Education before defense

Carolyn Coons, Print Editor-in-Chief
February 6, 2012
Filed under Commentary

America spends more on defense than every other country on Earth combined while education continues to fall by the wayside in this country. America may have the bigger guns, but who has the bigger brains?

The United States has fallen in almost every international ranking when it comes to literacy, science, and math. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. is currently ranked 14th in reading skills, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics for 15-year- olds compared to 34 other countries.

It seems that this country values war more than its citizens and conflict more than progress. The government obviously doesn’t see the value of education, on a national, state, or local level which has been reflected in recent budget cuts.

Instead of focusing on cutting back in defense, the government has targeted education. That decision alone shows how unaware and idiotic even our policy makers are, and the future, if we continue this way, will be no different. Bullets will be put before blackboards, and future generations will be ill-equipped to enter the real world, let alone lead the country.

Teachers are being laid off, schools are being shut down entirely, and state universities are seeing tuition hikes all due to unwise spending on all levels of government and is unaided by a Congress incapable of making a decision.

UNC schools may soon see a rise in tuition which could significantly hurt North Carolina’s famously superior public universities. Many in the UNC system believe this increase will negatively affect accessibility of education, which is the purpose of the schools, and therefore diversity and the success of the state. We have top-ranked public universities, but this will disappear if something is not done quickly.

The state’s primary concern should be education. It is our greatest asset and will help to improve our state and the nation in the future. If we disregard students now, then education will continue in this downward spiral.

Seventy percent of all school districts in America, according to the Center on Education Policy, made budget cuts last year and 84 percent plan to again this coming year, with CMS being no exception.

We’ve seen the money drain here at East Meck. Classes are getting a little bit larger, and some of the familiar faces students have come to know are slowly disappearing. And we haven’t even received the worst of it, thanks to certain organizations such as the All-Star Teacher Initiative and the East Meck Foundation. This is a problem which will continue to plague public education in schools.

Illiteracy is on the rise, graduation rates are declining, and affordable higher education is almost nonexistent. It’s time that someone in the government put education where it belongs in the list of priorities — by which I mean at the top.