S.S. Education

        In my first original editorial, Ive decided to focus on a sinking ship called education. It stumps me on how one of the most populous states in the country has some of the lowest rankings in education. Texas has a mass amount of people, you can figure that funding from taxes is abundant. Could it be misuse of funding? Is it terrible leadership? And foremost, who should be held accountable?

       While searching further in the subject, I was shocked to find out that Texas ranked 50th in percent of the population with high school diplomas. A quarter of Texans are walking around without a diploma. I can sit and wonder how difficult it is to find employment without the basic high school diploma. Texas is #6 in the nation in student growth. This will lead to even more uneducated adults in the future if rates stay the same. We have some people graduating at least. If you call 68% graduation rate successful. 68% wouldn't even pass an exam in my shoes, why should Texas be let off so easy? Also, with an insult to injury, Texas is ranked nearly last when it comes to verbal and math SAT scores. The test scores opinions are usually subjected to the teachers. Lets just blame the teachers and everything will eventually play out. Ask yourself this, what kind of teachers do you attract being ranked 33 in the nation in teacher salaries. All the good teachers are obviously going to go where the money is.

      Furthermore, funding for education is slowly declining as we speak. From what Ive been reading, Governor Perry has made budget cuts very well known. Governor Perry has also been known to under fund education. Thousands who are employed by the education system stand to lose their jobs. This scares me for the fact that, Texas has an average student population growth of about 11 percent a year. Texas having this much of a growth should have teacher growth at the priority of its list. The more students per classroom has shown lower test scores. This has lead to believe the students aren't receiving the individual attention that is required to fully educate.

      Another one of my concerns is, what's a high school graduation success rate when higher education is also a mess? Students attending colleges in Texas has increased throughout the years, which is great, but the cost of education has climbed right along with it. The average tuition fees have increased by 50 percent compared to 12 years ago. With this comes a decrease in help when it comes to federal funding. This is putting students in a bigger bind. Limited funding is forcing students to get student loans which puts them into debt. This leads me to believe that this debt could scare future students from attending college. Some students believe its more logical altogether to just skip high school or college and go straight into the work force. This could be the source of low graduation rates in Texas.