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Shinigami (profile) wrote,
on 12-8-2004 at 11:24am
Subject: I can do better I know that...

Jackie Reader
Rhetoric 40418
December 8, 2004

Can I have a Little Help here?
Public school all across Michigan have taken a beating when it comes to funding over the past few years. And it’s not only Detroit schools that have it hard; West Michigan schools have been forced to stretch their budgets as well. Rockford High School was hit with lack of funds due to increased population over a short period of time and inadequate funding per student as the population grew. The school board had to cut $1 million from its already fixed budget last year, and with the threat of a teacher strike right around the corner, it was hard to keep everyone happy. The board did come up with a solution though: they cut running buses to pick up/drop off students for the first half of the year, they cut three days of school and added 11 minutes to school days, they only had on a few hallway lights at a time and they turned down the heat from a comfortable 72 degrees to 65 degrees. In all it saved the school over $100,000 for that year alone. For this year though the school board is thinking of cutting PE and Art classes from the elementary schools to help save money. But there has to be another way that school boards can get money to fund their school and cope with the loss that school cannot change.
Rockford has been one of the lowest paid schools for per-pupil revenue since 2000 when it was paid only $6000 per student compared to Bloomfield Hills which received over $11,000 per student. Granted, Bloomfield Hills has five different high schools, three middle schools, and six elementary schools to support compared to Rockford’s one high
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school, one freshman center, two middle schools, and eight elementary schools. Every year the State has been trying to reduce the huge gap difference schools, the gap being over $5000, by increasing the schools revenue from $50 to $300 every year. The State also gives additional increases to lower-budget schools that they call “equality payments.” Though these “equality payments” help to reduce the funding gap but it still hurts low funded schools. Instead of increasing a school with a higher budgets funding, they should give that school and others the lowest increase possible and have the lower funded schools get the highest funding the state offers. There are a lot of schools that don’t need that much of an increase because of the low student population, but schools that are booming in population or are inadequately funded should be the ones to benefit from these “equality payments.” (http://www.mischoolfunding.org/Gap.htm)
Every parent seems to dread that time of year when the schools are doing fund raisers. But why should people dread them if they need the money that a fund raiser brings? Rockford has a policy called ‘pay-to-play.’ In order to play varsity or any kind of high school team, the individual has to pay so much money to be able to play. Over the years the ‘pay-to-play’ fee has doubled; it used to be $60 and the school raised the price yet again this year making it $120 to be able to play any sport. And for kids with multiple talents in sports, paying the $120 and uniform costs is a lot of money. What these sports teams can do, and have partially been doing, is have fund raises to raise money for a bus ride to games(which had previously been cut), uniforms, equipment, and any other thing they might need to make it less costly on the parents alone. Also, certain departments in the high school have suffered from the fund cuts as well. The art department, choir, band,
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and others have been on a shorter budget than they’re used to. Though fund raising might be somewhat hurtful to an individual, the community and school system as a whole would benefit greatly from the extra care and consideration that the people of the community give freely to help their children learn and be great.
There are many ways that parents, teachers, and students can get money for a school, not just the two mentioned. The two proposed ideas would be the ideal courses that Rockford High School should take, even though the first proposal is dependent on the State governor. Hopefully in time the equality payments that the State is trying to distribute will be equal one and so that all schools can have a fair and equal opportunity to support the children in their area.
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