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

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.