The so called Standardized Tests...

Greetings, fellow Ambassadors, As we know, the July 2018 topic for the Roundtable Discussion is Education Funding. I recently came across this extremely informative resource about education funding. The resource explores how funding has changed over time, and provides statistical data in understanding the changes made over the local, state, and federal level in the USA. Article: http://apps.urban.org/features/education-funding-trends/ As mentioned on their website, the data they they collected "measured the progressivity of school funding as the ratio of two weighted averages of each district’s per-student revenue: (1) weights are the number of poor students; and (2) weights are the number of nonpoor students. For example, an estimate of 1.1 would imply that, on average, poor students attend districts that receive 10 percent more in per-student funding than the districts nonpoor students attend. " (source: http://apps.urban.org/features/education-funding-trends/) What do you all feel about this article and the information put forward by them? Ambassadors belonging to other nationalities, how does education funding work in your country? Could you please share your insights, or any other resources or articles you find valuable? Thank you so much for all your inputs!

I have been hearing a lot about how it may actually help the school system to get rid of honors and AP classes and but all students into one track. The idea is that the positive impact of the higher students on the lower outweights the negative impact of the lower students on those higher. What do you think? Do you think something like this is fair?

At the moment, most schools in the U.S. are stressful, highly competetive, and do not have the resources and/or are not looking into the mental health of their students. I work at a local youth organization called Youth United for Change who want to change schools in the Philadelphia district, which consists of a large number of black and brown students facing socioeconmic opression and trauma in their homes and communities. What ideas do you guys have , or elements in your schools that help your mental health and alleviate stress? If you have no answer for that, how does your schoool affect your mental health (negatively and positivey)? Please be specific. I appreciate any answers and would be really helpful to our campaign. :)