Why the government should not cut schools budget - Research Paper Example

Why the government should not cut schools budget? Education makes a person perfect. The differences between an educated person and an uneducated person can be witnessed in the behaviors. The educated person may get better social acceptance because of his better behavior and superior abilities in tackling life problems whereas uneducated person may not get better social acceptance because of his inability in adapt with the different life situations. The main purpose of education is to develop good citizens. In other words, lack of education may result in the development of antisocial elements of unhealthy citizens. Moreover, education is one of the essential requirements for achieving a better profession. In the current world, only the educated person will be capable of meeting the professional challenges. A person who does not have ideas about the changing trends in the world may not be a success in his profession. In short, the importance of education in human life cannot be underestimated at any circumstances. However, there are tendencies to cut down the educational budgets by the governments. Government often cites lack of funds for cutting down the educational budgets. In a heavily globalized current world, governments are trying to cut down their expenses in public services or stay away from public utility services. Privatization of educational sector may result in increased educational costs which may prevent people from attending schools and colleges. This paper argues that the government should never cut down the educational budget or stay away from executing their basic responsibilities of giving proper education to its citizens. One of the toughest blows and most shocking hypocrisies of the Bush education budget is his plan to entirely end the Perkins Loan Program, which historically has forgiven student loans for qualified teachers as inducement for them to teach in schools serving students from low-income families, students with disabilities, or in the fields of mathematics, science, foreign languages, or bilingual education (White) It should be noted that Bush had no hesitation in spending trillions of dollars for wars. He underestimated the values of education and the social changes education can bring to the society. Education drives a person from a known to unknown world. Current world is a mysterious one and our knowledge about the current world is limited when we consider the hidden things in this world. Better knowledge about the world is essential for better living. This knowledge can be provided to the children only through education. Cutting down of educational budgets may increase the chances of intrusion of private institutions in educational sector. Intrusion of private people in educational sector may further commercialize the educational world. Education should be considered as a divine process and commercialization of education should be prevented as much as possible. Cutting down of educational budgets will prevent proper interference of government in the educational sector and the private business people may exploit the possibilities. Knowledge is exploding from all corners and the advancements in science and technology are immense. However, educationalists all over the world have strong doubts about how well the governments able to deliver this knowledge explosion to the students. In other words, the quality or standards of education at present is questionable. Some people believe that the standards of the education improved a lot with the introduction of new curriculum strategies like problem solving methods rather than lecture based methods. Even though, knowledge is exploding from all corners and the advancements in science and technology are immense, educationalists all over the world have different views about the quality or standards of education at present. Some people believe that the standards of the education improved a lot with the introduction of new curriculum strategies like problem solving methods rather than lecture based methods. They also believe that the advancements in technology and the introduction of internet in educational scenario contributed a lot to the improvement of education. In any case, reduction in school budget may definitely affect the sustainment of quality education in educational sector. It is illogical to believe that we would be able to maintain good standards in educational sector even with reduced budgets. Many districts have already made cuts to transportation, textbook and technology spending, and extracurricular activities. In a recent survey of school districts, 43 percent of respondents reported budget cuts of 10 percent or less for this academic year, and 21 percent reported cuts of 11 to 25 percent, according to the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) (School budget cuts across the US projected for next academic year) Cutting down of educational budgets may result in poor infrastructure developments in school and college campuses. Teachers may not get decent salary in such situations and better teachers may leave the educational profession in order to search for other better professions. “If we want to return our public school system to what is was, or make it better, we need to start with the teachers. Let’s reward teachers for at least some of the value they create” (Bergstein). Reduction of school, budget may often result in reduction of salaries of teachers. Instead of recognizing the great services extended by the teachers, government activities may humiliate the dedicated teachers. Teaching