California's Education at Risk - Essay Example

California’s Education at Risk Don’t you think that California’s education is going down the toilet? Every year lots are left without classes. I have seen it with my own eyes. I’m a student at Imperial Valley College, and every semester, hundreds, if not thousands of students are left without classes due to budget cuts, and teachers getting laid off. For example, for new comers, getting classes is near to impossible because of the school having such a short amount of classes, teachers, and low priority for registration.

Another reason why students are struggling to get an education is because of the tuition fees. For instance, book cost is at its highest right now, just for a simple workbook, students end up paying a minimum of one hundred dollars. For these reasons, we should change the people who are in charge of the California Department of Education. Giving money away that is what the state of California is doing to prisons all over the state. Cutting their budget is one good away to help education in the state.

California spends too much money on programs inside the prisons. For example, anger management classes, drug rehabilitation classes, boxing clubs, and many other programs they have inside that the state is supporting. I must say the budget in those prisons has to be in the billions. By eliminating those programs in prisons is one good start the state of California could do. Once those cuts are being done, the next step is focusing on K-12 education, or even community colleges. Prison budgets cuts must be given towards education.

Now that Imperial Valley College is overcrowded with very few instructors one good way to spend that money is to hire instructors, and have more classes at the campus. Classes are required for any College or University to exist, but thanks to our wonderful government we don’t have them. My first year in College was in a Community College and it was an awesome experience, but the problem was we lacked classes everywhere. My first year was a nightmare, let me just tell you that I started college without being in any class.

I had to crash all my classes and I was lucky enough to get at least three classes, but let me tell you classes were very scarce back then, and it is still today. I had to go from one room to the other, and I remember I went back and forth to the same classroom just at a different hour of the day. Classes are being cut off by our Government and thus teachers are being laid off as well. I got so lucky that I was able to crash one class by having a raffle, and I was one out of 43 people that were planning to crash a class.

That amount of student could make one class. California’s budget cuts not only affect classes, but also cause the price of books to skyrocket. Like many students at a junior college, I get my books from the school bookstore. Every semester, hundreds of dollars are wasted on super expensive books and supplies, of which just a few books would use up a full two weeks worth paycheck. When I am done with the books and don’t need them anymore, I usually sell them back to the bookstore. The store only gives you less than half of what you paid for them, and will only take them back if they already don’t have a new edition in stock.

I’m stuck with the books I don’t need and essentially wasted fifty to a hundred or so dollars peer book that I will never get back. For a college student dealing with a lack of available classes, increasing book prices and being ripped off by the bookstore, is the last thing I need. Major changes need to be made to Californias educational system. The system is struggling because the government is not allocating sufficient funds for educational purposes. Education is a critical success factor in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.

An area of the California budget that could support budget cuts is the states prison system. Money saved on programs that increase the quality of life of criminals could be put to better use to increase the quality of the education of our youth. The California government should create price ceilings on the prices of books to stop the rampant inflation in the prices of textbooks. The state needs to hire more teachers and professors to increase the supply of labor available to meet the demand for educational services.

The government could also raise more money for education by allocating 1% of the sales tax charge by the state on consumer items to a special educational system fund. Every three months the money collected from the sales tax would be invested to purchase materials, pay teacher’s payroll, and create special programs for K-12 and college students. The United States of America has to emphasize the importance of education in order for the nation to compete with other developed nations that have use education to gain a competitive advantage in the business environment of the 21st century.

There is not one clear solution that is going to solve the problem. The solution of the educational crisis in California can be fixed by implementing a variety of alternative solutions simultaneously. In order for our youth to succeed in the future they need our governmental officials to properly fund California’s educational system.