Economics of State and Local Government Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Economics of State and Local Government - Essay Example If the schools do not make acceptable grades then corrective action or school improvement will be implemented. Data will also be sorted according to each demographic, (race, sex, poverty, ethnicity, disability and English proficiency) to better recognize groups that aren’t meeting standards. Each State will also be measured against each other. Charter school programs, rural education programs, education provision for homeless children and youth, programs and funding designed to provide children attending unsafe school opportunity to attend a safe school, and safe and drug free school policy guidance are each provisions of the No Child Left Behind. Numerous States have fought the act, calling it unfunded. The claim and reasoning behind this is that there is no reinforcement in the act should the federal government not provide the funding. States are specifically written out of the act and not required to fund the act in any circumstance. Therefore the act is thought of as an un funded act. 2. The reason that guaranteed tax based formulas have failed is because there are differences in the actual dollar cost of providing educational services in schools, districts, and student populations. Some groups of students will have much higher needs than others and small school districts might not see the same benefits as that of a larger one on a comparative scale. These differences are accounted for by associating funding with certain types of students and schools, as mentioned prior and setting up separate programs that bring in dollars for certain student populations, districts and schools. Weighting and adjustment programs usually assign a specific numerical value to portions of the student population by certain attributes and qualities. This helps to illustrate where financial resources are needed and can be directed. Students who have special needs may be weighted 1.5, while students who have no special needs may be weighted as 1.0 (Hightower, Mitani, Swanson) . This helps in deciding how much funding is actually needed when taken all factors into consideration. Weighing programs such as this are a better way of allocating funds and reducing inequity in education funding. 3. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Family’s (TANF) program was created to help families reach self-sufficiency by providing individual states with grants to reach certain goals. One being to assist families so that children can remain in the home with families, two, promoting job preparation, work and marriage, three, preventing pregnancy in unmarried individuals, and encouraging the formation and maintenance of two parent family’s (About†¦). Federal rules regarding TANF requires work participation hours standards that states must meet to continue to be eligible for TANF grants. The all-family requirement states that half of all families that contain an adult or head of household must participate in work related activities 30 hours per week if child ren are over six and 20 hours for children under six. The separate two parent family standard is that 90% of families must be participating in these work activities each week. Child support enforcement activities must be cooperated with and parents who do not have child support ordered are required to get an order (Temporary†¦). Assistance can only be received for a total of five years in