On the subject of public schooling

[elfs]

Between the two girls, Omaha and I have spent over $200 on school supplies in the past four days, and that doesn't include the shoes they needed: Yamaraashi-chan's new PE sneakers, and Kouryou-chan's "indoor shoes" for the school hallways at her Montessori school.

What annoys me more than anything is the "general pool" school supplies Yamaraashi-chan is expected to supply. A ream of copy paper, a ream of lined paper, 36 pencils, 100 4x6 index cards, three packs of Post-It notes (yowch, those are pricey), a bottle of glue, three boxes of tissue paper.

There is something to the attitude that "my kid can't get a good education unless your kid does too," which is part of what inspires parents to make these sacrifices. Yamaraashi-chan will never want for the supplies she needs; much of what I bought today will be used more by the less-fortunate students than her. Still, it annoys me that basic supplies, like copy paper, must now be bought by the parents. What's next? If we don't supply it, the kids will go without toilet paper? A pro-rata assessment of the school's electricity and water use?

Comments

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

In years past, in many school districts, teachers bought some of these things for their classrooms. These days, teachers are no longer willing/able to pay for those things. Every school I have ever had children at has made these donations entirely voluntary.

I don't know what to tell you. Work to make school funding a priority? Ask that schools not use computers as much?

By the way, for a while my children attended a brand new elementary school that had a bathroom in each K/1 classroom (because of small bladders, I guess), and we were asked to provide toilet paper for those. The school provided TP in the main bathrooms, though.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I guess I'm either alone in being modest in my thinking about this, or the lurkers support me with LJ nods. :-) I notice that the dissenters are mostly of the "I don't have children, but..." school of thought.

Look, many times parents don't know or won't believe that their sweet angel regularly dumps enough glue to encase a kitten onto their desks, or uses tissues in large handfuls. Teachers are the troups on the ground here, and I'm a "support the teachers" kind of person. If purchasing these things irritates, you, don't purchase them.

The thing is, I don't believe there was some magical time in the past when it was better. 30 years ago, my parents didn't have to send communal supplies to school, but my science textbooks were 10 years old, and our desks were so old our *parents'* initials were carved in them. Now they hve nice desks (no textbooks, though, their schools use primary sources!), but no tissue. Plus le change...

my comment starts the same...

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

I don't have kids but my mom is a teacher as are two of my friends. A lot comes out of the teachers pockets, therefore has to get worked into the teacher's own finances. In California, where housing is so expensive, this can be tricky. It would be nice if there were some more coordinated way to handle this to take advantage of buying bulk, which is where getting involved in the school district would come in. The schools *ought to* be able to provide the basics; hard to say whether the problem comes in at the funding or administration level without knowing more about the local case.
One thing that the district where my mom works DOES have is a Freecycle-like board where teachers can list things they need and individuals/business can list things they want to get rid of that might be useful. I wanted to bang my head against a wall at one business I worked at up here that junked their non-top-line computers and regularly threw away hundreds of 3-ring binders. Anyone want to program something like that?

Re: my comment starts the same...

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

The first year of my son's 'start up' high school (it was a new charter school), they moved into a building that had been a dot.com office. The company had left behind hundreds of white binders. The school took them and used them for *everything*. Every student was told not to buy binders, because the school provided them. The parent handbook for the school was in one of those binders. Teachers kept their course materials in white binders. Damn, we used those babies for like 2 years. *grin*

I used to be big into donating computer equipment, but then the parent volunteer who kept the servers running at my daughter's school explained that most smaller schools don't have a full time technology specialist,a nd they have only minimal support knowledge of the equipment they have. When they accept and utilize donations for different equipment and machines, it can create headaches to support and maintain it all. That school was Mac-based, with Linux servers. Even when the PC's donated were "top-of-the-line", they were still a networking and support headache. Worse yet, 90% of the time, the machines weren't top-of-the-line, they were the old stuff businesses were replacing. Mmm, yeah, let's put aging PC's with erratic hard drives in the classroom. *grin* The school's solution was to turn around and donate that equipment -- to families in the school, to charities, and to Goodwill.

It turns out there's this pesky thing where schools have a business show up, dump a truckload full of crappay equipment, and then leave. The business then gets the tax benefit, and the school has to haul the crap away. ARGH. I've seen it happen! :-)

Supplies for school.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Make a note: At the first parent-teacher-confrence night ask -- What is the ream of copy paper for?

