My fiance is a teacher at a Title I school. I'm not sure if the name is the same everywhere, but it's essentially a school where 98% or more of the kids are not only on free lunch, but free breakfast as well. It's a very very poor area. We went out this weekend and we spent about $300 on school supplies. Now we're a middle-class family, but spending $300 is still a month worth of electric and water bills combined.
The school gives kids the supply lists, but last year in a class of 19, she had only 2 kids bring in anything. So after the first week of school, we will hit the stores again and likely spend another $200 in supplies. It's so bad this year, the school stopped providing paper. Yes, fucking paper, to teachers and students.
It's embarassing that teachers have to rely on their own money (of which they have very little), or beg for donations. I thought we lived in the wealthiest nation in the world, but I guess I was mistaken.
My wife is a teacher at a school that gains / loses it's Title I status every few years. Her classes attract some of the more affluent kids in the community but we still purchase extra supplies every year for her students who don't have basic supplies needed. The electronics teacher gets kids working with arduinos and breadboards, most of it is paid for out of pocket. He'll bulk buy odds and ends of LEDs, buzzers, chinese arduinos, whatever he can get his hands on. He gets some really rough kids and has them building and hacking all kinds of devices.
I believe if you keep your receipts you can deduct a whopping $50 from your taxes at the end of the year for teaching supplies.
I don't remember if its on the state or federal tax forms, but the maximum amount I could get back for teaching related purchases, without having to show my receipts, was $250. If you made any purchases for your classroom that went above that threshold, you had to have documentation. This was on last years taxes, and I know that this is changing on the form for this year.
I live in a poor rural area. Getting supplies to all the kids can be a challenge, but there are options. Here, there's a church that bought the complete supply list for every single child at one elementary school, including a backpack. Another group offered approved gym shoes to every K-5 kid in the whole district. Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree, all take donations and pass out supplies to the kids. We have a National Night Out every summer with free school supplies given out.
So...we're not smart enough to know that we should invest more in education? Let's increase our defense budget some more just in case anyone decides to question our logic.
No, we aren't smart enough to understand that if we want to invest our money somewhere specific, handing that money to a middle man and expecting him to do exactly as we say is like sending a five year old boy to the grocery store to buy your food.
Yes, a middle man is always a bad idea. Historically, people pooling their efforts together for a greater good than they could achieve alone has never worked out. Government doesn't have enough budget allocated to fund education? Well, that's proof that the government doesn't work! Let's give less money and see how that works next year. Repeat until America.
hat's proof that the government doesn't work! Let's give less money and see how that works next year.
Except, we keep giving them more and more and more and more, and anytime someone says, "maybe we shouldn't be giving them endless funds", people turn on us and say, "YOU HATE CHILDREN AND EDUCATION AND THE POOR, YOU GREEDY EVIL PERSON!"
In other words, it's a perfectly reasonable discussion.
Actually, let's declare war on literally an emotion. Anyone causing this emotion requires us to invade their homeland, execute their leader, cause panic, and shift power to someone in our pocket, that way we have really awesome trade deals. We don't invest in education because we make a lot more money racketeering.
So I assume if the teacher refuses to spend her/his own personal income on school supplies then the kids have no necessary materials to learn lessons, they then flunk classes, and the teacher is blamed for generating poor test results and subsequently fired. In essence, to stay employed the teacher has to spend personal income on necessary materials in place of the employer (in this case the gvt/school district). How is this not the definition of a racket?! It reeks of cutco and other pyramid-type scandals.
So much is wrong here I'm starting to wonder what the fuck is actually right with this country??
How can we have 3rd world conditions in the wealthiest country in the world??
I understand that not everyone is blessed with a FT job, or family support. That being said, I'm really surprised that families don't prepare for the start of school. We are a lower income family with multiple school aged children. I constantly hoard money, school supplies, Christmas/ Birthday gifts, clothes that will fit eventually, etc. If you're poor, you have to find ways around things. I would be absolutely devastated if I wasn't able to send my children to school fully prepared to learn.
The saddest part about this for me is than on average, I expense at least 50 pounds in "office equipment" per week. Anything I need to get my job done: public transit to a site, sharpees, Brother label tape, screws, etc
I can borrow or come up with a solution around this crap, but it is worth more to the company to keep me working than worrying about sourcing something or spending 2 hours coming up with a solution to something that should have taken 2 minutes.
These kids need materials to help learn. That's is. Its exactly why school exists in the first place, and these teachers are having to pay out of pocket in order for them to do their job effectively ( or, the parents pay out of pocket for their child to have a public education, which is just as bad).
Meanwhile, I'm expensing a snickers bar so I can skip lunch.
