Jackson Mallory
Not only do schools have to struggle with getting the right kind of funding for school lunches, but they also have difficulty making food that the students will enjoy eating while also staying within the strict federal nutrition standards, which are intended to combat childhood obesity and to make those lunches affordable. It is not affordable for families to pay for the high cost of a school lunch and then to have their children either eat only a small portion of the lunch or simply throw the whole thing out and then eat when they get home from school. For example, when Obrien Wood serves whole wheat spaghetti with meat sauce, in Buffalo, New York, some students only eat the meat sauce. This is not a balanced nutritional meal for the students, but there is not much they can do about the situation. Making food that stays within the federal nutrition standards but also is tasty and good to the student has proven to be a difficult obstacle. Obrien Wood argues that “it’s not nutritious if they don’t eat it,” which I believe to be a very strong argument. There is no way for schools to force the students to eat their food so schools must come up with a healthy way for students to get their nutrition. This means the students will like the food so they will voluntarily eat it. The way school lunches are prepared right now there are many students who simply won’t eat it, and that is big problem because that stops them from getting the nutrition that they need. Another example of the very strict federal nutritional guidelines is the standard on student sodium intake. This standard limits the amount of salt that the schools are allowed to use. When they serve the students French Fries they are not like French Fries that you would normally get at a restaurant and more like the cardboard that you would find in the garbage can behind restaurants. Obrien states, “You put a little salt on something, they’ll eat it”. Putting slightly more salt in the recipes for school lunches would dramatically decrease the amount of food thrown away and wasted in our schools. More and more children are either throwing their food out because they don’t like it and refuse to eat it or they are choosing to bring home lunches and just not even bother with school lunch. There has been a movement to make the laws on school lunches less strict, in particular, the laws that control whole grain food and sodium levels that are required in student lunches. This will make school lunches much more enjoyable for students to eat and drastically decrease the amount of food that is being wasted in school trash cans around the nation. In conclusion I believe that school lunches have way too many regulations. There definitely needs to be some changes to make school lunches more enjoyable for the students so that they get the nutrition they need without wasting or throwing away good food. I also believe that school lunch needs to be more affordable while also being higher quality so that the parents will be able to pay for the lunches and the students will also enjoy the lunches. This not only affects students because they are the ones who have to eat the food but it affects the parents too because they are the ones who are paying for it.
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Ivan Ayala
In a world where study and education have a profound impact on the course of our lives, many young people have begun to turn to music to aid in their quest for focus as they study. It is important to know that music is a tool that can be used to boost a student’s academic success, and yet many schools are drifting away from the usage of their music education programs due to budgetary constraints. This subject is not only something that can enrich the students’ lives, it can greatly increase a child’s academic success. For some people, academic achievement is the primary reason for providing music lessons to their children. However, music can have a different impact on some of us than others. For some students music can be a distraction and may not allow them to concentrate in class. Harvard University made a study and found that if your volume is too high it will not allow you to concentrate nor allow you to focus on the things around you, and showed loud music hinders reading comprehension. The music agitates rather than focuses the student. However, music set at a volume that does not isolate the listener, meaning they can hear conversation around them or when others address them, creates a more focused mental attitude. Listening to music while studying can be harder for some people than others. If you are the type of person that gets distracted very easily or has some difficulties with multitasking, then it might not lead to good results. It will be very easy for you to lose focus from what you are studying and listen to the lyrics instead. A recent study from the University of California found that music trains the brain for higher forms of thinking. Second graders that were given music lessons scored 27% higher on proportional math and fraction tests than children who received no special instruction. Research indicates that musical training permanently wires a young mind for enhanced performance. Students who have early musical training will develop the areas of the brain related to language and reasoning. The left side of the brain is better developed with music, and songs can help imprint information on the young minds. Even when performing with sheet music, student musicians are constantly using their memory to perform. The skill of memorization can serve students well in education and beyond. A 2012 study from the University of Maryland showed that students who participated in some type of musical education scored an average of 31 points above average in reading, 23 points above average in math, and 31 points above average in writing. Researchers say that if your tasks require keeping track of several pieces of information at once while processing them, then you may somehow be affected by any kind of background noise. Your personality may also play a role in whether you benefit from listening to your favorite tunes while studying. Music is a tool that can be used to boost a student’s academic success, and many schools are drifting away from the usage of their music education programs. This subject is not only something that can enrich the students’ lives, it can greatly increase a child’s academic success. While there are pros and cons to this it should at least be an available option to each and every student. It may not help all of us, but music used wisely will be a useful tool to allow people to focus on the task at hand. The choice lies with the individual. Andrew Neuhaus