If they answer that they're making copies of worksheets for students to do, ask then if the textbook based assignments are insufficient, and as a concerned tax-payer, if your tax-money isn't being used to keep text books up to date so they are sufficient that teachers don't need to make more worksheets.

Do you also have to supply dry-erase markers?

As a tax-payer, and obviously as a concerned father, ask why these extra supplies are necessary. Why aren't such obvious office-supplies covered in the school budget. If you don't like the answers you get, then I encourage you to go right over to the district's central office and ask how in the heck you get involved in district outreach programs where patrons feed-back to the school district what concerned parents are thinking in a constructive committee format. And not knowing how your state works, you also have the option of running for school board.

Re: Supplies for school.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Goodness. You make this sound a lot more terrible than it is.

My children's teachers were always very clear about the use of these things. For example, 50 years ago, most Americans were still using hankerchiefs, including children. By 20 years ago, some kids were being sent to school with personal packs of tissues, but many kids I knew just wiped their noses on their sleeves. These days, teachers often ask that each family send a box of tissues to school. Why? Because kids go through them very quickly and frequently don't have their own supply. And in the past, teachers were often expected to provide such things for their classrooms -- but they also often made a more reasonable livable wage, too. Children using tissues in the classroom instead of going to the bathroom to wipe their noses (or just wiping them on their sleeves) reduces the impact on the classroom and keeps everyone healthier.

There's another reason why some teachers have asked about this, too. My children also went to some pretty diverse schools, economically. A teacher once said to me, "You know, kids notice small things, like how some classmates have expensive holographic character pencils, and they have plain yellow ones. Having all parents purchase the same supplies and make them part of a common pool helps reduce the use of these basic supplies as status items." That really made a lot of sense to me, because there was an entire classroom economy in my son's kindergarten and first grade around pencils, where kids traded really special ones, compared, etc. It was a distraction in the classroom.

In another example, schools have to budget, and they sometimes set a limit on the amount of printer paper each teacher gets, etc. Sometimes, that means making difficult choices -- "Gosh, Susie, I know it's easier for you to re-write that book report when you can print it out instead of seeing it on the screen, but you only get one print out a week, and you've used yours up!" My children have had teachers that actually asked for paper that had been printed on one side that they could reuse for class projects and things.

I guess what I'm saying is that there are plenty of reasonable, non-nefarious reasons why teachers ask for these sorts of supplies. Instead of assuming it's for evil worksheets -- and really, a textbook cannot take the place of written practice, and some students *benefit* from worksheets or additional materials -- why not think about how such things might be a means to support the teacher? I'm not suggesting just agreeing to everything, but there's a happy medium between paying for toilet paper and running for school board, I'm sure.

(I also *strongly* urge parents to attend school board meetings, to see how the sausage is made. It can be very eye-opening to watch your local governing body agonize over how to make the money they get for education best benefit students. )

Re: Supplies for school.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's a method to my madness.

I don't often refer to my life as Elf does, but I happen to be one of those elected school board memebers. I -know- both sides of this fence. Teachers have good reasons to ask for the things they ask for. I do think the ream of paper is ..odd. It's really sort of a warning sign. If a school has to ask parents to send copier/printer paper, then they have a budget issue.

Where I'm from, when there's a budget issue, and you have to start cutting consumables like that, then it means that the local operating levy is too low for the school to run properly. Thus, I -strongly- encourage parents to get involved with their local schools, and not just in the PTA and PAT. If there's a chance to get onto a committee that gives feedback to the school and board, thene they should! And by gosh, attend a few board meetings too. IMHO, if a school board has to discuss line-items in a budget like copy/printer paper, then there's a real big problem. School Boards should be spending their time on loftier things, like academic achievement...not what tires are on the bus, or how much paper to order for the copier.

Re: Supplies for school.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

It's one warning sign among many: the old principal left, and a new principal has been hired whose last job was "No Child Left Behind school improvement officer" with the Washington DC school district, the school was recently rated as "needs improvement" under its last NCLB review, and Omaha and I suspect that one of the reasons Yamaraashi-chan's "accelerated program" is in the school is because its stellar grades segment lifts all scores-- apparently, not enough.

Re: Supplies for school.