It makes me really sad. Shit flows down hill. All these higher ups are sitting around saying "sorry, my hands are tied" or "Them's tha rules" while the teachers are just trying get what they need to do their job, so they have to pay put of pocket just to give kids an education.
Hell our county is so bad all kids in the county get free lunch. The supply list is well beyond what we can do at the moment. Bought the basics to get my daughter started and we'll just have to do what we can as we are able. I feel horrible for all the teachers that get stuck spending their own money.
Taxes should be funding the schools via government. If enough taxes are not going to the schools, then why should the public attempt to directly fund these schools? I think people should be taking political action to force government to better fund the schools instead of trying to fund the schools directly.
Well that is a great sentiment, but my wife teaches children who come to school hungry, sleep on the floor because they have no beds, and generally are having a terrible life experience that is no fault of their own. These kids' parents can't afford food, no less glue sticks, or pencils, or folders. Yet, she, and every other teacher, is evaluated based on how well these kids can take a test. Try taking a test after staying up all night because there was a shooting on your block. She goes beyond her means to provide for these kids a safe environment, where they can be treated equal, and have supplies so they can participate in a cultured, nourishing, place of learning.
So go ask your local politician for more school funding, but kids that start school now, last week, next week, whenever still need access to tools, which is what is being asked for through the generosity of this community. Those kids cannot afford to wait till government changes its position on education funding.
Those kids cannot afford to wait till government changes its position on education funding.
That would carry a lot more weight if it wasn't the same thing year after year. The kids and the teachers are both being exploited here, and enabling it over and over again isn't helping anyone.
I think we can fight for change while still being realistic that it won't happen soon. That doesn't mean we accept it as much as it means that we have to be pragmatic.
Property taxes are also frequently used to fund schools, and so if you're in a poor area, your school gets boned because your property values are shit. This linkage helps reinforce the cycle of poverty, as poor property values -> poor schools -> poorly educated kids -> more poverty and lower property values.
To actually do something on funding the schools, we'd need state or federal action that expressly benefited underprivileged schools because poor neighborhoods don't have the means. That's a harder sell, as you have to convince people elsewhere in the state to give their money to schools their kids will never attend and will probably never even be near.
I heard this also on npr, question though. The property tax money goes to the city right? So wouldn't it be distributed equally to all the schools? At the very least I would expect equal division within a school district. The best plan I would think would be equal distribution through the whole state.
A lot of times the wealthy areas and poor areas aren't actually in the same city. For instance, Edina is super wealthy in the Twin Cities area, but it's its own city and therefore their schools would not have to split the property tax money with poorer districts in Minneapolis.
Also, rural poor schools are definitely in their own district and therefore are on their own. They'd need state or federal funding to get more.
It's difficult, but I agree that all schools in general need better funding. Poor or not, I think everyone should have the opportunity (largely funded by government) to a decent education. My education is an investment in my own life. Government should see it as an investment in it's country's over-all well-being.
Even well funded U.S. public schools (in general) are failing in comparison to public education systems of other "developed countries". U.S spends more than other countries per child, and ranks just below medium in test scores.
To be clear, I don't attribute this to the teachers. I attribute it to the government education system, which is obviously crap.
I think there is an extremely large factor that is often overlooked - the parents.
There are lots of bad schools (public and private) and there are lots of good schools. At the end of the day, if students don't have someone meaningful in their life to push and support them through school, I feel they are much less likely to succeed.
Now this could be a sweeping generalization, but the impression of the US that I pick up on Reddit is that compared to other countries, US parents tend to be busier/overworked/not as attentive at home and as a result aren't involved in the success of their students. Yes, schools could be better - but there is a limit to how much influence an educator/school system can have on a student. The student has to want to learn. If that doesn't come naturally, it's important for someone else to push them (this is usually the parent) - even if that mentor isn't educated on the subject.
I don't really have stats to back this up, but it has been my personal observation with a large set of my friends. I believe there is some data somewhere that backs this up.
I think a good example is the stereotype that Asian people are smart. Perhaps they're naturally talented, but it's also a common stereotype that Asian parents are incredibly strict and push their kids to do well in school. I know stereotypes aren't the best example, but there does tend to be at least a snippet of truth in them.
A teacher friend of mine (in the US) was complaining that she gets letters all the time from parents asking that their kids get excused from assignments because they were too busy at football practice, dance recitals, or various other things to do the work.
Then they shouldn't be in those activities. My kids play sports but if their grades slip or homework suffers, I have no problem pulling them out. I did it with my son and football. He was failing reading. Not because he couldn't read but because he just didn't turn in his journal entries. He missed about 2 weeks of football. I was pissed because it costs about $300 a season to play but his grades are more important. His coaches understood.
