I’ve also seen US teachers spending hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to stock classrooms.
I spent a lot of time in European schools and I’ve never heard of teachers having to stock their own classrooms or fundraise for things like playgrounds, etc.
Our schools are generally underfunded and hardly anyone with any real power gives two shits.
Our schools are
generallypurposefully underfunded and hardlyanyoneany Conservative with any real power gives two shits, because indoctrination is more important than education to Conservatives.There, now that’s a much more correct statement rather than that both-sides bullcrap.
as if they even give one shit
Education is way undervalued. Teacher pay is horrible and the schools don’t have enough funding for the number of students. So years ago they started putting more and more of the obligation on the parents (and, actually, on the teachers) to supply their own materials.
Schools in well funded states literally need like double what they’re getting, and they need it yesterday.
Let alone worse funded states. Can’t imagine what public education is like in rural Idaho.
As someone from Central Pennsylvania with only 300 total students from K-12th grade, we are simultaneously drowning and shooting ourselves in the foot with the local R’s we put on school boards
Eh… i wouldn’t use the wording shooting anywhere near the words schools.
Tf happened in 1999?
Charter schools and public funding for private education started to be pushed heavily. And then Columbine happened, which made education a very public issue, so more money started getting shoveled at public ed.
The ghost of Reagan?
Because schools are underfunded as shit, thanks GOP, and not only do teachers spend a ton of their own time and money just to be underpaid, they’re not given adequate supplies for students. It’s especially bad for low income families that can’t afford to also pony up for supplies and activities.
Many people here are talking about under-funding of education in the US. If you look at expenditure per student vs GDP per capita, the US is actually doing fairly well when compared to the rest of the world. Our problems aren’t funding related (though I wouldn’t argue against more funding). Our problems are allocation and priority related.
See here for data: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country
I wonder if there are some holes in their methodology with regards to how people are paid in the US vs Europe. Like are they factoring in government benefits of teachers and staff that aren’t part of work like they are in the US. Salary and Benefits is a huge part of the cost, as well as land and construction costs.
That’s true. They may not be factoring in government benefits. Things like universal health care.
Well, healthcare and other benefits aren’t likely to account for the discrepancy, as pretty much all teachers get benefits (with the exception of adjuncts at the university level, who are absolutely fucked).
My understanding is salaries are higher in the US in part because of the lack of universal healthcare, and other things that end up coming out of people’s pockets when compared to Europe. I did a little digging on the site, and it does look like salary and benefits are up to 80% of the cost.
I suspect it has more to do with the stark wealth differences in the US which are vastly higher than in Europe, especially because the above includes both public and private education. The US may spend a lot on the mean student, but not much on the median student.
I went to a really well-funded public school, and a lot of the rich parents in the area still sent their kids to private school, meaning they’re basically paying for education twice. Rich American parents spend tons of money on their kids’ education. It would be interesting to see a map of spending per student and see how it is in poor areas.
a lot of the rich parents in the area still sent their kids to private school, meaning they’re basically paying for education twice
Not any more thanks to the Republican pushed school voucher system!
I think your last sentence touched on the real problem. Schools are funded based on local property taxes. So if you’re in a poor area your schools are poor. It’s like Jim Crow and segregaron but legal
The problem is multiplied by the fact that the people who are supposed to figure out how to be efficient with the money are either elected or paid way below market rate. So either way, they don’t have the skills for it.
Because Jeff Bezos would rather buy a few more yachts.
This has been going on long before Bezos sold books out of his garage.
Basically it is a way to provide unfair education. By forcing the student’s parents to pay for as much as possible you are ensuring that only wealthy neighborhoods get good education.
I’m in the US and we just provide a small fee and they provide the supplies. US every state and county is different.
In italy we bought everything outselves including books. Teachers never paid for anything.
Because Americans don’t want to pay taxes. A great majority think these things just magically appear, or that if you can’t afford it you don’t deserve it. “Socialism” is a dirty word in some circles and “the cruelty is the point” is their motto.
Bait post so it fits right in here
They are over qualified and underpaid. They are also underappreciated with who it matters, those that pay them.
They need to supply their ideas because they do it because they care. They have my upmost respect. Them and health care professionals work their asses off. At least with healthcare, they have decent paycheck.
What is “basic school supplies” for you? In Europe, there is a list of basic supplies students need and the displays show up in stores around July: things like pencils, pens, erasers, paper, binders, folders, punches, staplers/staples, paper clips, correction fluid… There’s a lot
In Germany, generally, students are expected to bring their own stuff, it’s not the school’s/teacher’s responsibility to provide pencils and what not. That’s probably where the confusion lies, there is no scenario in which a teacher has to specifically ask parents to provide supplies because they do that anyway.
And Parents do get enough money to buy those supplies, if they don’t provide their kids with it they might get in trouble.
That’s what I meant in response to “ask parents to bring basic school supplies”. “Ask” could also be covered in a list of suggested supplies. But, anyway, parents are providing those things, which counters the original question
Basically like most said, schools are woefully underfunded. Most often, they are mostly funded at the local level which screws them. Poor places have less money for school, thus making the cycle of poverty harder to break out of. Rich places have loads of money so intergenerational wealth persists. Medium income tend to fight any tax increase. (And if education matters to you, better to fight a tax increase and just send your kid to a private one)
My partner is a teacher and we spend around $200 a month just on snacks for their classroom (snacks have to be individually packaged, and there’s 36 kids per class, so that’s 72 snacks a day, Because the kids have a morning snack and an afternoon snack.) Even with donors, choose PTA and other groups. We just know that there’s a certain amount of our income each month that’s going to go too supporting her classroom. It sucks but we have accepted it, because by us not doing that the kids are just going to suffer.
I know that you probably get a tax deduction for it, but stories like these are still just crazy to me. These things should be taken care of by the school district, not the individual teachers. Wow.
It sounds like you’re enabling the problem by continuing to spend the money.
