Although there is a rise in different forms of educational settings, public schools still heads the typical setting.

Approximately 50 million children are enrolled in the public schools for grades K-12 (Gundle-Krieg, 2009). Therefore, the lives of a lot of children are placed into the hands of stakeholders, administrators, and educators in the public education system. Children in public school settings come from all walks of life and different communities. Some children live in the suburbs or metropolitan areas, while other children live in rural communities. Based on the 2003-2004 education information given by the National Center for Education Statistics (2007), one-third of all public schools were in rural areas; yet only one-fifth of all public school students were enrolled in rural schools; the percentage of White public school students in rural areas was larger than that in any other locale; however, the percentages of public school students in rural areas who were Black, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander were smaller than those in any other locale; a larger percentage of public school students in the South and the Midwest were enrolled in rural schools (28 and 25 percent, respectively) than in the Northeast and the West (16 and 13 percent, respectively); the percentage of children living in poverty or below 185 percent of the poverty threshold in rural areas (35 percent) was smaller than that in towns (46 percent) or cities (47 percent), but larger than that in suburban areas (28 percent); rural public schools overall had a smaller percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in 200304 (38 percent) than public schools in cities and towns (53 and 43 percent, respectively); and larger percentages of Black and American Indian/Alaska Native public school students in remote rural areas attended moderate-to-high poverty schools (87 and 79 percent, respectively) than in large cities (78 and 62 percent, respectively) (pp. 1-4, 7-9). As found by the U.S. Department of Education (2010), the total budget expended on PK12 public schooling in the United States for the fiscal year 2009 was $111,234,299,000. Table 1

shows a breakdown of the total budget spent by states in descending order (U.S. Department of Education, 2010).

California Texas New York Florida Illinois Pennsylvania Ohio Michigan Georgia North Carolina New Jersey Virginia Arizona Massachusetts Indiana Puerto Rico Tennessee Washington Missouri Wisconsin Louisiana Maryland Alabama Minnesota South Carolina Kentucky Colorado Oklahoma Mississippi Oregon Connecticut Arkansas Kansas Iowa New Mexico Utah Nevada West Virginia Nebraska Idaho Maine Hawaii Alaska New Hampshire Montana Rhode Island

$13,001,589,830 $9,575,691,295 $7,731,387,542 $5,798,676,503 $4,686,715,598 $4,240,061,734 $4,058,642,471 $3,823,308,694 $3,475,134,662 $3,062,477,396 $2,823,022,226 $2,476,709,728 $2,324,177,568 $2,200,997,035 $2,192,103,188 $2,156,856,537 $2,132,725,306 $2,079,158,756 $2,003,785,615 $1,883,762,419 $1,837,573,007 $1,816,612,376 $1,711,571,006 $1,622,943,871 $1,591,676,988 $1,567,715,715 $1,522,496,615 $1,377,051,547 $1,222,974,724 $1,213,834,118 $1,113,967,778 $1,093,116,471 $986,903,345 $946,692,161 $932,386,314 $923,350,840 $792,319,577 $665,085,775 $649,385,317 $514,800,598 $459,669,212 $456,147,530 $442,702,101 $424,908,100 $412,159,984 $402,556,154

Colleges and universities provide future educators with best practices, different instructional and classroom management techniques, and basic knowledge foundations in the education field. (Rayson, Farmer, & Frame, 1999). To obtain a teaching certificate in the state of South Carolina, I must fulfill all of the following requirements:
1) I must earn a bachelors master's degree either from an institution that has a state-

approved teacher education program and is accredited for general collegiate purposes by a regional accreditation association, or from a South Carolina institution that has programs approved for teacher education by the State Board of Education, or from an institution that has programs approved for teacher education by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).
2) I must submit the required teacher area examination score(s) as adopted by the State

Board of Education for purposes of certification.

3) I must undergo a criminal records check by the South Carolina Law Enforcement

Division and a national criminal records check supported by fingerprints conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Zais, 2011). In order to be an effective teacher, I must know whats going on in the education field.

References Gundle-Krieg, D. (2009, December 14). How many children are educated in the United States. Retrieved March 6, 2011, from examiner.com: http://www.examiner.com/education-innational/how- many-children-are-educated-the-united-states Rayson, D., Farmer, E. L., & Frame, R. (1999, January ). Preparing future faculty: teaching the academic life . Retrieved March 6, 2011, from American Historical Association: https://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/1999/9901/9901TEC.CFM Statistics, N. C. (2007, June). Demographics. Retrieved March 6, 2011, from Status of Education

in Rural America : http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/ruraled/hl_demographics.asp U.S. Department of Education. (2010). Total Federal Funding for elementary and secondary education programs: FY 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2011, from ed.gov: http://www.eddataexpress.ed.gov/data-element-explorer.cfm?indicator_id=16 Zais, M. (2011, January). South Carolina Educator Certification Manual. Retrieved March 2011,

2011, from http://www.scteachers.org/cert/certpdf/teachercertificationmanual.pdf