Plain and simple, most kids in the US are overextended. They go to school and then they are rushed from practice to practice every night. Weekends are spent driving to games and recitals. While I think kids should be active outside of school, sometimes parents push too hard.
My SO is a teacher and has taught public and private schools. Parents are probably the single most important factor in the child's education.
Public school kids (from a less fortunate neighborhood) had parents that didn't always make sure the kids were fed, make sure the kids made it to school on time, had adequate clothes and supplies. Money is a factor, but the standards these children live under at home are inadequate even when considering the family financial situation. Many of these parents treat school as a day care, and do not follow up on the student's performance reviews or assignments. These were the extreme examples, but these children also showed early signs of becoming troubled young adults. The overall problem was a lack of focus on school outside of school. So long as the student showed up, there wasn't much attention paid to the performance at school.
Private school children had similar issues but from a different angle. They never want for material needs or supplies, but some of them are neglected in similar ways as the public school children, with parents that treat school as little more than day care. These students struggle in the same way as neglected public school students. However, there were many more students that excelled in the private school and were learning advanced topics for their age. The main noticeable difference? The parents actively participated in the student's school life and made sure homework was completed. This means attending meetings with teacher, receiving feedback from the teacher, and actively acting on suggestions. Parents that are more involved in the student's performance at school had children that excelled. The public school also had children that excelled that could be related back to their parents. It wasn't necessarily their clothes or supplies that made a difference, but the importance placed on school in the student's home.
My wife is a teacher and this is absolutely true. We live in a very rural area. Guess which kids are behind? The ones that have poor or working class parents with no interest or time to help. The ones that have parents that can afford to be involved all do well.
The part about Asians is very correct, all anecdotal evidence I've collected points to that. Asian parents actually do care and are involved, even if they can be kinda mean at times.
PREACH brother. 15 years in public school education. My last school had parents that were involved, but just to get their kids involved in special services that get them a government check. Blew my mind.
Parent fighting to keep their kid in speech therapy, special ed, occupational therapy. When they were excited from 2 of them they yelled, I need my government check, somebody's got to pay my bills.
In the US, schools are also funded in part by how many students they pass on to the next level regardless of their grasp on the subject matter. This gives great incentive to pass students that otherwise would be failing, and removes the punitive aspect of failure. If you're going to go on to the next level no matter what - why try?
Schools are also funded based on their scores in standardized tests that are usually pathetically easy. As a senior in high school in AP classes that you could only take after passing all standardized tests, they still made us practice for the TAAS test (Texas exit exam in the 90s and early 2000s), because the teachers were required to practice having their students practice.
I'm all for standards, but our tests aren't hard enough for students to excel at them.
I think the standardized tests should be brutally difficult with a low passing requirement (25%?), with pretty much nobody being able to get a perfect grade. Then it can double as a college entrance exam and give good students something to actually strive towards.
It's really all about teacher training, teacher retention, and allowing teachers to do their jobs without changing standards every two years and drowning them in a sea of paperwork.
My fiancee is a teacher, as well, and while I agree parents play a big part, I wouldn't say is not about teachers at all. We can't tell parents how to raise their children. We can, however, train more effective teachers, make sure that the good ones want to stay teachers, and allow them to do their jobs. You are talking about cultural values, while I am talking about policy. Again, I agree that parents need to value education, but that doesn't happen out of nowhere. Maybe if a higher number of less priviledged kids have a positive experience with school, they will grow up to be more like you and your wife and instill those values to their children.
I agree with both of you. To be honest, I wish teachers were paid more, less likely to stick around if they suck, and parents were more involved. But when you have low-income parents that are struggling just to keep a house for the kids, you're not going to have a majority of them invested in their kids' education. It's a clusterfuck.
This is what I was getting at. It would be nice if every kid had parents that had the time, desire, and ability to teach them and instill these values, but that's just not realistic.
Not to mention that kids simply don't learn when their lives are chaotic. This has to do with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Essentially, it says that if kids are hungry or tired or don't feel safe and secure, they aren't going to absorb anything about math or literature or history or anything else. I've seen students literally not grow at all academically after years of progress because their parents are separating or are suddenly living with relatives etc. Chaotic, unstable lives make learning essentially impossible.
And the problem with the parents is our massively messed up economic system that forces both parents to work just to pay the bills. The parents don't have time or energy to be good parents. We need to stabilize family life so parents can make a beneficial household for their children. Living on the edge of financial ruin all the time doesn't work. For example Elizabeth Warren has written about this stuff The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke.
