In the United States today, there are many issues that need to be addressed and reformed, including education, the deficit, and its military spending. One of the most prominent being the money spent on its military compared to its educational system but overall the United States Government needs to do some serious thinking about education reform and the way education is done at the state and local levels. This issue is the "umbrella" issue to various other issues such as the privatization of schooling and testing, lack of interest in learning, and an abysmal standardized testing system. However, one of the issues that is most "easily" fixed is the spending on the military compared to education. The United States spends more on defense than …show more content…
While in some cases this is certainly true, such as the market, areas such as education should be, at least a larger portion than now, subsidized. The military itself has declared the lack of education a threat to national security because think about it, those drones are pretty complicated to build and fly. If its education system is to become completely privatized and unfunded by the government, it won't be able to manufacture or even control any advanced weaponry or defenses. While there are various other areas that could be cut, defense is easily the most logical one, at least during peacetime. As of 2015, the United States spent a bit more than $800 billion on defenses all together. The government's failure to fund education overall has led to local governments to do most of the spending. When you look at colleges, the government spends little to no money, comparatively, on them, forcing most students to take out student loans just to get through college. A lot of the time, students must deal with these loans for a large part of their life and often times, loan lenders will take them to court if they can't keep up with the payments, which is entirely possible. These loans can usually dictate what the graduates can do with their money throughout their lives and in order to have a prosperous and intelligent society, the United States must put more effort and money into …show more content…
The methods of closing the achievement gap in education among the rest of the world that the US Government has implemented have done nothing to help and have in fact hindered the progress those policies were intended to accomplish. Anyone who has worked in or attended a public school in the last 10-15 years know that policies such as Common Core and No Child Left Behind simply do not work on a fundamental level. The goal of No Child Left Behind was ensure that the nation's education rankings would rise compared with the rest of the world and Common Core was intended to standardize education throughout the country, indirectly raising the education rankings. As a result of these programs, the United States' rankings have unintentionally dropped due to the privatization of test making and scoring. Allowing the market to dictate everything will lead to some form of corruption because it doesn't have a reliable checks and balance system; citizens need the product, in this case tests, and have little to no judgment on how these tests are made or graded. These systems, in the end, prohibit bright, intelligent students from taking more advanced classes and furthering their education in order to better themselves. It is not a fiction that there students who simply are bad at taking tests; the anxiety and stress of a short
Education in America is one of the most important issues that face our nation. If the education in America is not thought of one of most serious issues we face, our nation as a whole will fall. There are many debates and they seemly extend to all walks of life. The debates range from the decline in education, school vouchers, and the no child left behind law. As a nation, the United States is ranked above others. We must search for that solution to all of the pro’s and con’s in education. The solution should allow all walks of life to excel in the education realm. After all, the children of today will be the leaders of tomorrow.
The United States of America’s defense budget is accounted for by the spending for the Department of Defense. All the funding directed to the Department of Defense covers its base budget through payment of the department 's normal activities (National Priorities). Most presidential candidates support the idea of the United States of America developing a bigger military force or at least leaving it as big as it currently is, except most notably Berny Sanders. The United States of America currently stands at a $494 billion-dollar deficit (US Debt Clock) and many politicians want to reduce this deficit by cutting down budget or enforcing a balanced budget amendment. Berny Sanders has for years and still at the moment still criticizing politicians who have such ideas which he terms as regressive. Berny Sanders argues that the federal defense spending and military budget are three times larger than that of the second biggest spender: China. He further argues that even among military members, many believe that
The No Child left Behind Act was intended to close the achievement gap in elementary and secondary schools by allowing each and every student the opportunity to have the best education possible. This law was signed by George W. Bush in 2001 who described it as a law that will, “Ensure that all children have a fair, equal and significant opportunity to obtain a high quality education”(Neill 2). The No Child Left Behind Act was only intended to help the students, but it is clear, not only to teachers, parents, and professionals, that it is time for a reauthorized law; One that each and every student can benefit from. The achievement gap in America’s school systems still exists. For the sake of America’s future, the school system must make a change now or the future of this country will suffer.
The privatization of schools in The United States has been a hot topic for many Americans. Many people such as President Trump, would argue that the privatization of education in America would be beneficial, while others can see the consequences of making schools private. The privatization of education in America could be terrible to millions of United States citizens across the nation.
