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.
Conservatives, mostly.
Conservatives believe in neither education nor government. It’s no surprise that when they have power, they fuck up both of those things.
Also racism. A common facet of conservatism. It’s part of why conservatives don’t like public programs- the wrong sort of people might benefit.
the conservative point ive been hearing is that government shouldn’t spend money on education, because the real problem is fatherless households. im not really sure what to do with it
That’s a smoke screen. Another is the “liberal brainwashing machine” school system scare. What they fear is the statistic that higher educated individuals trend towards populism and progressivism. They see higher education of youths as a threat to their political base, which turns into “spineless parents sending kids to liberul brainwashing camps funded by the gubmnt.”
Find out what they believe causes a household to be fatherless. Follow their logic string by asking follow-up questions based on their most recent response. Either they’ll run out of justification quickly, or they’ll back themselves into a corner. From here you can leave it be as they’ve essentially ended up causing them to question their own understanding.
One way of many.
Also find out what consequences they expect a child being “fatherless” to bring, and compare that to what actually happens when a child has a healthy household without a father in it.
“Fatherless households” is just racist code for black families.
Oh, I thought they were going after lesbians
Black people, gay people, trans people. You know, cool folks.
Oh and poor people. Definitely poor people.
Our schools are generally underfunded and hardly anyone with any real power gives two shits.
This is by design, keeping the mass dumb makes it easier to trick them
You spelled enlist wrong!
They spell fucking everything wrong, let’s face it 😂
They’re usually not underfunded. The funds just go to sports and admin salaries.
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.
In Australia, for a public school student, the school provides a list of pencils, pens, glue etc the child will need for the year. You can choose to buy it from wherever but there are school suppliers that will provide everything in a pack for a fee and deliver it to your door.
There is no expectation that the teacher would pay for anything out of their pocket.
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
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.
It wasn’t always the case. Back when I was a kid, the school provided most things. Textbooks, crayons, paper, scissors, glue, etc. I had to bring myself, a pencil and eraser, and a notebook.
Somewhere along the line they figured out they could be pocketing that money instead of spending it on the kids, let the parents deal with the expenditures. Now you’ve got superintendents with quarter of a million dollar salary, over-budgeted construction projects that aren’t always necessary (and they arent allowed to reallocate those funds elsewhere, so they just construct more bullshit), and they still find the time to screw over the teachers (who are making as much as a highly paid retail employee).
Because education in the US is a fucking joke, just like everything else in this shithole country.
Edid: sorry i was in a shitty mood earlier lol
It’s the land of the fee
Tf happened in 1999?
The ghost of Reagan?
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.
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.
It sounds like you’re enabling the problem by continuing to spend the money.
