The problem with public education

I am currently a junior (almost over!) in high school. I attend a huge public high school in an affluent part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Over 2300 students cycle through the halls every single day. Every day I see people I've never seen before. Every day I regret not switching schools when I had the chance. Every day I think about the issues with the public school system in Arizona, and in many cases, the United States in general.

Courses

I am in the International Baccalaureate program at my high school. This is a program geared toward learning in an international fashion. I am currently taking English, Spanish, pre-calculus, biology, chemistry, and psychology. These courses are all supposed to be a step up from the honors and Advanced Placement courses the school offers. However, it is a completely elitist program. The other students in the program genuinely believe they are better than other students. I have been told on many occasions that I am not intelligent or am worse at something than the person telling me that. This program is flawed. It is meant to help students receive a well-rounded education, but in reality just knocks down the students too timid to fight dirty with the others.

One of the benefits of this program and other advanced program is small class sizes. The smallest class I've taken in my entire public education history (12 years) is biology. There are 12 students in my biology class. The largest class I've taken in public school is Spanish. In my second year of Spanish there were 45 students in my class. Experts agree 15 is the ideal size for a foreign language course. This size is not atypical at my school and other schools in the district. I serve on my school district's budget committee, and have heard a great deal of dissatisfaction about the class sizes beginning in elementary school. Parents aren't pleased, so they're leaving. Where are they going?

Charter schools

The vast majority of parents who pull their children out of public school send them to charter schools. Why wouldn't they? This explosive concept combines "free" education with a promise of smaller class sizes and better education. My own parents sent my stepbrother to a charter school after removing him from the elementary school I attended. Of course, these schools are not perfect. They are not truly free and do not supply the government-required support for students that public schools are supposed to. Students are required to pay for textbooks, and uniforms, and many other "required" items. Parents are guilted into donating thousands to the school. 

Despite the problems with charter schools, it is doubtless that many parents are taking their children to them. This has disastrous consequences for public schools. When schools lose enrollment, they lose money. This loss of money causes the poor quality of public schools. Money is a massive issue within the public schools in Arizona. 

Money

As I mentioned before, the school I attend is in an affluent area. However, this area is notoriously terrible at passing overrides for the school district. The last three overrides that have been voted on have failed. The schools are running out of money. No, they won't shut down. There are 30,000 students in the district. That number won't drop enough to shut down the district. Some of the schools have been consolidated due to lack of enrollment. 

This lack of money is due to the environment of the area. The majority of voters are upper middle class retired white people. These people do not care about the students at the schools unfortunately. This lack of money causes the massive class sizes we have. They cause teachers to leave. The teachers we are left with are overworked and underpaid. These effects cause more students to leave, ultimately repeating the terrible cycle. 

What should we do?

There is no perfect solution. The state government has made sure of that. However, there are some things to be done. Taxpayers need to stop minding the extra penny their taxes will increase and think about educating the future population. We can't put it off any longer. If things don't change soon, the state will fall apart even more.