Where to spend our tax dollars.

[Ivan27]

“An education is all you need in this world” or at least that’s what my grandmother used to say. Having some type of education is extremely important and it affects everyone in this country. Making our country more educated should be one of our top priorities as a nation. I believe our tax dollars should be spent more efficiently and towards a better cause like education instead of a never ending war or a new stadium for your city’s baseball team. We are under a national crisis and we will slowly collapse as a nation if this nightmare continues. Funding more of our tax dollars towards education is key towards the growth of our nation and will eventually even save us money by keeping people out of prisons and saving money towards unemployment etc..

One reason, my opposition might state as a reason to disagree with me is that we need to spend our tax dollars towards the funding of the war, social security, and medicare. However, 21% or 657 billion dollars of our nation’s budget was already invested towards our security and national defense in 2006, a more than abundant amount of money as opposed to an embarrassing 4% which was put forth towards our education. Don’t get me wrong I am in no way being ignorant to the fact that we are still in what seems like a never ending war and I do realize that certain things are necessary for a country to excel. However, I do feel that we as a country can afford to invest more dollars toward education rather than towards a war. A better education system will help our country become better prepared for the future.

First of all, we are living in the ever changing 20th century with an education system that was designed for the fifties. A lot has happened between then and now and we should improve our resources to better suit our schools and classrooms. By improving our investments toward education we would be able to place more schools in big cities. A lot of big city schools, even in the Miami area, find themselves extremely overpopulated, so much so that in some cases students have had rush to class just to find a seat if not they were faced with the decision of not going to class at all or be forced to deal with it and either stand or sit on the cement floor. Teachers are teaching classes of forty to up to 51 kids in one local Los Angeles high school. This same local high school was built for 1500 students when it was constructed in the sixties, it now holds 4100 students and no one seems to have an answer as to why there hasn’t been another high school built around the area for the last 40 years. It was not until Bill and Melinda Gates themselves brought it up to public eye on national T.V. that the city of Los Angeles decided to put forth money towards building a new high school that would reduce the school’s population by at least 45 to 50%.

Secondly, with more of our tax dollars being directed towards education we could improve the physical appearance of many of our schools. I, having have played basketball in high school, had the privilege of going to different schools when we had games away from our own high school and I honestly thought that it couldn’t get any worse than my high school considering the crusty paintjob throughout the school, the filthy bathrooms that in some cases were closed altogether, vandalized books so on and so forth the list can go for ages. However, I was shocked when we went to a high school and we were all surprised when we found out this school didn’t even have a boys locker room in which we can change in or a team bus. Children and teenagers rise to what is expected of them. If you show them that you don’t care, they’ll eventually reflect on that and take on the attitude of if no one cares then why should I? Improving our school’s appearance and giving schools certain essentials needed to function properly will give students the impression hat they are worth it and can become what they dreamed of becoming one day.

To continue with the topic in hand, how would you feel if your kid who played sports was to grow up in a run down high school which did not provide him with transportation and he lets you know he has been sitting on the floor for his last three classes because he couldn’t stand no longer thus the previous two. As a parent I would be outraged and as a recent graduate I am relieved to know that I am thru with that stage of my life. However, god only knows how bad things could be in other parts of the country. Bill and Melinda Gates have started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A foundation which helps bring new innovations and different ways of learning to our local communities. Providing more money towards education will help find new ways to teach students who would otherwise get bored of books on top of books.

Last but not least, with increased funding in education we can use it towards our prison system. The median educational level of people getting out of prison is from 10th to 11th grade. Which brings me back to why they are there in the first place, not saying that a better education will keep everyone out of jail, but surely enough would reduce the jail population as a whole and will drop the re-incarceration rate dramatically. Did you know that 1 out of every 138 Americans go to jail each year, and every year we release over 600,000 prisoners, that is 1,600 prisoners a day! Would you rather spend your money trying to buy things to defend yourself from these ex-convicts or would you rather spend money trying to improve the psyche of these prisoners to better themselves and your state of mind?

In conclusion, spending our tax dollars more efficiently is essential for our growth as a nation. Education is lacking profusely in the United States, and it is a shame we have dropped off as far as we have education wise in comparison to the now leading countries of the world like Sweden, Japan, and Turkey. 20 years ago we were the leaders in just about every educational category in the world. Now, we stand a sad 29th in math and 26th in science. Tax dollars should help fund new schools to make classes smaller, they should also be used to explore new and maybe more complex ways of learning to benefit the students that would otherwise dropout was it not for these programs. Prisoners should be educated to try and keep them from re-incarcerated. With more resources and devotion we can change this country completely around just by making Education a priority

[Ivan27]

great points! this sounds like it would be a good essay. If i was ur professor i would Ace u through the class no doubt

[Slevin57]

I agree with you. It seems like everyday standards are being lowered.

Countries are passing my own in education, and even here at college people in my building occupy their time drinking, getting high, and playing video games.

I'm not sure that this process can be reversed easily, it will meet a lot of resistance.

Even in my own classes the standards were dropped. In my accounting and business 101 class, everyone was doing poorly. So the professor's gave huge curves. As a result I have over a 100 average in those classes.

Should that be happening?

Do we have to now expect students to go beyond their own grades and learn just for the sake of it?

