School funding

“ Program students who receive tutoring aid and remain enrolled in traditional public schools therefore direct almost twice as much state funding to their chosen school as do program students who receive a scholarship and attend a private school. ”

“ We've increased funding by 25 percent to stay on track to hire 100,000 highly qualified new teachers to reduce class size in the early grades. We have nearly doubled funding for after-school programs to help more than 1.3 million students, while increasing support for teacher training and for turning around failing schools. ”

“ We do our children no favors when we allow them to pass from grade to grade without mastering the material. But we can't just hold students back because the system fails them.
So my balanced budget triples the funding for summer school and after-school programs to keep a million children learning. Now, if--if you doubt this will work, just look at Chicago, which ended social promotion and made summer school mandatory for those who don't master the basics. Math and reading scores are up three years running with some of the biggest gains in some of the poorest neighborhoods. ”

“ In our budget for the coming year, I'm doubling the size of the accountability fund to $250 million and doubling our support for after-school and summer school programs, so that every child in a low-performing school has the opportunity to participate. ”

“ In the national budget alone, 18 different categories of grants-programs for building basic and advanced skills in 50,000 schools, programs for Safe and Drug-free schools, programs for acquiring advanced technology, scholarships, and support for loans-quantify the Federal part of the sum. State and local agencies have their own budgets allowing for $5,000 to $12,000 per student. If a class of 25 students is supported by $250,000 of funding, something in the equation of financing education does not add up. The return on investment is miserable by all accounts. ”

“ The educational fund has been so greatly increased that the government has not only been enabled to add to the number of schools and teachers, but also to improve salaries, to provide instruction for a greater number of pupils, to build and repair school-houses, acquire new and modern pedagogical materials, maintain normal institutes, including one for the instruction of teachers in manual training, and send teachers to the United States for normal school training. ”

“ The pupil seldom thinks of costs. The teacher usually overlooks the fact that the community is interested in what schools cost. Yet funds are a prime necessity in organizing a public-school system. We turn, accordingly, to fiscal problems as among the first and most concrete examples of educational problems which must be studied by one who would be intelligent about the school system. ”

“ With the largest student enrollment in history, we need a budget that will allow us to repair and modernize crumbling schools, reduce class size, hire more and better trained teachers, expand after-school programs, and strengthen accountability to turn around failing schools.
I would sign this legislation in the context of a budget that puts the interests of the American people before self interest or special interests. ”

“ In not a few cases the problem of financing schools has in recent years become especially acute. Communities are in many cases at the limit now permitted by state laws controlling the levying of taxes. The maintenance of schools even at their present level is very difficult, and all the time there is the urgent push within the system for enlargements and improvements. Other communities which see the rapid increase in school expenditures, even while they are willing to tax themselves more for schools, are asking for clear evidence that school work is being done efficiently. ”

“ It should fund innovative charter schools so that parents and teachers can bring the benefits of choice and competition to our public schools. It should fully fund after-school programs, so young people learn their lessons in the classroom, not the streets. ”

“ First, under our plan districts and States will soon receive money dedicated entirely to turning around failing schools. This accountability fund will enable districts to take firm measures, putting in a tougher curriculum, helping teachers get the skills and training they need, and if necessary, closing down a failing school and reopening it under new management or as a public charter school. ”

“ Very often members of the board of education will disclaim any knowledge of the course of study or of the qualifications of teachers and say that it is their sole duty to supervise expenditures. Consideration of the real problems of school finance soon brings to the surface the fact that financial expenditures are merely means to the end of supplying adequate opportunity for all the children who are required by legislation to attend schools. School finance is one aspect of school organization. ”

“ When it comes to our schools, dollars alone do not always make the difference. Funding is important, and so is reform. So we must tie funding to higher standards and accountability for results. (Applause.)
I believe in local control of schools. We should not, and we will not, run public schools from Washington, D.C. (Applause.) Yet when the federal government spends tax dollars, we must insist on results. Children should be tested on basic reading and math skills every year between grades three and eight. Measuring is the only way to know whether all our children are learning. ”

“ But if the citizens of any state can not be brought to realize the importance of maintaining an elevated standard of common school education, and of rendering its blessings universal, without defraying the whole expense by a direct tax, then will a school fund prove to them a curse, and not a blessing. ”

“ To what extent, and from what resources, the nation should grant this educational aid to its children, and through what channels and upon what basis the distribution of that aid should be made, are subjects that will now command our attention.
The burden of educating the children of the nation is a heavy one—a fact perhaps not as fully realized by our rulers and legislators as it ought to be. From the report of the Commissioner of Education, 1882-3, it appears that the estimated real value of sites, buildings, and all other school property in all the states and territories, is $216,562,197. ”

“ If, then, one system is superior to all others, it is that which is best calculated to beget in the popular mind a realizing sense of the necessity of educating all our youth in good schools. If this can be done in a state which has a large school fund, without diminishing the interest of the people in education, or relaxing their efforts to maintain improved schools, then may such a fund prove serviceable, as it will lessen the general tax. ”

