Summaries and Reflections of Articles about School Finance - Essay Example

FINANCE /BUDGET Article Summaries and Reflections I. The Impact of New Funding Formula on School Finance Equity in Missouri. This journal s that finance equity is one of the key issues in educational policy for the past few decades. Many states have implemented an educational finance policies since the 1970s to adjust to the instructions brought down by the United States courts, politics and the demands of the general public. The public would usually voice out their opinions and suggestions on how funding ought to be allocated in some school districts. Many of the schools have to implement the court orders and other political instructions in terms of school financing equity in order not to make enemies of the state or the courts. In fact, a 1993 circuit court of Cole County opined that "The existing school finance system does not provide an 'equal ... opportunity' for all school age children as is required by ... the Missouri Constitution" (Committee for Educational Equity v. Missouri, 1993, p. 29). As described in the decision, "various statistical measures confirm the degree and extent of these wide inequalities" (p. 13) and "All relevant standard measures of equity ... clearly and consistently indicate that Missouri funding for its public schools is highly disequalized and is getting worse" (p. 15)"(Wan Ko, 2006).This court decision instructs that the school must revise its financing policies. The court wants that school finances should be EQUALLY allocated to all children irregardless of race, religion, sex, etc. This new financing policy introduces a new hold harmless provision. Hold harmless schools clearly receive more than the normal monetary help than other schools receive. As a result, these hold harmless school districts give more accurate equity analysis for evaluating the state's policy impact. this study of the Missouri school finance system shows that there was an improvement in the Missouri school's finance equity under the new funding formula. However, there were times when financial help did not arrive as schedule or came only in trickles. One reason is that the monetary help had come from other sources and not from the newly approved funding schemes. Evidently, this article shows that schools need money in order to deliver high quality education to the students(Wan Ko, 2006). II. A Helping Hand: A Federal Grant Program Gives School Districts the Financial Support The Need to Develop Updated, Comprehensive Disaster Plans. The article mentions how tornadoes ravaged several towns in Missouri. The tornadoes literally scattered some elementary school buildings in the community. In Caulfied, MO, a tornado killed a seven year old girl named Elizabeth Croney. Likewise, a school in Derby, KS had to close down to allow police officers to corner and arrest an armed criminal in front the the school's premises. Many of the schools are not accustomed to confronting increasing threats from many quarters. The dangers include natural disasters, street gangs and terrorists. Many of the schools' administrators and responsible personnel underwent emergency disaster training to counter the effects of any emergency. The Department of Education's office of safe and drug -free schools spearheaded this campaign to help schools be more prepared to alleviate any emergency. In turn, the schools would be given REMS funds that would be used for the schools' disaster awareness and readiness program. The United States government has focused on school disaster preparedness programs in response to the infamous September eleven twin tower airline hijacking incidents as well as the ramming of a commandeered passenger plane onto the Pentagon. For, "If you think back to 9/11, there were a lot of lessons learned from that incident," according to Sara Strizzi, who is a program analyst for the DoE in Washington, DC. One of those lessons was the vulnerability of K-12 campuses. "We realized that within the ground zero vicinity, there were a lot of schools close by."(Bowles, 2007). Here, the government of the United States is seriously giving financial aids to schools for the use of implementing a higher quality safety program. The political figures in the state of New York had realized that there were many small elementary schools located near ground zero. The article shows that the state helps their local inhabitants by giving them grant money to fix any damages caused by natural disasters like floods, earthquake and fires. Definitely, the grant states that the schools must coordinate with the police, firemen and other personalities to help each other in times of emergencies. The schools need the government allocations(Bowles, 2007). III. The Interdependence of Economic and Personal Finance Education. The article correctly states that the personal finance education is very important in our current time. There is now a trend to reverse the old educational system where personal finance is not taken up during classroom discussions. Personal finance is often discussed in economics class. Basic economic theories like supply principle and demand principle and the scarcity of the goods theory can easily be discussed in economics class. The elementary students are trained how to save money by not paying for mundane purchases and junk foods. In addition, the article "Mr. Greenspan's statement, in his lead essay for this special section, that "the importance of basic financial skills underscores the need to begin the learning process as early as possible. Indeed, improving basic financial literacy at the elementary and secondary levels will provide a foundation of financial literacy that can help prevent younger people from making poor decisions that can take years to overcome."(Morton, 2005). Evidently, teaching the kids from K-12 will make better business decision makers. For, the children would learn that money is a scarce commodity. Thus, the students will maximize their knowledge in terms of why people must save money. Basically, the children will be taught that they must save money today in order to have enough money to pay for emergency expenses. However, many schools do not implement the compulsory lessons on the value of saving money for the rainy days. The personal finance topics are often included in the teaching of economics under the topic -scarcity of goods. Many teachers do not prioritize the teaching of personal finance topics to the students because the teachers feel that the finance topics should be scanned and not seriously taught to the young and playful minds of the children. Surely, personal finance topics will help children(Morton, 2005). References Bowles, M. (2007). A Helping Hand: A Federal Grant Program Gives School Districts the Financial Support They Need to Develop Updated, Comprehensive Disaster Plans. T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), 34(10), 4+. Morton, J. S. (2005). The Interdependence of Economic and Personal Finance Education. Social Education, 69(2), 66+. Wan Ko, J. (2006). The Impact of New Funding Formula on School Finance Equity in Missouri. Education, 126(3), 559+. Read More