We’ve all heard of the fight ongoing on in Washington. President Obama’s budget request included an increase in spending in education. His argument is that the country needs to educate their young in order to compete in the global market. On the other hand, House Education and Labor Committee chairman John Kline is not in agreement with the president’s proposal. According to an article in the Huffington Post, Kline stated that "throwing more money at our nation's broken education system ignores reality and does a disservice to students and taxpayers.”He goes on to say that "It is time we asked why increasing the federal government's role in education has failed to improve student achievement."
Both arguments are sound; the country needs to educate their young in order to compete in the future, especially since America’s youth are being left behind compared to other countries. According to an article in the Saratoga Falcon, “American children perform so poorly on international education tests; coming behind China, Japan, and India.” The article also supports Kline’s argument stating that “These countries work harder on their children than America, do, even though they spend less on education.” The article went on to say that “this embarrassing statistic shows the United States just how ineffective our education system really is, and should make the boards of education realize that our country is in dire need of an educational reform if it want to compete and match the caliber of children from other countries, notably East Asian ones.”
It is clear that both sides need to compromise, educating the youth is the key to the future, but it is also clear that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Without reform, increasing educational spending will be negligent since it seems that the problem stems not from the lack of money invested.
Is the American education system to lax on their students?