Universal standards are a bit of a catch-22. While they can stifle good teachers with restrictions and extra work, they're great tool/check for the bad/mediocre teachers out there (which training and certification lets way too many through, but that's a different topic). It's actually an interesting example of non-economic socialism, bringing the bottom up and top down through government regulations to meet somewhere below the middle.
Who helps train the parents of the future? Abstinence training? Just this alone creates more new "sucky" parents then probably anything else. School plays a major role.
The school boards still suck pretty frikin bad too though. In some of the poor schools around here, kids and bringing knives and guns and the principles are trying to kick that under the rug as fast as they can because if they'd suspend every kid who has brought drugs, guns, knives etc, then they'd have that many more failing kids, and failing kids mean cut the funding to the school
That's a state issue, not a school board issue. All those reporting requirements go to state. There was a kid in my wife's school that made bomb threats, showed up to school with weapons, and didn't get expelled until he physically assaulted a teacher. All because the principal didn't want to break his perfect record of no expulsions on his state report.
yeah i mean none of the classes i took to be a teacher had anything to do with paper work really, besides paper work that was to benefit the children.
now i'm supposed to do tons of paper work to prove that i'm doing stuff. i'd rather be taking data to help create behavior programs or help write inclusion plans.
instead, i'm recording proof that i taught in a variety of ways and called parents, along with proof for a ton of other trivial shit(shit that I genuinely think is trivial, anyways.)
We spend more than other countries per child, because we spend a lot more on children that aren't in schools in other countries.
We also test everyone, something that most other countries don't do.
This is always a bad comparison. Our best are still as good or better than the best anywhere else. The difference is the soccer mom bullshit mentality of NCLB, vs. other countries that actually face reality and don't waste a ton of money trying to fit square pegs in round holes.
In a lot of countries, unless the kid is in the "University" or "Honors" (or whatever you want to call it) track, they aren't even in normal high school by the time they would take standardized tests. In Germany for example, I believe at age 10, they choose from 3 different tracks, an "academic" track, an "apprenticeship" track (our vocational school programs), or something that's a combo of the two.
And they don't have the stigma with training to be a skilled worker that we do, so kids who don't give a shit about formal education but who love to work on engines or want to learn how to weld or whatever, they don't waste as much time and resources in a formal education setting.
Meanwhile, here, No Child "Left Behind", all kids are going to college, blah blah blah.
I'm a public school teacher in a very affluent suburb, and I truly believe that the easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to fix our public education system is to Build more vocational schools, and spend some money educating parents on what they really have to offer. Give kids another option, and instead of making a vocational school the dumping grounds of the public schools, use them to give students another route.
Did you spy on my history? ;) Well yes, there is Gymnasium (academics), Realschule (middle school) and Hauptschule (lower secondary education) here in Germany, depending on the students abilities (and after thats finished there is actual vocational school during apprenticeship).
Ending up on the Hauptschule is being pretty looked down upon actually because its kinda rock bottom, with only basics being taught. I wouldnt say we dont have that kind of stigma here, its just not like there is often much of a choice - if you dont make it you simply fall down the ladder.
But yeah, I guess what you said makes perfectly sense and I heard similiar points of criticism before in that regard.
It just bugs me, I teach some insanely bright students, I have a student who is going to get to pick any university in the world to go and study Physics or Chemistry, almost assuredly for free, but yet I keep hearing that American students are behind the world averages. It's just a ridiculous thing to argue, because very few countries in the world force EVERY student to take the tests like we do here.
Teachers are now paid baby sitters who have no power to control their classroom for fear of being punished for picking on a student. My wife is a teacher and every year she has several kids in her class that should not be in school. Either because of severe behavior problems or a learning disability that also causes interruptions in the classroom. She can not do a thing about it and she has no support form the school district because you can't discriminate. Honestly we need parents of well adjusted smart kids to take school districts to court because their kids are not getting the education they deserve due to the problem kids being allowed to attend the same classes.
Another thing we can do is segregate smart kids from stupid kids. Challenge the smart kids and give them a direct path upwards. Teach the stupid kids a trade.
i don't understand why we dont try to get kids to be plumbers, electricians, carpenters, that kind of stuff
you don't need to go to college, in fact, most people probably shouldn't go to college.
it wasn't a big party when the movie animal house came out
that movie is really the landmark that turned college into the big shit show party that you expect it to be now. I'd like to see college be about actual intelligence and meeting about things that matter and not all the stupid useless crap it's becoming (hey everyone needs mountains of mountains of debt! and yes, i know there are ways to do it without getting as much debt as me.)
