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Over the past few years, states and federal funding programs have been drastically cutting the budgets schools across the country. “Federal spending for Title I — the major federal assistance program for high-poverty schools — is down 8.3 percent since 2010, after adjusting for inflation.”. The article I used is from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities which is written by Michael Leachman, the director of state fiscal research. This source is credible because CBPP studies state and federal budget cuts with experts who write these articles, and the article was written within the past year. It is known that federal and state budget cuts are affecting student education in school, but it leaves people to wonder why? The answer is a downturn in the economy has led to unemployment and lower tax revenue along with a growing population leading to less resources available per student.
To start off, one reason to why states have started decreasing school budgets is because state incomes are also decreasing. This has been caused by the nationwide rise in unemployment. “Unemployment doubled between 2007 and 2010 … leaving many homeowners more cautious about drawing on home equity to make large purchases. As a result, states’ income and sales tax revenues ― their main revenue sources for education and other services ― were hit hard”. Another reason as to why states income has gone down is because of small revenues and higher costs. “The widespread drop in state support for schools over the past decade reflects outside factors, such as weak revenues and rising costs, as well as state policy choices, such as relying on spending cuts to close budget shortfalls and cutting taxes”. In addition to high unemployment rates and small revenues, there are many other, sometimes unpredictable, factors that are the reason for smaller budgets. “Costs of state-funded services have risen since the recession due to inflation, demographic changes, and rising needs”.
In addition to all of the factors that are lowering school budgets, there are also a growing number of students going into school. In order for students to get their full educational opportunity, budgets should be increasing instead decreasing as the amount of students in school are increasing. “There are about 1.1 million more K-12 students and 1.5 million more public college and university students now [late 2016] than in 2008, the U.S. Department of Education estimates”. Finally, states have been trying to help the people by enacting tax cuts, which means they have to pay less to the government. However, this causes a problem because now the government's revenue is decreasing, which leads to school budgets to decrease. “Not only did many states avoid raising revenue after the recession hit, but some enacted large tax cuts, further reducing revenues”.
To conclude, with the rise in unemployment, small annual salaries, higher costs, rise in amount of students, and tax cuts, it is making it very difficult for states to fund schools with the money that they need. Although it is going to be hard to find a good solution, something needs to be done in order for students to receive they education that they require in order become successful later in life. Now that we have figured out the reasons why school budget cuts are occurring, the next question rises, how do budget cuts affect students?
To conclude, with the rise in unemployment, small annual salaries, higher costs, rise in amount of students, and tax cuts, it is making it very difficult for states to fund schools with the money that they need. Although it is going to be hard to find a good solution, something needs to be done in order for students to receive they education that they require in order become successful later in life. Now that we have figured out the reasons why school budget cuts are occurring, the next question rises, how do budget cuts affect students?
