Schools and Public Funding

This is a speech I wrote at school about education and public funding.

The quality of education your child will receive depends on the community where you will reside. Does that statement seem logical? Yet, it is entirely accurate. Today, in our societies, many students are denied the best possible education because they grew up on the wrong side of town. If the community you live in is not wealthy or successful, then most likely your child will not receive a decent education. In America, we regard ourselves on being the most competent, best educated, and maintaining the best standards of life; however, education is not at the forefront of our society.
How can this be? How can we place ourselves so high above other countries when we have high school students that are unable to read in our public schools? Today, the quality of our public schools probably doesn’t measure up to education standards of the poorest countries. We cannot expect to maintain the status of superpower country if we fail to educate the following generations. We cannot educate our students without adequate teachers. We cannot provide adequate teachers without more funding. Therefore, we cannot educate without more funding.
Currently, our public education system is funded by local government providing the majority of funds with a small contribution from the federal level. The government cannot expect this small amount to provide for teachers’ salaries, school repairs, improved technology, and new resources. The money provided will barely cover school repairs... To be exact, the federal government provides about 8% of the total funding, the state government provides about 50%, and the remainder is left up to local government and businesses. This means that areas that are more successful and have more local pull will continue to receive money even if the schools in that area don’t necessarily need it, while a school in a poverty-stricken area will receive less and less. What does this mean for the future of our society?
This method of public school funding drastically limits the quality of education many students receive. This system helps to keep the wealthy at the top and the poor at the bottom. There are statistics that show the failure of the system, yet our government still continues to act as if education was not a serious issue. In recent statistics, it shows that only 31% of our nation’s students are proficient in reading, 32% are proficient in math, 29% are proficient in science, and 18% are proficient in American history. And this is only among the wealthier students! The poor students scored half as well. This means that public school funding is inadequate at all levels, wealthy or poor. This public education system will result in high dropout rates, low standardized test scores, inadequate teachers and resources, and overall an increasing trend in poverty.
Public schools cannot implement good judgment, leadership skills, or motivation to learn when the government is not providing enough money to support them. Although our nation’s graduation rate is about 70%, half of those students are graduating without the qualifications necessary to attend a four-year college or university. Where does that leave us? What does that mean for families in the future? It means that all parents and families should switch from public school education to private schools or home schooling because at least in those instances, parents can be sure that their money is going to benefit their child/children.
The government does not care if you don’t have the money for better education. The government is more focused on wars, trade, and oil to worry about our public education system. For instance, our state government made a decision last semester to miss two days of school so that oil levels and prices could be stabilized. That is what the government wanted us to believe. But, that was not the truth. We did miss those two days because of oil, but it was for diesel fuel so that the buses wouldn’t run, so that the farmers would have plenty of diesel fuel to bring in their harvest. Does that seem logical? Our government would rather us miss days for the education that we desperately need as a nation to fulfill the needs of its farmers. The government is not making decisions to raise teachers’ salaries, or issue new textbooks, or new computers. Our federal government is not meeting our needs about public education. It is not okay that some students grow up illiterate. It is not acceptable that some students grow up never having use of a computer. It is not fair that the people who teach and bring up the leaders in our world are paid barely enough to survive.
The lack of public school funding will have negative results on our economy. If we were to promote quality education to all students nationwide, then we would not only improve our current standing among world powers, but we would also lessen poverty and economic downfalls. Many other countries are strengthening their public education policies, America needs to rise up and set the stage. We are the superpower. We need to be the one that other countries are following, not the other way around. We need to come together as a society and voice our opinions about the lack of public school funding and how it is adversely affecting our future. The future of our social order, the future of our quality of life, and the future of our democracy is directly linked to the success of our public schools.

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