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Overcrowding Problem in Schools

In contemporary years, some individuals would dispute the significance of excellence in education. The education sector just like any other departments is characterized by some challenges affecting all the stakeholders in education. The most affected are the public schools since they rely entirely on government funding and other agencies. Therefore there is a genuine need to address these problems for the students to get the best possible education. The challenges that are threatening stability, as well as the survivability of public schools across the United States, are numerous. This tends to be not only the worry of state officials but also the federal government. Some of these problems include paying teachers low salaries, poor working conditions, teacher attrition as well as the student reading abilities, and thus they deter advancement in education (Boyer et al. p.17). One of the most significant challenges of the majority of state governments is overcrowding in classrooms.

Lack of proper funding seems to be the leading agent of this problem in schools. Many schools for example in Los Angeles and Georgia have been severely affected by the reduction in funding. Therefore, the school administrators due to lack of enough funds tend to stretch the class threshold to have some rooms for students. This results in more problems like teachers’ performances being affected when the classroom size goes beyond the limits. This paper discusses and analyzes the problem of overcrowding in schools showing how it is a significant challenge to the students and their teachers. Moreover, it presents an optimal solution to this problem.

Overcrowding arises when an institution facility registers more students than what the facility was planned to accommodate. Majority of overcrowded schools are found in the regions whereby the school-age populaces are rising fast like in California and Las Vegas. Also, overcrowded school is a severe problem in the largest urban centers like Chicago and Los Angeles, and the reason behind this problem is that as immigrant inhabitants continue to increase, more public education selections are being offered. The Charter schools as well as educational liability dictated by the “No Child Left Behind Act” consent the relocation of students from the poor schools to the ones with additional effective educational programs (Ballantine et al. p.32). This issue, therefore, results in some imbalances in the school districts.

It is definite that when the class is small, the individual experience will be great and this is what lacks in these schools. A recent study found that fourteen percent of United States schools exceed the required capacity. At this time, children need more attention to succeed in education, and therefore the overcrowding in classrooms are making their learning process to be even tougher and also harder for teachers to be active. All these problems can be attributed by a budget decrease by the State government mainly for public schools which is typically a big disappointment. The government seems not to be putting the much-needed effort towards education. It is sure that fewer subsidies will certainly result in a reduction in services in schools like low developments and poor teacher’s compensation (Banisakher et al. p.72). Most of the states uphold funding programs with reverting distribution systems that never takes into consideration the need for allocations for the districts that tend to have some poverty challenges. Also, many states are currently faced with a decline in total revenues resulting in a decrease in funding for schools.

A brilliant example to explain some of these challenges facing education in is the case of the Los Angeles education system. In this state, there exist some nine hundred schools that have thirty thousand teachers and more than six hundred thousand students in the public school system. However teachers have felt frustrated by the worse conditions and problems that they are currently facing, and after some months of unsuccessful negotiations, they decided to call for a strike. The strike was a show of frustration over the untenable conditions in the school system which is the biggest in the country. What these teachers together with other employees in Los Angeles were demanding are higher pay, support staff, and smaller class sizes. However, the district officials claim that they lack resources to cater for all their needs and therefore the strikes that they take would result in some damages to schools than good. This has dramatically affected learning in Los Angeles, especially in public schools.

The wealthy parents have opted to take their children to private schools, but this does not seem to reduce the problem in the state. Most of the students in the LAUSD thrive from families whose incomes are below the federal poverty line. Therefore will problems that they are facing will only reduce their dreams to make it in life as they are arguably the ones that need education support a lot (Boyer et al. p.36). Lest some drastic changes are implemented soon, Los Angeles will develop to be a pretty terrible place to live in the coming days.

Overcrowding in schools has proven to have some adverse effect on student way of learning in several ways. The manner that schools carry this issue influences the learning of students because overpopulation can deter student learning, therefore, reducing the eminence of instructional planning as well as the lowering of morale among teachers and their students. Typically teachers have inadequate planning time and also scarcer resources in overcrowded schools. Hence teachers in these schools use most of their time managing these classrooms instead of giving quality training and trying advanced teaching tactics. Teachers also experience some higher rates of weariness, higher stress levels and even higher absenteeism rates among students.

Moreover inside the classroom student attentiveness is severely affected when there is limited resources and classrooms are overcapacities. Therefore the overpopulated schools will have no other choice but to use the non-classroom amenities as their classrooms, for example, the media center and the lunchroom. The problem comes when these rooms that they use as classrooms are not well equipped with things like desks, whiteboards and other resources that are vital for learning purposes. There are also some different strategies that these schools use to utilize scheduling options (Saltman and Kenneth, p.41). This includes having staggered lunch timetables, split-day programs as well as some year-round schedules. The existence of more students per classroom also leads to distractions, and this is common in overpopulated schools. The teacher to student ratio is also inappropriate in these schools because one teacher may be serving several students at one classroom thereby making their work to be more difficult.

Students, as well as teachers in these overpopulated schools, frequently feel overwhelmed and also disheartened while in these facilities. No individual would cherish to work or live under unfavorable conditions. Education institutions are not only buildings but the available environment for learning. When the environment is not favorable for learning as a result of overcrowding, teachers planning and also students’ success are adversely affected (Banisakher et al. p.68). It is hard to compare the results of a student from an excellent private school where there are a conducive environment and availability of other resources for learning, with that of a student from an overcrowded public school. This is the reason why most private schools usually outshine public ones in terms of performance.

Therefore something needs to be done to curb this problem of overcrowding in schools. Several strategies and measures can be utilized to ease congestion. The main agenda is that legislators need to realize that education needs to be among the priorities in budget allocation and spending. An impartial financing scheme should be introduced that will offer proper funds centered on the students’ needs. Henceforth this should develop gradually about the financial necessities of the student. Thus the lawmakers should evaluate the conditions of the schools financing schemes and hence focus on equal distribution of logistics. The main point is that whether a school must be expanded or remodeled there should be a long term solution to overcrowding in schools especially the public ones since it is significantly affecting students and teachers.

Works Cited

Ballantine, Jeanne H., Floyd M. Hammack, and Jenny Stuber. The sociology of education: A systematic analysis. Routledge, 2017.

Banisakher, Mubarak, and Pamela McCauley. “The effect of overcrowding in the US school System, A simulation approach.” Journal of Education and Learning 11.1 (2017): 67-74.

Boyer, Ashley, and Burnette Wolf Hamil. “Problems Facing American Education.” FOCUS on Colleges, Universities & Schools 6.1 (2011).

Saltman, Kenneth J. Capitalizing on disaster: Taking and breaking public schools. Routledge, 2015.