Education is one of the most important things in society. Middle schools and high schools are probably the biggest part of education because they are where it all starts. Starting in middle school and ending when you graduate high school is the foundation for the rest of your life. If a child is not motivated by then, they will most likely never be successful. It is highly important for our grade-schools to do their part in encouraging and preparing the state's youth for the rest of their lives.
With the economic downturn and budget cuts widespread, our government has to make some crucial decisions that will affect Texans in great ways. One of the big budget cuts is to our public education system. Since Texas education is already rated among the country's lowest, this is a very poor decision. If education isn't a high priority then we need to seriously take another look at our priorities. I'm not saying I've saddled up and reviewed the entire Texas budget; I fully understand that when budget cuts are made, everyone suffers. Education cannot be the only exception to this.
If budget cuts must be made, then I think the number one cut should be athletics. Before everyone goes all hating on me, I must say, I participated in athletics in middle school and high school and enjoyed it. I was even on JV when our varsity football team, not me, I wasn't very good, won state in 2006 but quit before they won again in 2007 (any guesses what school? It's near Austin). I just think that for many high school students, intense athletic programs actually take away from academics, monetary-wise and attention. Currently, we have this no pass no play rule where kids can only play sports if they pass their classes, but I have seen that this does not work because teachers will pass a student so that they can play. What it takes to actually fail a class in high school is disgusting (no offense to anyone who might have actually managed, maybe you should have been a star athlete).
What it comes down to is, what is important? Is high school athletics really that important at the cost of a good education?
http://gregsgovernmentblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/dealing-with-texas-education-budget.html
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the statement from Noah’s article, where it says “it is highly important for our grade-schools to do their part in encouraging and preparing the state’s youth for the rest of their lives.” However, the Noah’s definition of education seems to differ from mine. In his article, he infers that the actual studying with books and papers is more important than other things such as athletics. Here, I have a different perspective. Education is not only about studying books and writing essays but also about finding one’s specialty and interest, and developing it. One’s specialty could be athletics, arts, music, business or anything. Yes, all of these require some paper studying but cutting budgets for such things won’t improve education in Texas. It appears to be hindering the education in Texas.
ReplyDeleteInstead of destroying the variety choices in education, we should encourage it, so that students can actually find what they want to do and might be more interested. Therefore, we should find another way to cut the budget if it is needed. From my previous post (unfortunately, I was confused with another assignment and wrote a critique on another editorial), I mentioned that the administration eats up half of the budget. Maybe it would be not a bad way to find some budget cut there.
Moreover, he mentioned that motivation is important in the beginning of his article. Here, I am on his side. No motivation will end up with no fruition. Therefore, the Texas government should find a way to help students getting motivated by giving them broader concept of education and encouraging them, not discouraging by cutting budgets on athletics or others - I just wanted to emphasize that education could mean whole lot more than just empty studying.
You are right Noah when you said in your article "Educating Texas" that we need to prioritize more wisely in our state before we do something like this. Education is one of the most important investments in society, and that should be the last thing we take in consideration to use on budget cuttings in the Texas's economy improvement plan; It is truth that before the $15 billion in education budget cuts, the Lone star was spending a lot more money than many other states, but also that was the reason why Texas has been considered one of the best educational systems in the nation, not only academically but athletically as well, making the Texans proud of the glory and prestige of our school and universities. But this budget cuts are also cutting the advances that have taken much longer to achieve. We do not see these changes now, but maybe in a couple of years statistics will reveal the tragic reality, and at that point turn the things back in the right direction could not be that easy.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in my last post "Need a job? Move to Texas!", I do believe that Mr. Perry is doing all this changes in his eagerness to reach the presidential candidacy. He is not only using the educational structure for this purpose, but also he is putting at risk our own healthy on it with the "business friendly environment," minimizing environmental regulations and giving permits for almost any kind of company without taking in count the environmental pollution this can lead to; we would rank 7th in the world for deadly toxic emissions if we consider Texas as an independent nation (you can learn more about this in Zeke's post).
Also if we look at the exponential growing of the state's population, with an approximation of a thousand new residents daily; how can we even be thinking on laying off teacher positions? Instead of that, we should invest more and more to the education of our children. When I see something like this I remember two wise quotes of the liberator of Venezuela, Simon Bolivar: “The first duty of a government is to give education to the people” and “An ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction.”
If Republicans really want to legislate for the well being of the state, they should change their minds and realize that education is the key of success.