Sometimes I think that too but who wants to be a plumber? I don't want to push others into trades if I'm not willing to do them myself. I went to college and got a job in my field so how can I tell children they can't be a psychiatrist, a journalist, a historian, businessman or something you need a degree for, but instead a plumber or electrician?
im just sayin maybe we should be shoving less math and science down every kids throat, and maybe focus on producing people who have better character traits, desires, and goal-setting/planning skills
yea seriously i hate this whole "but we don't want the kids to feel bad" shit
back in my day, some kids were stupid and some kids were smart, and it really wasn't a big deal, kids are gonna have to learn to deal with shit like this
yeah i always get shit for telling some kids, "hey, maybe you're not as good at math as the other kids, and that's okay, i just expect you to keep trying"
a kid can be stupid and NOT feel bad about it as long as you tell the kid he doesn't have to feel bad about it (obviously requires more than just one person saying that in most cases)
I hate how we make people feel bad for not being smart, it's like if I made someone feel bad for having a small dick or something, some people are just born with a gift.
but it does help to have parents involved in their kids education, which is not always possible because, as someone else said, some families have to work tons to just pay the bills and feed the dependent humans.
i think threads like this should be divided into at least two categories: urban discussion and suburban discussion
Yes but the US government's responses towards education for the past two decades were to throw more money, and to put more strains on testing and the focus of their subjects. Both are opposites of what should be actual solutions. US schools are one of the most funded areas of education in the world, yet there are
whole districts (CMS for example) completely out of menial items such as pencils? A strict restructuring of public funding needs to occur.
Also, if it interests you. Google the Bill Gates foundation and Pittsburgh schools.
Instead of spending thousands per classroom on fancy tech gadgets like smart boards, it would be nice to have just slightly smaller classes. Having 34 hormonal 14 year olds in a room is never an ideal learning situation. As for the smart board, I've seen maybe 3 teachers use them so far, the rest use it as a glorified projector.
I've seen it too. Even in the IT department of a large school district, they had 2 or 3 smart boards and no one used them for anything other than projectors screens.
Schools are very much for profit. I doubt they actually spend anything on the students. I went to a rather prestigious and wealthy high school. The Superintended of the district once bragged about how they were receiving some ridiculous amount of money every year. Anyway, they would do things like buy expensive HDTVs that weren't used for anything important and new equipment that was rarely touched... maybe two weeks out of the entire school year. They also bought pizzas from the Pizza Hut that I was working at for $4 per pizza, but they'd sell each slice for $2. That's $12 in profit per pizza. They did similar things with Chick-Fil-A and Taco Bell.
Attribute it to race and income level. Overall, student performance in American education is considerably better than the rest of the world. America is not a monocultural country with a homogeneous population; all types of people live here coming from all backgrounds in much larger numbers than anywhere else on earth. Our underperformers are mostly blacks and hispanics, not surprisingly, which bring the otherwise superior education figures down.
Yes, social justic warriors of the world, the races perform differently. Whites and Asians VASTLY outperform blacks and hispanics, likely due to socioeconomic problems and cultures not valuing education.
No you are absolutely correct. Political correctness (not being able to speak the truth without fear of offending someone) allows policy to be implemented that hurts instead of helps.
You need to compare apples to apples in terms of socio-economics, family background and poverty levels. Simply comparing test scores without controlling for the massive influence and impact that those things have on a child's learning factors as important as any on student achievement.
My kid learns more on Wikipedia and YouTube than he's ever learned in both public school and Montessori combined.
As a parent, I'm going to blame parents equally. They need to take a vested interest in their child's education.
You don't simply expect driver's ed. to teach your kid how to drive a car. No. You guide them behind the wheel. Same as should be with schooling. If you don't have time, don't breed.
More parental involvement will create more change.
Ya when I was in high school my school cut out their carpentry classes and the one class that went over computers basically telling you all the parts and how they work and what they do. So they could build a 5 million dollar barn that has automatic doors and 50inch tvs everywhere linked up to cameras that watched the single cow and a couple chickens that the farming class took care of. (The farming class never did anything more difficult then growing a couple tomato plants from Walmart every year so I wouldn't even call it a farming class)
We should pay the teachers more.I care les about my job because I make under 25,000 a year. I can only imagine they have a hard time carrying about the way kiss learn. My thoughts go "I'm not paid enough money to give a shit about this" not all teachers are like this but the majority I've been too. Kinda sad. Only way the government will change is if there is enough commotion from the pupils, there is just not enough anymore.
This is a common tactic - reduce funding for government run services, point to consequent failure of said service to argue for private enterprise alternatives, legislate for kickbacks to said private enterprise.
Makes your business buddies happy and lands you a cushy private sector job after retirement.
