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]

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! :-)