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Dennis Amaya Megan Keaton Eng 112 29 April 2013 Should Government Invest Money on Education Since the recession hit the United States, most Americans have had to cut back. Americans have had to stop going out to eat on the regular basis, have had to carpool, and some have had their homes foreclosed. The American government has had to do the same with most of its expenditures. The educational system has been hit by an immense amount of budget cuts. Leaders of the educational system like, Arne Duncan have started to voice their discomfort with the budget cuts; while other individuals like Bill Gates fight, back saying that the educational system can still thrive with these budget cuts. The fact is that other nations like England and Finland have educational systems that are surpassing the American system very quickly. Although both sides have great arguments, this paper will show that politicians have to take some of those arguments and make a compromise so that the American educational system can take its place at the top. Advocators of an increase in spending for education believe that money is essential to give children a good education. A good percentage of the educational budget goes out to the teachers. Bev Perdue, who was governor of North Carolina from 2009-2013, said that she felt that increasing class sizes would hurt teachers even though it was more inexpensive (Liepmann n.p.). She feels that class sizes should be small so that a teacher could be able find and address each childs needs individually. It is common knowledge that children are hard to keep on task, and putting more children in a classroom can make this much tougher. Emmeline Zhao wrote an

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article, in the magazine The Huffington Post, where she said that she interviewed a Kindergarten teacher that had fifty one children in her class. (n.p.). Fifty one is an outrageous amount of five and six year olds for one woman to try to educate. Advocators of increase in spending believe that more teachers should be hired and that class sizes should be decreased, so that children can learn more efficiently. Manny Fernandez noted that Texas schools have started canceling instructional field trips and eliminating music and art teachers in elementary schools (Fernandez n.p.). Art classes and music classes are very important in todays world. There are a lot of jobs that need the help of creative employees, for example computer engineering. The budget cut has also had an impact on the education of special needs children. School districts have been looking for ways to lower spending. Some school districts are pondering the idea of putting special needs children in normal classes (McKenna n.p.). The problem with this is that most of these students have been taught by teachers who have specialized on teaching special needs children. Most regular teachers do not have the capacity to be able to teach special needs children. Laura McKenna believes that special needs students need the additional funding and that additional funding would help every student not just children with disabilities. Many people believe that putting children with disabilities with regular students will distract the regular students. Special needs children do not learn at the same rate as normal children and will quickly fall behind. When he or she falls behind the class will also fall behind because the teacher has to make sure all her students understand the material. Low income schools are also having a very tough time due to budget cuts. Low income schools typically have the worst score in the United States. The reason this is happening is that they do not have enough money to buy the resources to give a good education. Increasing income in these schools would help the schools catch up with other schools. New Jerseys

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governor Chris Christie tried to give low income schools increased funding but was denied by the Supreme Court. He felt that these schools could greatly benefit from increased funding. Children from low income schools can have a better chance of success if government increases of the funding of their schools. On the other hand, individuals that are against increasing the budget believe that the government should use money more efficiently. One way to spend money more efficiently is to increase class sizes and put the very best teachers in front of students. Bill Gates believes that this will help students learn because they will learn from the best. He also stated the fact that in the 1960s, when the United States had the best education, there were 40 teachers for every 1,000 students and now there are 125 per 1,000 students (Leipmann n.p.). The increase of teacher has had no effect on whether or not students learn what they need to learn. Another way that government should use money more efficiently would be to not give bonuses and incentives for teachers that have advanced degrees, master and Ph.D. Instead the school districts should hire teacher that have proven track records and have provided consistent scores. At the same time they should put those teachers in larger classrooms. Some critics of the nation's public school system contend that there's plenty of money to meet students' needs, and that what's already allocated isn't spent wisely enough. (Richmond N.P). Schools use great amount of money on technology and for non-educational purposes. It has become common for schools to offer students laptops that they can take home. To put this into proportion Sun Valley High School, which will start to provide laptops, has 1600 students and with a typical laptop being around 600 dollars the total amount would be just below one million dollars. One million dollars is enough to pay 25 teacher salaries. That alone can help solve the overcrowding problem.

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With both side having different opinions on practically everything, it is very hard to be able to convince either side to change opinion. So a compromise is essential. The most difficult part of creating a compromise is getting both sides to agree on what should be on it. I believe that any compromise has to allow the increase in funding. We need to increase funding for low income schools because they are some of the schools that are suffering the most due to the budget cuts. The truth is that education is falling behind and even though money does not equal result, taking money away will definitely lower scores. Schools need the money to continue giving classes like gym, art and Advanced Placement classes that are very important for children. Education needs to figure out new resources that can improve education and the only way to experiment with these resources government needs to spend money. So an increase in funding has to be in place for the compromise to work. Government should also start thinking about how to lower cost on education so that less money is needed to improve education. With that said, schools need to take Bill Gates words into consideration. Schools need to stop paying teacher based on tenure and advanced degrees. Although Phds and Masters degrees sound attractive, they do not ensure that these people are great teachers. Teaching children between the age of five and eighteen is more about passion and less about ambition. Teachers should get paid by merit. Teachers that have students that met and surpass the requirements continuously should be eligible for increase in salary. This will be an incentive for teachers to try their best to educate their students. This will not only benefit students but society as a whole. When it comes to increasing the classrooms side, the best option is to increase the sizes of class that could benefit from them or that dont get affected by the increase. A class that could benefit from these increases would be classes like gym, band and chorus. Gym would not be

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affected because students do not have to be listening to the teacher that is in front of the class. Although an increase of seats in some class could be a good idea increasing class sizes in classes like English, Math, Science, or Social Studies. Special needs children should definitely not be put in regular classes. Disabled people are given a chance to succeed in classes that are catered to them. If we put them in normal classes the possibilities of them learning the skills they need to get a job in the future are hindered. In conclusion, both sides have great ideas and opinions. People like Governor Chris Christie and The Supreme Court can argue about budget cut, but a solution need to be found. The best solution is to increase spending and to spend money more efficiently. To use money on resources that are necessities like teachers, materials for classes and textbooks. Low income schools should also get an increase in funding .While we increase spending on necessities the government has to find ways to lower cost. Easy ways to lower cost, are to stop paying teachers for tenure and advanced degrees, and pay them based on merit to create the inactive to get higher grades from their children. Teachers that produced good grades would start getting bigger classes so that more students have the opportunity to learn from the very best teachers. Some classes like English and Math should not increase in size because this would negatively affect the ability to learn. This problem can be solved if people all write to their senators and voice their opinions. Senator will have to act on the problem if people start taking interest on the problem. To put the importance this quote from Benjamin Franklin shows why we should fix this problem, an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. So act now and ask for a change.

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Works Cited

Fernandez, Manny. "At Texas Schools, Making Do on a Shoestring." The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Apr. 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. Liepmann, Erica. "Bill Gates: Education Budget Cuts Don't Have To Hurt Learning." The Huffington Post.TheHuffingtonPost.com, 28 Feb. 2011. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. McKenna, Laura. "The Worst Victims of the Education Sequester: Special-Needs Students and Poor Kids. "The Atlantic. 18 Mar. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2013. RICHMOND, EMILY. "How the Sequester Could Devastate Our Poorest Schools." The Atlantic. CDN, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 27 Mar. 2013. Zhao, Emmeline. "Shanker Education Report: Money Matters, Affects Student Performance, Outcomes." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Jan. 2012. Web. 01 Apr. 2013.