A State Lottery is the Best Way to Raise Money for Education

Lottery is often perceived as a dishonest and seedy project that can create serious social problems including economic distress and gambling addiction (Clotfelter and Cook, 1989, 37).

It is thus natural for lottery to be hotly debated, sensational, and controversial. It actually makes the society divided on its acceptance whether legally or morally. Despite these facts, let it be stated that a state lottery is the best way to raise money for education.

To begin with, it is ideal to state that those who advocate that state lottery is not the best way to raise money rely upon two assumptions. They say that by doing so shall be impractical and immoral to the eyes of society. First of all, they believe that state lotteries are not designed or created for the purposes of supporting education. And second, receiving money to educate children from such a means like gambling or lottery does not seem ethical and proper.

To refute these assumptions, let it be stated that state lottery is actually a practical and feasible way to fund education.  The truth is that even as early as the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, state and municipalities held legally sanctioned lotteries to finance public projects such as roads, bridges, canals, courthouses, hospitals and schools (Blanche, 1950, 71; Kaplan 1984, 92). They believe that it is a very efficient to fund such projects the government is not capable of fully doing so.

It is actually admitted that state lottery has a dark and immoral reputation having graft and corruption inherent parts of it. People have been saying that state lottery is a bad image for funding education. However, people do not realize the fact that funding education is a good image for lottery. People have a perception that lottery is all about winning the jackpot.

However, lottery as a legal means to an end is socially acceptable. Records show that in 1992 that the only reason sales in lottery increased is because of the Common School Fund Law which grants a large percentage of state lottery profit for education (Illinois State Lottery 1992, X). This is not using education to increase sales but rather, it is the means for education to flourish.

In conclusion, state lottery is the most efficient and productive way to raise money. This is because the government has already been doing this legally for a long time. The government has been doing this not only for education but in other aspects as well. And also, despite its negative image, state lottery has already been socially accepted in society.

WORKS CITED

1)      Blanche, Ernest E. Lotteries, Yesterday and Tomorrow. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 269 (1950): 71–76.

2)      Clotfelter, Charles T., and Philip J. Cook. Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1998.

3)      Illinois State Lottery. 1992 Annual Report. Springfield: Illinois State Lottery, 1992.

4)      Kaplan, H. Roy. The Social and Economic Impact of State Lotteries. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 474 (1984): 91–106.

OUTLINE

I.                   Introduction :

Thesis – A state lottery is the best way to raise money for education.

II.                Body

A)    State lottery is impractical and immoral in the eyes of society.

B)    State lottery has been used in the past to fund schools and other projects.

C)    Funding education is a good image for state lottery.

III.             Conclusion

–          State lottery is the most efficient and productive way to raise money and is socially acceptable.