The first reason that military spending should be cut down on is that it takes away the focus from other incredibly important areas. One of the many areas that loose focus because of the large amount of military spending is the education sector. Primary education should be one of the main concerns of our government. Not only because it is where we teach our children about the world, but also it gives them the chance for a better future. They do not learn this from the military. The main reason that education is a better investment is because in the long run education helps the economy grow, since it creates a more skillful labor force. The amount of spending that goes into the military takes away from the potential of a long-term benefit to our
There are 99,000 schools in the U.S., and they are all different in their own way (nsta.org). This can lead to some students getting a better education than others, because of a number of different reasons, like lack of teachers, funding, or the size of the classes. In order to improve as a country there needs to be a more uniform system that challenges students. It will take time to develop the system and implement it in schools, but I feel it will be very helpful in fixing the national education and in improving test
National debt is necessary for the funding of federal programs. Government spending is not only a focus of the United State’s political system, but it affects one’s personal choices and lifestyle. There is a concern with where and why money is spent. A key aspect of government spending is allocated to education. Education is fundamental in how one benefits society and the economy. The United States education program is not only necessary for the success of the country, but it is in need of a more efficient system with increased funding.
“Educational privatization is controversial and politically contentious.” So said Henry Levin (2008) as he wrote regarding issues in educational privatization. Four of the principles Levin uses to evaluate school choice policies are summarized in this essay, as are the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools with regard to these principles and a policy suggestion developed in consideration of the growth in income equality in the U.S. that would help balance Levin’s four principles.
In our reading "Choices are Everywhere: Why can't we just have it all?" from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis we learned that social security, national defense and healthcare programs are the top government spending categories (2013). While I believe all three are good places, I also feel like that 528.4 million dollars could have gone to our education system (not all but definitely some). According to usgovernmentspending.com the United States, in 2014, spend $1,283,079.6 million on healthcare (this includes local, state, and federal) while $962,948.4 million went to education (Total 2014 Government Spending). That is a $320,131.2 difference between total healthcare and education funding. I believe that is the opportunity cost; some of the money that went to PP that could have gone to education.
The education system is deeply flawed. It does not fight social injustice, but rather exacerbates the issue. The majority of people in the U.S are blind to the fact that there are still inequities within the education system, much less everyday life. A system based on standardized test scores inadvertently oppresses poor people. The Governments ' decision to judge a schools ' success by its test scores evidently created a faucet of running water for systematic oppression. The flowing water of oppression floods poor schools; drowning students with dreams, and giving no mercy. The only ones safe from the water are the privileged, who are oblivious to the fact that it exists.
“The United States spent $598.5 billion dollars alone on the military in 2015. That is 54% of all spending in 2015. The US only spent $70 billion (6%) on education and $13.1 billion (1%) on food and agriculture.” (“Military Spending”). This shows what Americans really value.
Donald Trump’s audacious administration is actually proposing a budget for 2018 that increases military spending by 54 billion dollars!(4) To make this feasible massive cuts have to be made to the detriment of bureaucratic organizations such as: the department of education, the EPA, department of labor, housing and urban development department. To give that number a frame of reference, the estimated cost of providing tuition free public universities under the 2016 Sanders plan is approximately 75 billion dollars.(5) We already have nearly eight hundred military bases around the world, do we really need to allocate more resources to this department in which we already have the ability to act unilaterally on a global scale with impunity?(6) Or are there other departments in our society that could benefit more from an influx in funding?
When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law in 2002, the legislation had one goal-- to improve educational equity for all students in the United States by implementing standards for student achievement and school district and teacher performance. Before the No Child Left Behind Act, the program of study for most schools was developed and implemented by individual states and local communities’ school boards. Proponents of the NCLB believed that lax oversight and lack of measurable standards by state and local communities was leading to the failure of the education system and required federal government intervention to correct. At the time, the Act seemed to be what the American educational system
Since the attacks a number of civil defense programs have been initiated, which leads to more departments asking for an allowance within the national budget. This ultimately is leading to a larger and larger deficit that is quickly encompassing full percentage points of our GDP. There is a debate on how much defense
Abstract: Privatization is arguably one of the most significant changes in Latin American education since 1980s. However, Latin American countries have undertaken quite different trajectories to liberalize their education. Yet we lack explanations accounting for this concurrent convergence in the privatization of education and the striking variation of liberalization instruments. This paper argues that the explanation lies on understanding the politics of the education reforms, and particularly the interaction between foreign ideas and domestic policymaking. Organizational institutionalism regards this interaction as a translation of global New Public Management ideas by domestic policy-makers. Building on organizational institutionalism argument, this paper contends that translation of international ideas about privatization of education is shaped by domestic political coalitions. Translation is also embedded in a historical process within which early policy decisions have diverse feedback effects on coalitions and subsequent policy choices. To illustrate this argument, the paper identifies the mechanisms by which privatization was embraced in Argentina, Chile, and