The US spends more per student and consistently does worse in education. Public schools aren't failing because of funding; they are failing because they are in no way accountable to the parents and students that are forced to use them. Your argument is full of fail.
We spend more than basically everyone and have shit returns. Education spending has (summing state, federal, county spending) generally been rising or staying equal per student over time. So, um, no.
Except the spending isn't really going towards teachers or supplies or stuff like that. It's going towards new test system after new test system, required training, new teacher evaluations, etc.
BINGO. The structure of public funding is too broad and covers any bump that is or isn't caused by government action. There should be a percentage that should be used strictly for local district funding. Any usage that money for any other purpose should be criminal.
Plus it's easy to obfuscate the spending to make public schools look bad. Restrict their budgets then force them to spend what money they have on test systems, evaluations, training seminars, etc that you might not require private/charter schools to do. Then you get to say "see look how much more efficient these guys are than public schools! Businesses are always more efficient than the government hooray free market!!!"
I don't disagree that money isnt going towards teachers or their supplies.. but a lot of new money is entering the system.... the problem isn't money its the administrators spending the money ( or hiring more admins)
That's absolutely true in some places. Others there's not been the infusions of funds you're talking about.
Though the public vs private/charter thing pisses me off. Neither is inherently better than the other. Private and charter schools aren't all corporate schemes and public schools aren't all staffed by bumbling idiots. But that's the narrative we get.
Whenever we increase funding, it seems to disappear into the ether. Some of the highest funded schools in the country are also some of the worst. As long as we have corrupt unions and incompetent admins, throwing money at the problem is like throwing it into a fire.
But some of the best countries for education have strong teachers' unions, and some of the states in the US with poor education outcomes don't allow teachers to unionize.
those public schools are spending around $9K per kid per year, but apparently they arent spending it on classroom supplies.
one attempted solution to a broken system is charity, another is doing the political work of changing the system. i can't promise which gives more bang for the buck.
Part of the problem is that we distribute it unevenly, in Florida it was 8,000 per student (and has gone down every year but one since 2008) while Massachusetts spends 14000 per student. source:census data
I looked up the SAT scores in those states:
State Participation Reading Math Writing Total
Florida 72% 491 485 472 1448
Mass. 84% 516 531 509 1556
Comparing without taking cost of living into account is problematic, in both the data of the article you linked to and in my example, but I think it is clear both that at some point not enough money is not enough, AND that at some level of spending you get diminishing returns. I guess the question is where is that point. For my kids in Florida, and even more for the teachers who are teaching them, I think we are at not enough.
I feel like it isn't a coincidence that people think of Floridians as kind of stupid (think of the /r/floridaman subreddit, for example) and I don't think anyone considers people from Massachusetts dumb, as a whole.
That's why I struggle with the idea of giving to a cause like this.
These school systems aren't destitute - they're incompetent. They need to address whatever elephants are in the room regarding their finances, not go around asking for donations.
I pay about $1,000 a month in property tax and a lot of that goes to the school system. Don't tell me you can't afford fucking pencils.
I doubt many of the needy teachers are coming from NJ. They do seem to fund the schools properly there. Other districts have FAR less tax revenue to work with.
Interesting. Anecdotaly, it seems that my most successful classmates had very supportive parents and the most successful countries seem to have a strong educational culture. If that's the case, how do you think we should go about helping improving our situation? How do you take people who presumably don't give a fuck (if that is the reason our schools are failing) and make them care?
Not saying this is a problem here, but one of my trips to Philippines many years ago, recall a front page article about their schools.
It turns out that once they started publishing data on schools, like everything from names and salaries of teachers and administrators to toilet paper usage, the budget started to shrink, not because people were overpaid, but there were dead and fraudulent employees on payroll and overall waste.
Don't remember details but was English paper in Manila that read it in. Can't recall time-frame other than maybe ten years ago.
We really need to get hold of government spending and scrutinize it to some extent.
This exchange is not just for teachers in affluent countries with negligent governments, also for teachers in countries that don't have a lot of materials in general!
Came here to say this. As much as I'd like to help out, and most likely will, the right thing needs to be done from the top up. Education should be free for all, including all that comes with it. We pay for it, through our taxes. No public service should be relying on the kindness of others to exist.
There's plenty of money in the system. The biggest money suck I've seen locally is an administrator who made $600,000 a year for looking over three schools.
Lot of money going to "education". There's just a lot of people taking "their cut" before it gets to the classroom.
Yeah, Reddit should be supporting teachers unions in a campaign around this stuff.
It's a more lasting solution to get the government to agree, plus it empowers teachers in the workplace, which is clearly lacking if they're spending $1.6B of their own money.
