This year president Bush has sent to the congress one of the stingiest budgets ever. He is trying to get that budget deficit cut in half by 2009. I would love to see the over 7 trillion dollar federal debt we have gone. It will take at least 2 decades to do it though imo, but all I really want to talk about now are parts of his education proposals for the budget.

In the 2006 budget he has bunches of cuts and some new proposals. The Department of Education gets a small cut. I will agree to this cut and I do feel that whole department need a big makeover. Out Goes 100% of Even Start, a literacy program, funding because Bush says the results for the program are poor.

The big cut that he wants to try to get passed again is a cut on vocational and technical education that he failed to get last time. I really do think this funding which is around 1.3 billion a year needs to be saved. Benefits of this funding are major like giving students a chance at jobs down the road that pay more than the “do you want fries with that” job. Students are doing just as well as non-vocational and technical education students and they go onto college at the same rate. Classes in some schools that could wind up on the chopping block will be engineering, health care, and computer science courses. Not just the traditional plumbing, carpentry, and auto shop classes found in your parents school. All of these jobs are vital for the 21st century.

Replacing cuts in vocational and technical education classes will be 1.5 billion in new high school funding that he wants. This piece of the budget is not getting lots of love at this point of time from lawmakers. Around 1.2 billion of that money is supposed to go to students that are not learning at grade level in high school. This is a nice idea. The rest of the money, around 250 million of it, will go to further get standardized testing in the high schools grades. This is also a good thing, but we will 100% disagree on how important the testing at this level is supposed to be.

Striving Readers program gets a mega boost. This program helps high school students who are behind in reading learn to read better. This program has only been around for a few years.

He also wants to spend 500 million new bucks for a Teacher Incentive Fund. This fund will reward teachers who do well in low-income areas, reward teachers who close achievement gaps between socio-economic backgrounds, and reward teachers that just improve student achievement. Bush wants to hand out 5,000 dollars rewards to these teachers. This is an idea that I can live with.

I just hope the lawmakers in the end make the right choices on what needs to be funded.

SOURCES

Villalobos, Louie “Tech classes put students on track” Arizona Republic (2005) n. pag. Online. Internet. February 18, 2005
Available: http://www.azcentral.com/families/education/articles/0217cte17.html

Robelen, Erik W. “Cuts Proposed in Bush Budget Hit Education” Education Week (2005) vol: 24 n: 23 pag: 1, 35-36. Online. Internet. February 16, 2005
Available: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/02/16/23budget.h24.html

Robelen, Erik W. “Bush’s High School Plan Off to Rocky Start” Education Week (2005) vol: 24 n 32: pag: 32,43 Online. Internet. February 16, 2005
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/02/16/23brt.h24.html

Silberman, Todd “Vocational education spiffs up to keep up, but budget cuts loom” News Onserver (2005) n. pag. Online. Internet. February 16, 2005
Available: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/2130847p-8511461c.html

Blobaum, Melodee Hall”Schools’ career classes under the budget knife” Kansas City Star (2005) n. pag. Online. Internet. February 15, 2005
Available: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/10901114.htm?1c