[lionman.livejournal.com]

Speaking with a minor amount of athority on the NCLB situation ... A school can get a "needs improvement" rating, if just -one- of it's sub-groups fail to meet the next level of standards, (set by each state at this time), in a given year.

For example, if your SPED students fail to meet their next step in the state program towards 100%, then the whole school district gets the same negative rating. The same would go if your free-and-reduced-lunch sub-group failed to meet their state-set goal for that year.

Even if a district fails to meet a standard one year, the next year their standard continues to march closer to 100%, because the NCLB mandated 100% deadline does not change. I could go on and on about NCLB, but that's not really worth my keystrokes right now.

If you have that sinking feeling that your school is having a ...situation, then don't hope it's just something you had for lunch, go down there and check for yourself, get involved. However, I suspect as far as you're concerned, Elf, this is me preaching to the chior. I know you and Omaha are always interested in what the girls are doing in, and out of school. I mostly say it for those who read your LJ, and are parents as well. Just a friendly reminder. Schools are much, much better, when parents are involved.

Re: Supplies for school.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

It certainly seems to cover a range of possible reasons, and the paper looks suspicious, the pens a little less so. A ream of paper isn't a huge amount of money per child.

(As it happens, my brother was visiting at the weekend--he works in educational statistics, and he was grumping about the statistical idiocy that's buried under the surface.

The conversation drifted onto the topic of why cows can't outmass the planet, and I think that's where we have the advantage of knowing how to use a slide rule.

(Lurching back on-topic)

Parkinsons Law has that section on committees and the size of budget items they'll spend time on. Stuff such as paper is the sort of thing they think they know about, and so gets argued about. And the really big projects they obviously have to discuss. But nobody seems to realise that a bit of attention to the stuff in the middle would save far more than dropping the $500 item they've been arguing about for the last hour. At least using a slide rule gave us a feeling for relative size of figures: you have to be able to do the mental arithmetic to put the decimal point in the right place.

Re: Supplies for school.

[fallenpegasus]

"You know, kids notice small things, like how some classmates have expensive holographic character pencils, and they have plain yellow ones. Having all parents purchase the same supplies and make them part of a common pool helps reduce the use of these basic supplies as status items." That really made a lot of sense to me

I see. You're a leveller, who believes that its "not fair" that some people have more and better than others.


Does this opinion and this solution to this "problem" extend to life outside the classroom as well?

Re: Supplies for school.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a lot of assumption right there.

In this case, it "made a lot of sense to me" because I knew that my own son was engaged in enough "pencil trading" that he started the year with a modest pack of 12 and ended up with over 100. He became mildly obsessed. It "made a lot of sense to me" because I grok'd that she was trying to reduce the effect a fad had on the classroom. (At that time, there were even ads on TV touting pencil trading.)

But you know, none of that really matters. I threw out an example about something that happened almost 15 years ago. You seem sure that you've deduced some great truth about my political or economic opinions based on it. In short, you're wrong.

Re: Supplies for school.

[fallenpegasus]

I didn't guess a great truth, I guessed a small one. And it looks like I guessed it about right.


And about your son becoming obsessional about pencil trading, and starting with 12, and ending up with 100. This is what is known as "following your passion" and self-teaching an actual real world useful skill. The sort of thing that schools claim to support, and yet actually work very hard to kill.

Re: Supplies for school.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

You don't know me, or my son, or his schools. My children have been fortunate to mostly attend very lovely non-traditional public schools, and to have parents who were aggressive about allowing them to pursue their passions.

I don't have anything further to say to you on the subject.

yuck

[amberite2112.livejournal.com]

sounds like the beginnings of a nasty form of communism to me...

Re: yuck

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Heh. I was about to reply to Elf's original post, but yours exhibits a rather interesting point.

That's not communism. In communist countries, everything is property of the state, and thus all students get all the supplies they need courtesy the state. As students, they are expected to do great things for the communal good.

No, this is the beginnings of a nasty form of Capitalism. Let me explain:

All publicly funded programs are doomed to die by underfunding. Why? Because no matter how good the services they get in return, taxpayers continually bitch that they pay too much tax. This means that there are plenty of politicians out there who will get jobs solely by saying they will lower taxes.

