be more productive for educational systems. My opinions are not a rant against Bush, or politics, but are formulated by trying to think about how realistic this program is, or isn’t. One problem I see with sending students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to private schools, where many of the students come from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, is how the groups of students will react. People (children, adolescents, and adults) are not always so accepting of others who they perceive as “different” than they are, which makes me curious as to whether or not this will realistically make the education systems any better. On the other hand, the diversity of socioeconomic classes that this program could bring to schools might provide meaningful classroom and life lessons for all students.
I think it is great that Bush wants to open some doors to educational opportunities for students, but why does the education need to be in a private school? Overall, I think that the $30o million should be used to bring higher quality education to a large population of students, as opposed to putting students into a more suitable educational system. How many students could the Pell Grand for Kids program really help? The article also says,
“His proposal, in his State of the Union address Monday night, was denounced by some top Democratic lawmakers and teachers’ union officials as a national “voucher” program that would only drain resources from urban public schools that in many cases are in need of money.”
“Grants Would Finance Public Schooling”
David M. Herszenhorn
Published: January 29, 2008
The New York Times
Comments
5 Comments so far
I am definitely one of those people who support schools of choice. I think that students should get the best education possible, but money for private schools? $300 million dollars is a lot of money, almost inconceivable to me, and I think it could be spent better than being used so kids can go to private schools. We do have issues of understaffing and under paying teachers in school and I think that is a major issue that President Bush did not address. I wonder what would happen if we had more teachers and the class sizes were smaller. Would students do better? Would teachers be able to teach more effectively?
A lot of schools, particularly those that are failing by whatever standard we are using for measuremen, need resouces. They need materials to use for teaching, buildings that are up to code and conducive to learning and most of all qualified personnel. I think it would make a world of difference if that money was funneled directly into the urban public schools. I know I’m probably starting to sound political about the issue, too, but I’m not sure if there is a way to not be political. On this topic politics and education are almost tied together.
Leigha,
It is hard not to get political on the issue, which is partly why it took me a while to write this post. I found myself feeling like I was getting too mixed into the political fluff of it all, but there really is no way to not enter into the politics of it becuase the issue is rooted in politcs. (I don’t know if that made any sense at all or not?)
I hate to be the pessimistic person of the group but this proposal is a terrible idea, at least in my eyes. A voucher program like this has already been suggested in GR a couple of years ago, I believe it was called proposal 6 or something like that. The thing that people don’t realize when voting for a voucher program like this is “what happens to the public school that the students are fleeing?” I believe the fault of this kind of program is in it’s ideology. We would be voting to take money from a PUBLIC school and give it to a private school. The reason it is public is because any and all student are allowed to go there for FREE. Why would we want to deter our free public school systems to boost a school system (parochial, religious, etc…) that doesn’t allow all students to attend? A school that doesn’t have to meet state guidelines or follow all state mandated rules. All this voucher system would do is hurt our already failing inner-city public school systems as well as boost an already self sustaining private school. Now if a student wanted to go from a failing public school system to a neighboring public school system I could understand and vote for that. But it still doesn’t address the real heart of the issue. WHY ARE OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS FAILING?
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