How to Reform Public Education With Financial Backing- Part One of Three
By: Julia Rose
Tags: Teaching, Education Reform, Letters, Teachers, Education

Dear Mr. Takano,

As a proud citizen of the United States, young author, and advocate for better education, I am pleased to be writing to you and thankful for your attention.

From the perspective of a teenager in the public school system, omitting the year of 2020 because of the circumstances, I have seen little change in the way that education is talked about and am dissatisfied with the fact that many politicians simply gloss over the issue of modern public education. It is as if many of these politicians simply think that America’s education system is a finished product when reform needs to happen and happen quickly.

I am a strong believer in the idea that education can change lives. According to the United States Census Bureau, there are 328.2 million Americans living in the United States, and 38.1 million of these people live in poverty. The National Institute for Literacy reports that 32 million American adults in the United States are illiterate.

This small margin of difference between those who live in poverty and those who are illiterate is not coincidental. It is evident that education can change the quality of a life depending on what a person is taught and how well. But as of 2020, our public school system is more fallible than it should be with the knowledge that we have gained and the studies that have been conducted on how to reform the current education system in America.

America’s ‘one size fits all’ educational mindset has not proved to be effective, and it is time for a change, a revolution. My plan below is a rough outline of what it will take to reform education. If given the opportunity, I would love to speak to you and discuss the finer points of my research.

Step One: The government needs to present parents the option of sending their child (or children) to a private school by supplying vouchers.

Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, has been a long standing supporter of this concept, and has been widely criticized. But, in theory, the idea is actually quite feasible, if only the United States government experiments with this program.

When incumbent President Donald Trump wanted to build what he only referred to as his ‘wall,’ or border between Mexico and the United States, he claimed that he would be able to afford this with 21.6 billion dollars. This was estimated by the Department of Homeland Security.

Since his presidency began, Politifact actually has reported that “Trump’s administration mainly replaced barriers installed by previous administrations” (Valverde). This means that this money is available and ready to be used.

If this money was merely redirected to America’s education system, only around 300 dollars could be supplied to “America’s 73.5M children under 18” (“Families and Households”) and could be used to fund vouchers for children to go to private school, however, the funds needed would be 5,000 dollars. It should be noted that this money is not being taken away from the previous amount of border security spending.

However, not all 73.5 million children would need this money to attend a private school. This money would be set aside for when the parents of a child (or children) would apply for 5,000 dollars to help cover the tuition to attend the private school of their choice. If the parents were not able to support the dream of their child going to private school financhially, and the child (children) pass their entrance exams to the specific private school that they want to attend, the money will be awarded to them. If 40 million children wanted this opportunity, they could have it, and the government could support this.

Taxes could also be raised if the government wanted to increase the number of children able to do this.

The amount that is not spent would be given to underprivileged schools at the end of the year.

If a parent applies for this, the child (children) needs to have gone through the process of applying to the school they want to attend and needs to have been accepted. The family will be assigned a caseworker that will represent them, receiving and depositing the money into the school so that the money will not be used towards other purposes other than the child’s education once this money is received. If the caseworker abuses this power, they will be sent to court and to jail for the time warranted by the judge, if found guilty.

The reason for this amount of money specifically is because the amount of money needed for “one year of private elementary school is 7,770. One year of private high school is 13,030” (Fuscaldo). This means that it should be easy for many families who make the “median household income of 61,937” (Guzman) to pay for the remaining sum of money or to access scholarships. These scholarships are implemented in many private schools to help underprivileged students. And in the case that the family can only afford the elementary school, having a good base to begin their education is still something extremely valuable.

It should also be noted that public schools will still be able to be funded by the federal government as these vouchers are extraneous to the public school funds and will not take away from the public school system.

When looking over the Federal Budget, it should also be noted that Betsy DeVos has included a 200 million dollar program for “Teacher and School Leader Incentive, a grant program to improve teacher induction” (United States).

Although this appears to be a useful program, the main goal is to “recognize and reward teaching excellence.” This large sum of money would be spent giving money to teachers judged on, most likely, how their students perform on standardized tests. The creator of the standardized test, Frederick J Kelly, in fact, is even opposed to his own method. He even stated that “These tests are too crude to be used and should be abandoned” (Cash).

Every parent also needs the option of sending their child to a non-religious private school just as they need the opportunity to send their child to a public school now. For this reason, a privatized school must be open that is easily accessible to the students who are not religious and would rather attend a ‘regular private school.’ This money would be used to start building non-religious private schools in areas where there are none. Money from the government could not be used to fund the building of a religious school because “the First Amendment, the [first] clause is often interpreted to mean that the Constitution requires the separation of church and state” (Ryman).

With smaller class sizes and an encouraging environment, this voucher option allows kids to be able to attend schools with higher graduation rates and receive an education without being taught by overworked and underpaid teachers. It allows more kids the option to be able to think about the question of why they are learning something and not just what they are learning. Private schools are famous for these desirable qualities, and a gifted child deserves the chance to attend one of these schools.