Alexis Robinson
Jason Orozco
Pershelle Rohrer The National Basketball Association, or NBA, has a power imbalance created by the salary cap. The NBA currently runs on a soft cap system, which gives teams a flexible cap to work with when signing players. The league sets a cap level and luxury tax level, and if a team’s salary exceeds the tax level, they will receive a financial penalty. Teams are not penalized for exceeding the salary cap as long as they stay below the tax level. For the 2018-2019 season, the salary cap is set at $101.869 million, and the tax level is at $123.733 million. The NBA is the world’s premier basketball league that attracts the best players from around the globe. The league has a worldwide following because of international fan favorites like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ben Simmons, as well as American stars, including LeBron James, Chris Paul, and Stephen Curry. The league’s top players typically have salaries that take up a good portion of a team’s salary cap, and the best teams typically have multiple all-stars that are paid at a high level. For the past four seasons, the NBA was dominated by the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors. The Cavs, led by LeBron James, and the Warriors, built around Steph Curry, played in four straight NBA Finals, with Golden State winning three championships. According to Spotrac, in the 2017-2018 season, the Cavs and Warriors had the highest payrolls in the NBA and were both over $36 million over the salary cap, which was set at $99.093 million with a tax line of $119.266 million. Photo Credit: Cleveland.com The Warriors paid so much for their starting five players – Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala – that they were $9.63 million over the salary cap, excluding the other two thirds of the players on the team. Golden State finished their season $16.016 million over the tax line, which resulted in an extra $34.475 million in penalties paid back to the NBA. In the end, Golden State spend just under $170 million to field a team of fifteen players last season. The Cleveland Cavaliers were worse. The Cleveland starting five of LeBron James, Kevin Love, George Hill, Tristan Thompson, and JR Smith were paid a combined $106.088 million last season – nearly $7 million more than the salary cap allows – and spent $16.667 million over the tax line. While their total payroll was nearly identical to Golden State’s, Cleveland had to pay almost $51 million in luxury tax due to an additional penalty for them paying luxury tax for at least four of the last five seasons. Their fifteen-man roster cost them $186.815 million for the season. In 2017-2018, the soft salary cap, set at $99.093 million, was exceeded by $87.722 million by the Cavaliers. The payroll of the lowest spending team was $90.106 million, a number set by the Chicago Bulls who only won 27 games. The NBA’s top teams are often the ones who spend the most money, and this power imbalance needs to be countered by implementing a hard salary cap to prevent some teams from spending practically $100 million more creating their roster than others. Having a soft cap essentially functions as having no cap if a team is willing to pay the extra penalties. The soft salary cap functions as a guideline rather than a mandate, and there is not a penalty for exceeding it until a team hits the tax line, which is currently over $20 million over the salary cap. There is a strong correlation between spending and record, as well as talent. For the 2017-18 season, just seven teams were under the salary cap. The Indiana Pacers were the lone team under the cap to make the playoffs, and the other six – Chicago, Phoenix, Orlando, Brooklyn, Dallas, and Sacramento – had a combined record of 152-340. On the other end of the spectrum, four teams exceeded the luxury tax line. These teams – Washington, Oklahoma City, Golden State, and Cleveland – all made the playoffs, combining for 206 wins and just 122 losses. They also had ten all stars combined, according to nba.com. Only one team under the salary cap, Indiana, had an all star. The teams with the strongest record spent the most money, and the teams who stayed under the cap were among the worst in the league last season. Therefore, the teams unwilling or unable to spend money over the salary cap suffer due to their inability to attract talent. A hard salary cap is inflexible, giving teams a maximum budget to spend on their fifteen-man roster. Teams like the Cavaliers and Warriors would be incapable of spending over $100 million on five players, forcing them to pay each player much less or have one superstar instead of multiple. Other teams like the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns would then be able to compete for a superstar player. Separating the talent out evenly would allow the league to begin to balance out and have many talented teams instead of a couple superteams at the top of each conference and a larger portion of teams that can’t compete. The formation of superteams has increased TV ratings and revenue for the NBA, which have made the sport more popular in recent years. In 2017, LeBron James said, “Is it fair? I don’t care. I think it’s great. . . Our fans are loving the game.” Fans of these superteams have enjoyed watching their teams constantly make the playoffs, but teams like the Utah Jazz, who have had recent success, are unable to take the next step to win championships due to their smaller source of revenue in a small market. The teams who have more ability to pay should not be able to spend tens of millions of dollars that other teams don’t have and never will get. The NBA needs to implement a hard salary cap to restore the balance of power in the league and allow competition from all 30 teams. Emery Kent
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January 2019
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