State--Local Relations

Does your CP ever get caught up in conflict relating to its various local and state relationships?

In the realm of education, there are various relationships among the local needs, county-wide school districts, state and federal government. To narrow the focus further, there is deep conflict between the state education policy and how that is translated into the local school districts. Because not every school district has the same basic needs and student demographics to cater to, the state cannot possibly create an education plan that is going to address the needs of every school district. Furthermore, not every school has the same student population or the same community needs. For this specific example, we should view each school as representing a portion of a city's population. As such, every school will represent a different portion of the population and have different percentages of demographic groups. In this way, it is very difficult for an outsider to generalize about the basic needs of each school district and the state in general. It is, however, more manageable for a school district, which only has to address the needs of a dozen or so schools, rather than a state to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of schools.

When examining the situation in more detail, it is clear that the state cannot always address the needs of a generalized population where there should be more focus on individualized problems. In terms of state mandates, they are usually done as a broad blanket that is suppose to address state wide problems even though they may not apply in every school district or every school. For example, the state might require that every school provides a golf unit in their P.E. classes because they find that it is necessary for all citizens now entering the workforce to have these basic skills. (Weird example, I know, but they may find the reason being something like "in order to get to know your boss and get a promotion at work, you must be able to play golf because he likes to conduct business there"). So the state enforces this mandate upon all P.E. programs at high schools, yet, the state does not provide any funding to do so. Instead, all school districts must budget their money accordingly to be able to buy this newly required equipment. On a side note, the state could make this a funded mandate in which all schools would get the money from the state to buy this equipment. The local school district can also have a reimbursement requirement if the state allows that which will give the school money after they purchase the equipment. In addition, my community partner can have issues with mandates because her normal funding could be directed towards another program at schools and take away funding from her own program. This makes it hard for her to then purchase the necessary equipment to keep her students active, engaged and healthy.

I would also like to note that the state requires all schools to test their students in health and fitness requirements in certain grades (this is also a requirement by the federal government). Even though it is required for schools to have a physical education class, they are still removing funding from their programs to direct it towards other state and federal government mandated programs. There is also the issue that without proper P.E. equipment, it is difficult to engage students in fitness activities and to prepare them for these required measures of health.