Example: On the BBC show "Jamie Oliver's School Dinners", the budget for the entire school dinners program was about 35p (that's pence) - or roughly $0.60 USD - per student. Or, roughly the price of a single bag of chips that many of the parents were sending their kids to school with. Possibly less. At any rate, most people spend *way* more than this on lunch for their kids. But the school board was bitching that he was going over that budget by about 4p. And that wasn't just for the cost of the raw materials, but the cost of the labour to make it all happen as well. Four fucking pence per child per meal. Largely because if the school board went over budget, it would get reamed out by their political overlords. What was Jamie trying to do? He was trying to make school dinners remotely healthy. Before he came along, standard fare was premanufactured deep-fried french fries and chicken "nuggets", in large part because it was cheap and easy for the staff to make.

So if public schools are underfunded, why is that? Is it because the sort of people who can afford to pay thousands in tuition want to shave off hundreds in taxes?

Re: yuck

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

I'd actually take a slightly different view. I see it more as Socialistic Capitalism. Wherein the attendee's provide for the good of the whole, each doing a small part.

I do agree with you that the current state of educational budgetting is out of control. Maybe somehting needs to be done to raise awareness again like was done in the mid 80's and early 90's. You know the "Bakesales for Bombers" things.

Your average tax payer does not understand how his taxes are disbursed, they just know if it's going up or down. I bet if the disbursement figures were regularly published & distributed to the average tax payer, those tax payers might push for a change. However, statisticians can make numbers like those say anything they want to someone who knows nothing about statistics or the budgetary process most local governments go through.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

"Expected" to buy? Sounds to me as if the school district is levying an additional tax on the parents without following state law on same.

Don't be naive. Of course it's an additional tax levy on parents. That is, in fact, precisely what this is. We don't have a solid social consensus that schools should be fully funded, so they aren't. Parents, teachers, and basically everybody associated with the programs end up having to pick up the slack.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, my keen wit and sarcasm went awry yet again.

What I meant to say was, "why the hell are you putting up with it?" If I had kids, and was given a list of other things to bring in to a public school, I'd raise holy hell with the district, my legislators, and the press.

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

And everyone in the school would know it. Do you _really_ think they'd then treat your child just like anyone else?

That's the problem with raising a fuss... you've always got to decide whether or not the outcome is worth the possible repercussions.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Oh, certainly, I agree, and it's actually driving me nuts. Until the past 4 years, I'd never had children in *public* schools that actually had multi-million dollar fundraising drives, but it's very common here. That is, public school districts and individual schools look for corporate funds, set goals for fund raising from private sources, and basically act like they're PBS during pledge week. I made the mistake of saying, "Well, if the school needs $750,000 extra each year from parents and alumni to operate, maybe we need to reduce the level of extras? Do we *need* new iBooks every two years?"

People pretty much thought I was crazy. During the "core fundraising period", parent volunteers from my daughter's school called and asked me to donate just $500.00 to make sure the school was fully funded. My reponse was pretty much, "Hey, why don't you all with the $1.5 million dollar homes pay a more realistic property tax instead?" but it's California, and it's not okay to say that. Instead, I said, "I'm sorry, my family can't afford that, and I don't believe in large scale fundraising for public schools." Mostly what I was told is that This Is How It's Done, that *everyone* knows that parents have to donate sums of money to keep the schools funded. At one point I met with that school's principal and said, "Look, evidently I can't afford public school in California."

(The last straw for me in this case was that the parents who administered the school lunch program -- they don't have cafeterias and the like here -- decided to "round up" the price for school lunches from the already insane $3.25 to $4.00 a day, as a fundraiser. They said, "Oh, everyone can afford an extra 75 cents a day, and we can use the money for new play equipment, so we're setting the price above cost.")

I've had children in public school for coming upon 13 years now. When *teachers* asked for a modest set of additional communal resources, I've been willing to throw in about $10.00 worth, when I had the money. When I haven't -- which has been frequently -- I've said no. When schools have asked for walkin' around money, so to speak, I've said no. I guess that makes me a hypocrite, but hey, I'm already evil, so it's okay.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

I don't think it makes you a hypocrite. I think it makes you a victim of the lack of social consensus I mentioned. CA is a good example; you're not wrong about the 'realistic property tax', and you're not wrong that you're not allowed to mention that in CA.