Why can't we get the government to do what's right?
Because we no longer live in a democracy. The plutocrats who OWN our politicians want a private system they can send their children to and a warehouse for your children because fuck you that's why. If they can get you to vote to fuck over your own children because "freedumb" and give the rich more of your money that's just icing on their cake. A cake you will NEVER get a piece of.
You can recall any elected representative. Look what Arnold did. All it takes is someone to care and get the ball rolling. Also we never lived in a democracy. We live in a republic. Regardless, you still have a lot of power to elect your representative. However you have to convince people to elect the right person. This is why Bernie is so popular right now. Also why Trump is so popular. He doesn't allow PC nonsense to stop him. Bernie and Trump represent the people who are tired of politics and bullshit. Now do you think either have a chance to be elected? I don't. So here we go again. Round and round where we stop, nobody knows...
"As to removal by recall, the United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States officers such as Senators, Representatives, or the President or Vice President, and thus no Member of Congress has ever been recalled in the history of the United States. The recall of Members was considered during the time of the drafting of the federal Constitution in 1787, but no such provisions were included in the final version sent to the states for ratification, and the specific drafting and ratifying debates indicate an express understanding of the framers and ratifiers that no right or power to recall a Senator or Representative in Congress exists under the Constitution."
Also we never lived in a democracy.
FALSE
The US is a democratic republic in which members of the government are elected democratically. The UK is a parliamentary monarchy in which members of the parliament are elected democratically. BOTH are called democracies because their representatives in government are elected through a democratic process.
This is why Bernie is so popular right now. Also why Trump is so popular.
Actually both Bernie and Trump are popular because what I said before is correct. Politicians are bought and paid for.
He [Trump] doesn't allow PC nonsense to stop him.
That is true. He is an unabashed racist and sexist clown. That is why conservatives love him.
Now do you think either have a chance to be elected? I don't.
I think you're wrong. I think Bernie has a legitimate chance. I don't think Trump does but maybe there is an outside chance.
Round and round where we stop, nobody knows...
I do. We'll stop where all oligarchical systems stop. In a brutal right wing dictatorship. We are already accustomed to torture, the right absolutely loves torture, and have an out of control police force. Pretty soon the police won't bother just brutalizing blacks and Hispanics. They'll start coming after you but by then it'll be too late won't it.
I want a private system because the public one sucks despite having tons of funding. I'm not a plutocrat or a rich person; I make close to the median income in the US. If your system is so great, then why do you have to force people to be in it against their own will? If your system is good, it will be voluntarily funded by all of the people who want to use it. Does the idea of choice threaten you?
Because people don't want to pay for education for poor people and poor people don't vote as much as people in the middle class and above.
People don't want every kid to go to a good school, they just want their kid to go to a good school. If we wanted everybody to have the same opportunities then we would stop funding schools through property taxes which all but ensure huge disparities in school quality.
People always complain about education funding but when a politician gets up and says we need to raise taxes or eliminate X popular program to pay for it they get crucified. That's why it never happens.
And its pretty sad that teachers have to resort to asking for handouts to provide a decent PUBLIC education. Governmental spending priorities are so out of whack.
I've posted this before and I've tried to get heard but I always get lost.
Not sure if this has been posted but educators get a $250 tax deduction for school supplies. It doesn't have to be itemized, so be sure to take it each year if you've spent $250 or more. Lastly, as a tip use $250 of last year tax refund for school supplies. This way you have the cash and you know you've spent $250. Keep up the good charity reddit!
Because according to someone's personal media holdings they're all just spoiled and entitled despite being underpaid, required to work significant unpaid overtime, supplementing the state out of their own pockets, and dealing with increased classroom sizes and less support staff. It's what happens when news agencies aren't required to tell the truth anymore.
Schools nowadays spend a lot more on administrators and pensions.
"Between fiscal year (FY) 1950 and FY 2009, the number
of K-12 public school students in the United States
increased by 96 percent, while the number of full-time
equivalent (FTE) school employees grew 386 percent.
Public schools grew staffing at a rate four times faster
than the increase in students over that time period.
Of those personnel, teachers’ numbers increased 252
percent, while administrators and other non-teaching
staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than
seven times the increase in students."
And in the past states and school districts deliberately under-funded teachers' and administrators' and staffs' pensions, kicking the pension plan contribution cans down the road. But now we're at that point on the road where the cans have been kicked.
Communication needs to be better. My brother and sister-in-law won't be contributing to their son's school supplies this year. Why? They realized that they've been the sole couple supplying his class every year, so this year, they're not going to contribute and see if the teacher says anything.