“ For every dollar we invest today, we'll save $3 tomorrow. We have to start thinking about tomorrow. (I've heard that somewhere before.) [Laughter]
We have to ask more in our schools of our students, our teachers, our principals, our parents. Yes, we must give them the resources they need to meet high standards, but we must also use the authority and the influence and the funding of the Education Department to promote strategies that really work in learning. Money alone is not enough. We have to do what really works to increase learning in our schools. ”

“ Next year it ought to cost us at least two thousand million dollars. We should spend enough money to hire the best teaching force possible—the best organizing and directing ability in the land, even if we have to strip the railroads and meat trust. We should dot city and country with the most efficient, sanitary, and beautiful school-houses the world knows and we should give every American child common school, high school, and college training and then vocational guidance in earning a living. ”

“ We are providing far more money than ever before to help states and local school districts, more than $22 billion in this school year alone. Over the last two years, we have increased federal spending by 40 percent and, in return, we are insisting that schools use that money wisely. States must set new and higher goals for every student, to ensure that students are learning the basics of reading and math. The law also requires that schools regularly test students, share the results with parents and show how the results in each school compare with others. ”

“ To guard against any competition with the public schools as now organized, a special tax should be levied for the support of vocational schools, which, with the State grant for their support, should not be taken from the funds now provided by law for the support of the public school system. ”

“ I will continue to press for tuition tax credits to expand opportunities for families and to soften the double payment for those paying public school taxes and private school tuition. Our proposal would target assistance to low- and middle-income families. Just as more incentives are needed within our schools, greater competition is needed among our schools. Without standards and competition, there can be no champions, no records broken, no excellence in education or any other walk of life. ”

“ By expanding Head Start and Early Head Start for preschoolers; promoting high academic standards, smaller class sizes, teacher quality, and charter schools for primary and secondary school students; and providing loans, scholarships, and tax credits so that millions of young Americans can attend college, we are building a world-class education system that will serve our children well. ”

“ We continue to talk to Democrats and Republicans in the Senate about the funding level. The President's budget has proposed an historic increase in funding for the Department of Education. The Department of Education receives the largest percentage increase of any item in the President's budget, and the funding for the education is secondary -- ESEA, Elementary and Secondary Education Act -- also receives a multibillion-dollar funding increase in the President's budget. So he'll continue, the administration will continue to talk with Democrats on funding levels. ”

“ We reject the claim that education is not getting its proper share of the national budget. Indeed, allocations to education have increased considerably during the last five years, compared to previous years. And we have instituted programs that go well beyond classroom training to provide skills training to out-of-school youth and to adults. ”

“ The president asserts that the common-school system only succeeds in furnishing primary instruction to a majority of pupils, and he would seem to imply that the enormous sum of four million dollars should be spent on the primary schools, reserving, of course, a sufficient sum for the Normal College. ”

“ The sum of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in addition to the present school fund of the nation, shall constitute a permanent school fund, the interest of which shall be applied annually by the council of the nation for the support of common schools, and such a literary institution of a higher order as may be established in the Indian country. ”

“ I shall also recommend bills to improve educational quality, to stimulate the arts, and, at the college level, to provide Federal loans for the construction of academic facilities and Federally financed scholarships.
If this Nation is to grow in wisdom and strength, then every able high school graduate should have the opportunity to develop his talents. Yet nearly half lack either the funds or the facilities to attend college. Enrollments are going to double in our colleges in the short space of 10 years. ”

“ Our budget includes $200 million to help states turn around their own failing schools.
Third, all states and school districts must be held responsible for the quality of their teachers. The great majority of teachers do a fine job. But in too many schools, teachers don't have college majors — or even minors — in the subjects they teach. ”

“ Since the revival the state has seen a steady growth of sentiment for universal education and improved schooling, and never again has such an upheaval of the educational strata been necessary. The income of the state school fund and additional appropriations have been steadily increased, their apportionment among the towns has been rendered more equitable from time to time, and an effort has constantly been made to distribute them in such a way as to encourage local effort and coöperation. The school term has been lengthened to ten months and the average attendance of pupils to seven years. ”

“ Such considerations as these lead to a clear understanding of the reasons why the state is undertaking in increasing degree the supervision of the details of school work. It is not enough that communities should open schools or that pupils should be compelled to attend; the quality of education must be such as to justify the expenditure of public money and the investment of the pupils’ time and energy in the business of schooling. ”

“ The monies appropriated by the legislature and disbursed from the Support Fund shall not displace, replace, or supplant appropriations from the general fund for elementary and secondary education, including implementing the Minimum Foundation Program, or displace, replace, or supplant funding for higher education. ”

“ That little Lock Bill effectually gobbled up the whole of that irreducible school fund. There are no means of knowing what amount could be realized from a judicious handling of the 500,000 acres; — probably $1,000,000, which, at 12 per cent. per annum, would yield $120,000, and, with the other funds, would give us a free school six months in a year. Whatever they are, are gone — all gone — not even so much as the baseless fabric of a vision left to the children of the State to compensate them for the loss of that rich endowment. ”