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Well, there's have a chance if I say it here, some Libertarian may jump down my neck. :-) I went from schools in a state that were overflowing with education money during the 90's and could afford to fully fund whatever they came up with -- free pre-K! free college tution for B students! computers in every classroom in the state! -- to a state where the property tax choices in the 70's and budgetary polices now are crippling the schools. It was and sometimes still is a shock to me, what people put up with.

my sympathies

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

Dunno how it is now, but I remember California schools having some deep budget fuckedness. Was it Bakersfield that went bankrupt?

Re: my sympathies

[trinsf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my partner ewhac grew up here and can speak to it much more knowledgeably. I think I could even understand it more if the school district were in deep financial crap, but it's not. I live in a district that is so affluent that they don't get "extra" state money because they get so much property tax, comparatively speaking. The teachers at the schools my children have attended here aren't unionized and do not have tenure -- as charter schools, all employment is at will and by yearly contract. But even with that, parents *still* want to raise millions each year for *more* stuff -- more art classes, more drama classes, newer computers. They actually whine about it in a competitive way: "The school district just south of us raised $3 million last year in corporate donations! We only raised 900K! We have to do better next time!" WTF. *gah*

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Thing is...

My kids current school district _IS_ well-funded. It's one five wealthiest in the state, in fact. I believe it's one of a small handful which actually sends money _back_ to the gov't, because the taxes bring in too much.

So why the hell can't they buy their own dry-erase markers? If they were really strapped, no problem, I'd be happy to help out. However... not only did I very nearly become a teacher (the beginning of student teaching in New Orleans scared me out of it _fast_, but this is _so_ not New Orleans!) I have many friends who are teachers, and have heard from several of them that they ask the parents for things because it's "too much trouble" to get it out of the school funds, despite there actually being adequate money for classroom supplies. You can either fill out the forms and wait and get ignored and harassed and _maybe_ get what you need about six months after you actually needed it, or you can pay for it yourself and hope they'll actually someday reimburse you (and they probably will, but don't hold your breath waiting for it to be soon), or... you can hit the parents up for it.

But...

See, I'm really sorry the process sucks. I am. Truly. I would fully support teachers in an effort to streamline the process and ensure adequate teaching materials that do not come out of their pocketbook. However, several thousand dollars a year already go to the school out of _MINE_, so I'd really rather they that, rather than hitting me up for more. It's not the money. It's the principle of the thing. Stand up for your rights. Strike. Campaign amongst colleagues and parents and in the papers and online and in the news. Use the union as a tool for this, rather than using all your built up 'credit' to push through a 1% pension increase when most of the country doesn't even remember what a pension _IS_ and less than half the employed population has any kind of retirement plan at all. Don't pass the buck to me, because I'm tired of it. Particularly when, after hearing forever that what teachers really, really want is for parents to be involved with their children's education, I spent most of last year being ignored, given the run around, hassled, impeded, and outright lied to when attempting to get my son's teachers to even speak to me (or type to me -- email would have been acceptable). I'd love to be involved in and responsible for my son's education. All I asked for was for them to let me know when he didn't turn in his work, preferably sometime _before_ he was four weeks behind and failing, and for access to a copy of their lesson plan (online or paper) so I could know what he was supposed to be doing. That's it. Given the level of his disability, the legal requirements regarding such, and how easily I could have been a real pain in the ass, I don't think I was asking for much. Heck, I would have been happy with a "No, we won't do," truthfully... I would have hired a pro advocate and maybe a lawyer, but I would have been happy enough to just receive _any_ communication from them at all in response to the ridiculous amounts I sent their way trying to get a response.

So I've unfortunately received the impression that what's wanted is _not_ for parents to be involved with their child's education, but for parents to simply write a check and not ask questions anytime the school asks for money. We're also expected to agree with anything the teachers have to say, even if what they're saying is that our child is simply lazy and irresponsible... never mind that said child is doing five hours of homework every freaking day, most of it repetitive make-work that hasn't actually _taught_ him anything in months but until everybody has 'mastered' the skills needed for the TAKS test, everybody does drill. So... I'm a bit less sympathetic than I used to be, yeah.

[fallenpegasus]

Well, they are being more honest about their theft now.

When school districts started pulling this shit in the early 90s, some of them did it by waiting for the first day, when the kids showed up with their bright new shiny school supplies, and then set out a box in the room, and told each kid to put their new pencils, paper, erasers, etc, in the box, for everyone to "share", and when they needed a pencil, they could go up to the box and get one.