That might be something you can learn by college or even in high school, but I can't expect my 6 year old nephew, who by the standards now is reading at the 5th grade level in Kindergarden to understand that concept.

A lot of parents are seeking private school instead. But, that neglects a large portion of the population that can't afford to send their kids to school.

[brien]

In conclusion, spending our tax dollars more efficiently is essential for our growth as a nation. Education is lacking profusely in the United States, and it is a shame we have dropped off as far as we have education wise in comparison to the now leading countries of the world like Sweden, Japan, and Turkey.

Can you show us a correlation between more money spent in the US on Education and a better education? Here is a link to show increased spending of tax dollars doesn't necessarily translate into better education. Merely "throwing" more money at edcuation doesn't buy a better education as we have witnessed in the past 20 years.

$20,000 per Household: The Highest Level of Federal Spending Since World War II

[grandpa]

Quote by: brien Can you show us a correlation between more money spent in the US on Education and a better education? Here is a link to show increased spending of tax dollars doesn't necessarily translate into better education.

In any case, there is a problem with linking education to the economy: people don't need to buy information.
There are profound implications behind the alternative view, that information ought to be bought and sold as a commodity.
One is that some (presumably many) will be intentionally kept ignorant if they lack the financial means of accessing the information market. That's an unstable social system (I hesitate to call it a culture) for obvious reasons.

Grandpa h.

[rmnunez]

Advocacy for education is always well received, as a member of the faculty of several universities, I can't object to educational spending. But I think in the US the need is more for quality than quantity and this should apply to spending too. Better quality spending will improve things education-wise more than just spending more on education.

It is estimated about half the people in the US have some measure of post-secondary education, while in the rest of the world the average is a tenth of this. In the US education through high school is compulsory and freely available to everyone, community colleges, government subsidies, student loans, grants and scholarships provide plenty of support at the higher levels.

But teachers are poorly paid and the physical plant is decrepit across the US. Improving teachers salaries and investing in equipment upgrades would be a good idea. With the changing demographic profile, demand for education at the lower levels will diminish, so there will be savings here.

[bishop]

my school has a foreign-exchange population of at least 60%... interesting when you compare the educational systems of other countries to ours - it seems to show why american students are lagging.

it all boils down to a difference in how you educate students. foreign systems, especially those in east europe to the far east, focus heavily on hammering home the fundamentals. they repeat the lessons over and over until it's committed to the students' long term memory. our system focuses more on critical thinking, which is fine, but our grasp of the fundamentals undeniably suffers.

one example is that those of us raised in u.s. schools most likely know what 12 x 12 is in their heads without needing a calculator. (my guess is that those who don't probably didn't do so hot in school.) but, do people know 13 x 13 as immediately? i doubt it - because our system schooled us up to 12 x 12.

point is - it isn't the money, it's the way we educate students that's the problem. i always hear teachers complaining about having to "teach to the test"... well, it's necessary because they aren't doing a good job when it comes to hammering home the fundamentals.

[rmnunez]

Its interesting to note that 12x12 thing in math. Everyone learns the multiplication tables by rote, but elsewhere they only go up to 10. In the US they rely on a sexagesimal system and use fractions much more. In the EU and most of the rest of the world everything is decimal.

The more conceptual approach to education is gaining ground around the world, but there are things that naturally lend themselves to memorization which allows for quicker recall when the information is needed.

[bishop]

when you've been taught to commit complex fundamentals to memory, be it in language/math/science, then learning more complex topics is generally easier. the fundamentals are usually focused on during the elementary years, and gradually disappear towards the end of high school..

[Epistemologist]

Have any of you heard of "magnet" schools? It makes special programs that attract brighter students (e.g. International Baccalaureate) be implemented at schools with extremely poor standardized test grades, such as the FCAT in Florida. Thus, it's a sort of magnet to get students who would raise the average test score go to these schools they would otherwise not even think of attending. The result is students who care about learning being dumped in the middle of the ghetto with mostly trash that doesn't care about education or even laws for that matter.

And I'm not just talking about the students, who often bring their drugs, guns, and babies to school. I'm also talking about the teachers and the administrators of the poorly performing part, who just don't seem to care about education. Almost every single time, these people seem to only be going to work for the paycheck. It's interesting that even they seem to be in spite of the special part of the school, considering that they'd probably be fired for sub-par test scores if that special part wasn't there.

Ah, maybe you probably don't know what I'm talking about, and this might seem like a huge rant. But from my experience, public education seems to be a big hole in the floor in which the taxpayers poop their money, with their incompetent government holding a gun to their heads, forcing them to poop. But the taxpayers seem to enjoy it, because they're equally inept.

[rmnunez]

I'd have my doubts on those teachers who seem to be going to work just for that paycheck, they can't be too smart since teaching is notoriously poorly paid. Most of the teachers I know, especially ones who teach children, seem to be motivated by a 'calling' or vocation. I suspect this is much more prevalent among novices in pedagogy, who then are beaten into submission and conformity by an overpowering administration.

[Epistemologist]

Yeah, perhaps after being in an atmosphere of incompetence and stupidity, even the brightest, most promising, and idealistic person can be entangled in the same inescapable web. It's a tragic corruption.