One of the major factors to consider here is that public schools in the US are not equally funded by number of students. Instead, most of the funding is provided by state and local property taxes, meaning that richer areas where houses are worth a lot more, get much better funding for their schools. So while those rich areas’ school funding is probably much higher than the global median, the poorer areas’ school funding is likely much lower, in a very high cost of living country in general.
The other factor to also consider is that public schools in the US have fairly extensive athletic programs, meaning that they spend a lot of the funds to build and maintain things like American Football
stadiumsfields, swimming pools, etc., as opposed to only funding actual academic education.Edit, I’ve retracted the link about teacher vs coach salaries because it’s about College sports, not primary and secondary schools. I still haven’t found a good source for this info regarding those.
PS: Aside from fundraisers, it’s fairly common to hear teachers telling stories of having to spend their own money to buy supplies for their classes.
PPS: It’s also common to hear stories of poor families doing everything they can to move to richer areas just so their kids can benefit from the much better-funded schools. I’ve even heard of situations where they will register their kids with the address of a relative who lives in a better-funded area, for the same reason.
The other factor to also consider is that public schools in the US have fairly extensive athletic programs, meaning that they spend a lot of the funds to build and maintain things like American Football stadiums fields, swimming pools, etc., as opposed to only funding actual academic education.
I bought my lab supplies. Bare minimum $50-200 a month in supplies. Lab chemicals, pencils and notebooks for students that didn’t have any.
My classroom looked out over the fancy new football and soccer field. One of the middle schools had a field that local semi pro teams would rent out. The district couldn’t even fund busing - we’d have students show up 1-2 hours late every day because of the buses.
Small towns will fund bonds for football fields and cleats; they don’t give a damn about anything else. If you are good enough coach, you can literally show your penis to students and the administration will cover it up, then quietly help you get a position in a new town.
Cover up the fact or the penis?
The fact. He had been moved from school to school before.
He made his student athletes work out naked and showed them his dick to show them “what a real man is like.” It’s amazing how many news articles leave out those details.
Also the fact that the Governor and the State Superintendent are known to be golfing buddies with Ringalings superintendent…. It’s almost as if Oklahoma systemically covers up the abuse of children….
Jeepers creepers, this is so disheartening. I’m sorry that you had to experience that!
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It is socialism thinly disguised as capitalism.
Not American, and I have no factual answer but I assume it’s because the people at the top just take all the money and leave the schools to fend for themselves. Typical corporate nonsense.
You’d think so, and while you’re right that the people at the top make way too much money, docking their entire salary at a large district like mine would only be enough to fund maaaaaaaaaaaaybe just under 5% of the schools in our district. And then you’d be left without leadership. If you cut everyone in my pay scale, you’d have enough to fund all the schools and then some, but you wouldn’t have teachers, custodians, tech workers, etc.
But here’s something interesting: during the pandemic, since athletics funds were already allocated and athletic events were cancelled, we were allowed to use those funds as we saw fit within the district. Suddenly, we were able to feed every student and staff member for free. Yee haw, welcome to Texan education…
Public schools are run by the local government, so “corporate nonsense” doesn’t really make sense. They aren’t corporations.
School board officials are frequently bribed to hire expensive contractors.
I’m sure that’s true. It’s also not at all related to my point that “schools are run by local governments and so are by definition not corporations”.
No my point is they offload too much to corporations and thus are beholden to the same concerns of those corporations by proxy.
Have to teach kids to beg for the bare essentials early in life. That way they’ll never know it could be different.
The real issue is these funds aren’t evenly distributed per student, school districts are funded by property tax which leads to poorer neighborhoods getting considerably less funding.
I worked high poverty district - like, basically all students got free breakfast and lunch, because so many were eligible it wouldn’t make sense to even check.
The district got white flight to shit. No white kids in the middle or high school. There was one elementary school that the rich fuckers would send its kids to. That school was well funded. Teachers from there would show up in coordinated outfits, the kids weren’t thrown in classrooms with permanent subs, they actually got taught. It was in the rich neighborhood, so it had money - both the property tax shit and an actual fucking PTA.
Others may have different experiences, but AFAIK schools tend to be funded by the property taxes in their district. Combined with rampant, unchecked, failed desegreation, and you have some schools that are swimming in cash while everyone else begs to close that gap.
Capitalism.
Textbooks are a racket and not just for college students.
Most of the money spent on education involves grifts for stuff like that, not for actual important shit like schools or teachers.
PSA, whenever someone asks you to buy something for a fundraiser just donate instead. Especially if you don’t want what they’re selling. They’ll get 100% of that instead of like… I honestly don’t even know, but it can’t be more than 25%.
30-50% if its an actual physical item is pretty normal. If it’s something like a discount card or coupon book, profit approaches 90%.
girlscout cookies?
Dry, stale, over priced.
Wouldn’t bother.
Just donate the money directly to that Girl Scout group.
why would I support the people? I just want the cookies and to see the struggle of delivery.
What about them?
If I don’t want something, I give nothing. Most fundraisers are pure extortion, and I can’t be bothered to check if something is legit or lining someone’s pocket. “No” is a full sentence.
Obviously, I’m not saying you’re obligated to. I’m saying if you want to financially support them donations are better.
Criminally underfunded, plus capitalism as a value.
Because the public school funding comes from public taxpayer money. This means the school does not get to choose how to spend it since the money belongs to the people. The people have voted and greenlit several pre-approved items for schools to spend money on, but anything outside of that needs to be approved by a vote.
Getting people to vote on this item is a Heraclean effort to say the least. Education budget often is the least immediately impactful thing on the ballot, if it makes it that far. Especially in states with strong traditional religious areas. For example, Puritans don’t believe that sports are something that kids should take seriously cuz it’s a game (literally something along the lines of: Games can be pleasurable, seeking pleasure is sin you should only seek God, therefore games are sinful). They don’t want their taxes going towards such sinful programs so they will always vote against it. This perspective is rooted in zealous obedience and is not something other people are willing to fight against.
TL;Dr It’s easier for schools to just get private funding themselves and sidestep the public budget restrictions, than it is to get a majority in the voting pool to approve the vote and implement new school budget item.
All you have to do is look at how much of the collected money actually guess to the school then ask what happens to the rest. That’s why.
without digging into the numbers, i can pretty confidently say that schools are more than 30% more expensive than the global median in the US. staffing costs especially.