All the folks upthread who are talking about the school system being underfunded are carefully not mentioning the fact that over the past 50 years, school funding per pupil has steadily *increased* in real dollars (thats "already inflation adjusted" for the folks who never read an econ text).

The money is being eaten up by employee bennies to tenured teachers, and by programs for the "less advantaged" students at the expense of the students who can excel ("they will do well anyway, so why worry about them?")

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Because, as NCLB has shown, teaching to the test has left the excellence students in the painful role of taking mind-numbing rote memorization over and over, because school resources aren't being sent their way anymore.

[hydrolagus.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see sort of dojo-style schools, where kids get their "belts" by subject rather than by grade level. Teachers would get to work where their strengths lie and students would get a more appropriate level of challenge/support.

[velvet-wood.livejournal.com]

Schools here request paper-towels, hand-sanitizer, and ziploc bags, along with all the things you mentioned, plus some definite 'teacher only' supplies such as dry-erase markers. Art supplies can get ridiculous, with last year's insistence on a particular brand of glue (6oz bottle $8) which was particularly hard to find topping the list. And of course, in grades K-5, it's all way more likely than not to go in a common pool. Then there's the mandatory school planner... which _must_ be bought from the PTA and is patently useless and has been ignored by every teacher either of my children has ever had. I've been sorely tempted to simply say, "No. I will not. I'll buy him a PDA or something nice from Franklin Covey, and you can bugger off," but so far, not wanting to cause trouble for Jaime (Shali only reached the planner-requiring stage this year, and to my surprise her new school provided them to her for free) by starting off the year being a difficult bitch , I haven't yet. But it _is_ tempting as hell.

And it's not that I mind helping out the kids who can't afford supplies, either. I'd have happily contributed $20 or so to a general fund to provide kids who can't afford what they need with the basics. Heck, I'd be okay with doing it for each of my kids, each semester. But I wasn't happy to have the things I bought _for them_ essentially stolen when they walked in the door. I'm sorry that not all kids can afford the really good shit... it sucks, I know from experience... but I will be damned if I'm going to agree with any policy that reduces what my child can have down to the least common denominator.

Then there's the lovely fund-raisers - Jaime brought home his band fund-raiser kit today. Each child has a 'sell goal' of $150. They're not to go door-to-door of course... which means that parents are supposed to sell it at the office or the family is to shell out for the over-priced junk, and my kids are out of luck, since I don't work outside the house, Shay works in the very bowels of the geekcave, and my family is habitually broke, particularly during late summer/early Fall. Not that I'd want them going door-to-door, mind you, but at the same time they give that warning, they blather on about how 'character-building' it is for the kids to raise the money. So. One catalog of over-priced garbage, sales from which probably send well under 10% to the school, & the rest to the distributor & crappy 'prizes' (the whole lot of which could be bought at any dollar store for under $30 total) which the children immediately get their little hearts set upon. Y'know, I'd _MUCH_ rather they just asked for a freaking donation. I'd give 'em a donation, no problem. Probably just about everyone in my family would, too, at least $5 each or so, which is more than they're making from 'selling' this crud. Why can't they just be honest about it?

His school last year was worse, of course. Their fund-raiser only had one prize: if you sold $20 worth, you got to go to a 3-hour party in the gym where they had pizza & music and rented an entire inflatable wonderland. If you didn't, then you got to be in a study hall for 2 of the hours, then go to PE for the third, where you would put on your gym uniform & sit in the bleachers and watch the party. His previous school was _not_ one with a particularly wealthy population. About half the students were at or below poverty level. Sure, _we_ could afford to blow $20 on junk so that Jaime wasn't treated like the unwanted puppy at the pound, but a lot of them couldn't. I'm very glad to be out of that school district, even if I do have reservations about Jaime's future high-school & it's on-site coffee-bar and yogurt shop. Oh well, it's also going to have a three-story library, so that makes up for a lot of yuppiness.

Anyway, there's my rant to add to yours. Trust me that you are not the only one fed up with paying for teaching supplies when you're not a teacher, & having no choice in what happens to the supplies you actually buy for your own child. I'm just about fed up with schools entirely right now, however, so maybe I'm in a bitter sort of mood & it's not _really_ a big deal... nah. It's totally ridiculous, & we all know it, even in happy, bouncy, "so ecstatic people suspect drugs" kind of moods.