I just want to expand on my previous post about Texas Education and the failure to make education a priority in Texas. There's some options on how to better fund education here in Texas and even though some might sound crazy, you must remember that ultimately the effects of not making education a priority is far worse. Texans not getting an adequate education can lead to more students dropping out of school, not being prepared for college, less students going to college and it all leads to Texas having a diminished talent pool for the various businesses (health care, technology, banking/finance, education) in Texas. On top of a diminished talent pool in Texas, you could say it will affect public assistance resources and also, the more unaware or uneducated individuals means that politicians get away with more crap. I believe this cost far more in the long run for Texas.
Like Jefferson said, nation can't be free and ignorant. Moving on to a list of ideas to better fund Texas education:
- Gambling
- Raise taxes (property/businesses/alcohol/tobacco)
- State income tax
- Pay cuts for high earning "public" officials
- Cuts to certain expense fund accounts used by high earning "public" officials
- Inheritance tax
- Donations
- Reconsider those businesses/organizations that are tax-exempt/receive tax cuts and tax them
- Parent paid preschool (Austin ISD starts this type of program for 2011-2012 school year)
- Resurrect our founding fathers (or at least Thomas Jefferson) back from the dead and let them tackle the issue.
Texas gets little funding from the federal government compared to the amount of funding that comes from local and state resources. Bottom-line, it is Texas responsibility to find a way to better fund public education and the effects are not making education a priority needs to be understood. We need a solution, the need to reform the way public education is handled in Texas has to be addressed and fixed.
I enjoyed the blog post "Texas Education, Part Two," from the blog "Red State, Blue City." My classmate wrote this blog on a topic similar to my last blog posting, but went on to elaborate on suggestions as to how to fix this problem.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with my classmates opinion that the effects of not making education a priority are far worse than the thought of the suggestions stated. If we continue to let the education system of Texas decline, as the blogger stated, we will be up for far less opportunities in cutting edge fields. No one wants to do business with a bunch of idiots, and no one wants to go to college in a state where people are known to be idiots.
I mostly appreciated my classmates list of suggestions, and whether or not I agree with all of them, something has to be done to improve this education system. At the top of the list was gambling. Many people look down on gambling and feel it brings a sort of "trashiness," to an area, but realistically, and as bad as it sounds, uneducated people also bring that to an area. Gambling can bring a huge amount of money to an area and although I cringe at the idea of casinos popping up everywhere, if that is what would help our education system I am all for it. My classmate also mentioned cutting funds for "Public Officials," which I think everyone would agree with since the exposing of the massive amounts of funds used on executives during the bailout a couple years ago. Parent funded preschool is also an excellent idea, as preschool is optional and I don't feel should be publicly funded.
My classmate did an excellent job making suggestions on how to improve this education crises and highlighted the consequences of failing to do so nicely.