apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Hooray for choosing DonorsChoose.org! I'm going to put my donation toward projects benefiting local classrooms.

I'm not opposed to donating to classrooms that need supplies, but my question is: how can these schools not afford to buy the supplies they need? Where is the average of $9,138 (in 2006 and increasing every year) per student, per year going?

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/011747.html

loganx80--keep in mind that the average figure you quote is the figure for running the entire school district. that number includes salaries for faculty and staff, keeping the buildings and grounds maintained (clean, safe, heated and cooled, and running water and electricity), transportation costs which have been skyrocketing because of the gas prices, textbooks, etc....

a lot of school districts can't afford much beyond the basics and some school districts can't even afford the basics. there are a number of districts that have switched to four day weeks, and more that will have to switch next year, because they literally cannot afford to keep the school buildings open and to get the students to the buildings five days a week.

a lot of schools used to be able to ask families to send their kids to school with supplies. unfortunately, many families simply can't afford to anymore. teachers often end up having to buy things like pens, pencils, notebooks, tissues, art supplies, etc. out of their own pockets.

and of course with all of these states and localities that are going broke because of the economy, school districts will have even less money in the future then we do now.

I teach and trust me--the money is not being squandered! (sorry if I come across as soap boxy, the issue is important and it frustrates me how many people don't understand, especially in an election year!)

OK, just so you know before I start this, this comment is not to support or anyway indicate that private schools should replace public, but just helps make my argument.

Although many upper scale private schools may have tuition that is higher than that average per student for public schools, I happen to have gone to a private school that was fairly bare bones. The education provided was sufficient and probably comparable or better than many public schools. The facilities again were sufficient, but not fancy or modern. The classes were smaller than a public school, so there was more one-on-one time. So in essence, the quality of the learning experience overall was comparable if not better.

The kicker is that the tuition at this school is probably 1/3 to 1/2 of the public school average per student. What's the difference? How can these private institutions do this when the public can't?

Is it just the beauracracy of the education system? Are the school systems overpaying for supplies, furnishings and maintenance? I can't imagine that many people would argue that the teachers are overpaid, but I can guarantee you that my teachers didn't make as much as their public school counterparts.

I don't believe that you as a teacher are squandering the money; I'm sure the problem is much higher up than you. I think it's horribly sad that you would have to ask for donations for things such as school supplies for your classroom when there is that much money being spent on infrastructure. My assumption is that like most other government organizations, there is a lot of waste and innefficiencies in the public school system.

loganx80 -
One of the major differences between public and private schools is that the private schools do not have to accept special ed students and the public schools do. Unfortunitly, Speical ed students cost much much more to educate than other students (don't have exact numbers off the top of my head, but it can run over $100,000/year for one special ed student). Often smaller school districts do not have the facilities to educate high needs special ed students, so they have to be sent to very expensive private schools, and the public school has to pay the tuition bill. Public schools are mandated by law to pay for special education, so it's a cost that cannot be cut, even if it means cutting very basic services for the rest of the students.
This is not to say at all that special ed students do not deserve a good education, or to lay blame on the these students or anything - of course they deserve to be educated. It's just a cost that many people do not take into account when figuring out how much education "should" cost.

Rosie,
Talking to a teacher yesterday, it was mentioned that often schools actually receive extra funding for students with special needs. In some examples, schools have actually been happy to diagnose children with learning disorders or attention deficit disorder because it meant more funding for them. Is this not true as well?

I think it's sad the direction this thread has taken, but I do have to chime in re: public vs. private schools. Private schools don't have to pay a certain wage or benefits to those that teach there. Case in point: exclusive private school in Brooklyn Heights that charges 28K tuition (not the under 10k per student that the public schools get) pays assistant teachers 20k a year. A NYC public school teacher starts at 37K and has a host of benefits like health insurance and a retirement plan, because they have a strong union. And guess what, the people teaching our kids deserve a decent wage and benefit structure.

Additionally, parents paying tuition at this exclusive private school are also constantly asked to fundraise for the school through auctions, book sales, etc., etc. So the private schools cannot make do with their own tuition, which is almost 3x what the public schools are allocated per pupil.

A few points.

I didn't want the thread to got in a bad direction. If teachers need money for supplies in the classrooms right now, then by all means, donate. I was just seeing if anyone will admit that one reason that there may not be enough funding for the classroom is because there needs to be changes in how some of the money is being spent on it's way down the chain. If the answer is always that we just need more money for all of the government programs, then we might as well just turn over our paychecks to the government and prepare to be the next socialist country.

Matilda, your arguments there really don't refute anything that I have said. You said yourself that this is an "exclusive private school." For that money, they probably have nicer facilities and better equipment. The parents are willing to pay for it through tuitions and fundraisers. I'm not talking about those types. I'm talking about the affordable private schools that make do on the low tuitions that they receive. Also, just for reference, the census stated that in 2006 the cost per student in NY was almost $15,000 which is probably closer to $20,000 by now so the gap is not as big as you are indicating for New York. The $9,000 figure was a national average in 2006.

loganx80, if you want to know where school budget money is going, go look. Your local school district's budget is public record, and they probably even put the reports online on their Web site. That's a lot more productive than arguing in general terms with people on a cooking Web site.

Mollyjade -
Trust me, if people stopped responding, then I would quit discussing it as well. I'm only discussing on a cooking website because funding for education was brought up on a cooking website.

I took your advice and looked up my school district budget for the coming year so I wouldn't have to speak in "general terms". Here is what I found.

The average amount per pupil went from 10,842 to 13,258 from 2006 to 2008, an increase of more than 22%.

These are some of the the percentages of this amount that goes to each category of spending:
- Student Instruction 56% of budget (2006) to 51% of budget (2008), even though the overall budget increased quite a bit.
- General Administration has increased 54% over these 2 years
- Building Administration has increased 12%
- "Other Costs" have increased 107%. By the way, these "Other Costs" are $61,832,691 this year alone

Here's an interesting statement from the moderator of yesterday's debate:
Schieffer: the U.S. spends more per capita than any other country on education. Yet, by every international measurement, in math and science and competence, from kindergarten through the 12th grade, we trail most of the countries of the world.

Two thumbs up, loganx80.