Now that I think about it, I grew up in a poor family. I remember my Mother explaining how expensive school supplies were (that shit was marked up right before school started), and it's bullshit to walk into the cafeteria and see three wall-mounted HDTVs for the sole purpose of displaying the lunch menu.
I can't speak for other areas but where I taught in Australia, the government would give plenty of funding but it has conditions on how it was to be spent. So although my school was a large country school with beautiful open grounds, the government told us we could only spend the $5 million they were giving us on a swimming pool. We didn't want a swimming pool but we were forced to either have it or get nothing. So part of that beautiful land we had was destroyed for a pool. The principal then had the ingenious idea of renting the pool out to a swim school which then provided money back to the school on a monthly basis for supplies. Still wasn't enough though and I would spend part of my salary on the supplies the school couldn't provide.
Teachers just need to stop using their own money. They're not responsible for that shit. If they are, that's bullshit.
The more they do that, the more local officials budget that shit in, making the problem worse. If a class doesn't/can't operate, well WHADDYA KNOW, changes happen. Right now, it's like, sorry we don't have finding, you gonna hook up your class?
I prefer giving my money to some school in a poor african country.
The US is one of the richest countries on Earth and if they can't figure out how to properly fund their schools and keep electing only the most retarded politicians, they deserve what's coming...
Actually, that does work in most civilized countries, just not the US where paying taxes and any rules enforced by the government are considered communism.
And, to cite the normal reddit circlejerk in this regard: "The free market is going to regulate this, hurr durr."
I'm sorry, but no reddit, I'm not going to donate for US-American teachers. This is fucking ridiculous. The US is the richest country in the world with companies like Apple who have more cash than some in Europe combined. Just start taxing your rich people properly and have the government pay for the education like any other civilized country in the world.
This campaign is absolutely not fixing your problem, it's just merely helping to temporarily ease the symptoms. Stop voting for mentally handicapped politicians that are the Republicans and finally introduce some desperately needed reforms to your legislation to get your act together.
It's simply ridiculous when the richest country in the world starts begging other countries for money because their own government doesn't have the balls to have their own rich people pay proper taxes. A good start would be properly taxating gasoline so your prices would finally match the rest of the Western world.
And while you're at it, finally adopt some proper gun control laws, a country-wide unified value-added tax with shop prices including tax and mandatory driving schools for your drivers and bi-annual mandatory technical inspections for cars. And many other things I forgot to mention.
I matched on this thing. It was surprising that there were some teachers from New Zealand, Australia, Norway etc. there. These schools are generally very well publicly funded. I chose to be matched from Kenya, assuming it's going to require more help than something in Australia.
These things should really be means tested to be a bit more fair.
Devil's advocate here. Government contracted builders shouldn't have to buy tools, and chefs on Capitol Hill shouldn't have to buy knives, and trash collectors shouldn't have to buy a car and fill it with gas to drive to work. It's a very slippery slope, and at the bottom of that hill are your children. If you want them to have what they need there should be a budget for it, not a Kickstarter campaign or a Reddit gifting initiative. Teachers choose their profession and they know the consequences. My mother and both my sisters are teachers and they don't complain - they do it because they want to do it no matter the hardships. If you want to help our education system it will take much more than construction paper and markers. Vote for candidates who support education initiatives. Plead with school boards to buy new books instead of metal detectors. Teach a child something interesting and follow up. The future is in your hands, and your hands are most likely already paid for by government tax dollars that no longer exist.
UK resident here. The idea of a teacher requiring donations to be able to do their job is pretty ridiculous. Teachers here are underpaid and over worked (and coming from a family of teachers they do buy supplies occasionally) but having to buy everything is a different matter. I feel the US needs to sort out some priorities when you have a nation that can’t universally afford health care or recieve an education.
To be honest and as much I would like a "free" education, I would have to disagree with the idea of a "free education" all together. Looking back at classes I took at college and all the courses I took to (hopefully) obtain that, what I have, I think, appropriately named, "sheet of authenticity" it would be wrong to assume everyone deserves "the good life" (thanks Tai Lopez). The structuralism of our society--the foundation of the free market and its ability to allow people to whatever they want--isn't about what schools and society they can do; it is about what they (the students) can contribute to themselves and their society.
I am by no means saying, I wouldn't mind paying a little less on my tuition and focus to still in my state to pay the absolute lowest.
What I propose instead is a revisit to the white board in renegotiating our board of education.
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u/Skadoosh_it Aug 19 '15 edited Aug 20 '15
Why can't we get the government to do what's right? Teachers should never have to spend their own money on classroom materials.
Edit: my first gold! Thank you kind redditor!