The Importance Of Education In Education

Just recently on the television I heard about how several schools in Kansas will have to close early this year due to funding cuts. While I am sure that starting summer break early excites many children, it made me wonder how teachers were planning on cramming the end of the year subjects into a few weeks. Also a concern of mine was how families in poverty would handle this change as, children in poverty rely on more than just education from their schools. As a substitute teacher and a parent I wanted to look further into how education funding cuts and reform is effecting the children who need it most. Through my search of a deeper understanding I found a startling correlation between education funding and children who live in poverty. I found …show more content…
In fact, many low poverty and high poverty states are receiving similar amounts of aid. Even though Maryland has a poverty rate of 11.5 percent and Arkansas 20.4 percent, because of the expenditure factor Maryland received more aid because their “per-pupil spending exceeded Arkansas’s by approximately 40%” (Goodwin 989). Another reasoning behind this difference is the fact that Maryland had a higher weight per child because the poor children are less spread out in the smaller state. So even though they had fewer children in poverty, because the state is smaller and spent more per-pupil they got more aid. Because all formulas favor large districts over small districts and many high poverty states cluster “poor children into small high-poverty districts”, the funding isn’t reaching who it needs to reach (Goodwin …show more content…
In 2013 alone only “5 percent of college graduates were poor” which shows that furthering one’s education is the best way out of poverty (Mather and Jarosz 12). The problem is many children in poverty don’t see this as a way out because their parents didn’t go to college. But “parents who have completed college are also much more likely to have children who go to college” which then carries on to the next generation (Mather and Jarosz 12). Sadly many children who don’t meet the mark with Common Core standardized tests receive placement in special classes and then get passed on through school without getting any assistance in preparing them for college. They leave high school without any aspirations of furthering their education because in these classes there is more encouragement to enter the work force out of high school. Another reason these children don’t pursue college is lack of money as “lower-income families often struggle to cover costs of education” (Mather and Jarosz