is a skilled work. Lack of recognition may force teachers to leave their teaching profession for better opportunities. Moreover, cutting down of educational budgets or funding may increase the expenses of primary, secondary and higher education drastically. “In today's business world, your options for career advancement can be limited --or sometimes eliminated-- by not having a post-secondary education. Many types of careers actually require post-secondary education as a prerequisite for entry to that particular field” (Nutt). In short, cutting down of school budgets may prevent people from getting proper education needed for a professional career. Lack of education may often result in the development of unhealthy citizen who may engage in antisocial activities. Alejandro Laro-Briseno at the University of California, Berkeley, said he knows students who have to choose between buying a book and eating. Honora Keller, a fifth-year student at San Francisco State University, has to work three jobs to keep up. "I have to eat, buy books and [pay] tuition, and I'm still taking out more loans," she said” (Trevino) The burden of students will be increased as a result of the lack of funding in educational sector. They may not get enough scholarships for meeting their educational expenses. They will be forced to work more to find enough funds for their educational expenses. More works may prevent them from concentrating well in their studies. “The New York Times recently reported that school districts across the country, faced with deep funding cuts, are being forced to consider drastic cost-cutting measures, including laying-off teachers and increasing class sizes”(Chancellor). Cutting down of school budgets may force the school authorities to increase the size of the classes. Even now the bigger class size is causing teachers big problems in providing individual attention to the students. Individual attention of students is necessary for their proper development and learning. Bigger class is difficult to manage for the teachers. In a bigger class, the students may make more noises and problems than in a smaller class since they know that in big classes the chances of being caught is lesser than in a smaller class. In short, classes may become markets when the class size increases as a result of improper funding. With each installment of the nightly news there seems to be another report of some school district cutting, and even slashing its budget. Subsequently, schools are closed, teachers are laid off, programs are cut and class sizes are increased to almost unbearable numbers. These bulging, ever-expanding classrooms create anything but an environment conducive to learning. With students packed elbow-to-elbow in a room, how can a teacher give each one the attention he or she needs? How can standardized test scores go anywhere but down? (Kingsley) “Quality public education is fundamental to the future success of the United States” (Bergstein). United Sates is already facing immense manpower shortages in all areas of public life. Most of the American jobs are currently outsourced to other countries because of the shortage of skilled people in America. Cutting down of school budgets may create more problems in the manpower sector. Increasing expenditure for school education may prevent people from attending schools and subsequently, skilled manpower shortage problem may increase further. Government often argues that it is difficult for the American administration to allocate more budgets to school education because of the recession problems and weakened economy. Both the democrats and republicans are unique in their opinion about the necessities of reducing school budgets. However, it should be note that both are interested in sustaining the war on terror in its present form even though trillions of money wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact the educational sector is getting less attention and funding from the government when we consider military budgets or bailout package budgets. Majority of the governmental spending is going to the nonproductive sectors whereas productive sectors like education are often getting least importance. To conclude, reduction of school budgets may destroy the American school education. It may affect the infrastructure developments in schools also the quality of education. Class size might be increased because of lack of funding which may reduce the quality of education. Teachers, in the absence of better pay, may leave the schools for other opportunities. Poor people may force to work hard for meeting their educational expenses which may prevent them from concentrating in their studies. In short, school budget cut should be avoided at any cost. Works Cited 1. Bergstein, Mel. Fixing America’s Education problem”. Web. 04 May 2011. 2. Brock, Kingsley, “U.S. Education Problems” Web. 04 May 2011. 3. Chancellor, Carl. “School Budget Cuts Ensure Poor Kids Will Remain Poor”. 2010. Web. 04 May 2011. 4. Nutt, Amy. “The Importance of Post-Secondary Education in Furthering Your Career”,2009. Web. 04 May 2011. 5. “Problems with the U.S. Education System”. Web. 04 May 2011. http://www.washprofile.org/en/node/1894 6. “Problems in U.S. Education, The Kingsland Plan, Save Our Public Schools”! Web. 04 May 2011. 7. “School Budget Cuts Across the US Projected for Next Academic Year”. 2010. Web. 04 May 2011. 8. Trevino, Monica. “Students Across U.S. Plan to Protest Education Funding Cuts”. 2010. CNN. Web. 04 May 2011. 9. White, Deborah. “Brutal Bush Budget Cuts $4.3 Billion in Education Programs”. 2006. Web. 04 May 2011. Read More