Educational financing in the next decade: projections and trends

¶ … educational financing look like in 10 years?

Financing of education has currently been undergoing changes and this trend will continue in future. The financing of education is certainly not going to be the same as it is now in 10 yeras time. In fact it is going to be very different as a result of the issues that continue to have an impact on education financing. The future of financing education has to be explored from both a theoretical and pragmatic point-of-view. The paper will address various issues facing the education finance both now and in the future.

The impact of No Child Left behind (NCLB)

NCLB was enacted with the aim of improvement of education through an accountability system in schools. It requires that schools, districts and states are required to show that 100% of students achieve proficiency on a grade level when it comes to reading and mathematics by 2014. According to the law schools which do not meet the annual objectives should follow school improvement efforts. This is in three stages; developing a plan to address the poor performance and provide students with an option to transfer to non-failing schools. Schools in corrective stage are to provide students with free education services in supplemental programs. They are also expected to take any of the following measures; replace school staff, increase management authority, restructure the internal organization of the school or implement new curriculum that are scientifically based (McNeal, 2010).

The final stage is reconstruction as schools are expected to adopt other governance arrangements that are consistent with the state of law. Some of the arrangements are schools being reopened as a public charter, replacing all staff, entering into contracts with private entities like private management companies to carry out the operation of the school All these actions require finances so that the schools can satisfy the NCLB accountability system. The existence of the NCLB accountability system will lead to an increase in the finances required in education. Therefore, in 10 years time, more finances will need to be put into education so to ensure that all schools are in line with the NCLB accountability system, which will prove too costly to maintain as opposed to the intended cost.

The future of Church-State relations in regards to education and educational financing

Many people are in support of the notion of separating the church and state. People go to an extent of saying that positions of public policy that are under the motivation of religious belief should be out of bounds and hence not receive any hearing. They argue that the church should only have an impact on private morality and consider any involvement of the church and state as being quite inappropriate. There have been some Supreme Court decisions on cases for the separation of state and church regarding education. Most people term religious schools as being very harmful particularly catholic schools. In the future there will be little or nor relationship between the church and state since everyone is against these relations.

This trend in the future relation is worrying particularly to the education sector. This is because there are many schools being managed by the churches. The state usually has a role to play when it comes to the financing of such schools. This means that if there are no relations between the church and state then the state will pull out from providing finances to these schools (Closson, & Riggs, 2010).The church alone might not be in a position to fully cater for the finances the schools require. In the next 10 years a complete separation of the church and state will lead to inability of churches to sustain their schools hence eventually lead to the closure of most church schools. The quality of education within church schools will also go down since they will not have enough finances to pay teachers and offer other resources required by the students. Therefore, the future of church -- state relation is a big determinant when it comes to education and education financing.

Future trends in court decisions and power over educational financing

The court has the mandate to make decisions and has power on matters regarding education financing. Presently the court has been called to intervene in situations where there is a problem concerning education financing. The court has had to hear and make rulings on the constitutionality of the finance systems found in schools. This trend is expected to go on in future. With this power it means that the court has an influence on decisions that will be made regarding financing of education in the future (Evans, Murray, & Schwab, 2012).