? budget cuts in education

[MomLovesClassics]

Ok when it comes to education, I just don't think it should be skimped on. I understand money can be an issue, but there are many homeschoolers who are creative and manage to do it on a shoestring budget.

I am unclear about how or what budget cuts are happening in various areas. Yesterday I was told that locally teachers are no longer allowed to make any copies of any kind, the copy machine and paper are off limits to teachers. I could see setting limits, but cutting it out entirely? That would be thorn in my side if I were a teacher. I am scratching my head, because I don't understand how they get thousands of dollars per child but cant afford to allow teachers to make copies? Many music and art programs have been cut. I understand a quality education can be provided without a giagantic budget. Teachers already have to take furlough days. There is rumor of some schools shortening the school year. My thing is teachers losing their jobs, that is scary. Also, taking away supplies that teachers need, making it difficult for them to do their jobs.

[FaithManor]

I know that in our rural area 40% of the budget goes to busses alone. Because our county is huge and entirely rural, the schools drive all over the place picking up kids. So, if you take that money off the top, that takes a big bite out.

 

There is also the issue of liability insurance and building maitenence. Most schools pay in excess of $100,000 per year for liability insurance and then easily $250,000-500,000 on the buildings. Security in the larger schools must be provided and then there are the Federal and State programs required by the government but rarely fully funded such as free and reduced price lunches, etc. School superintendents rarely make less than $150,000.00 per year (at least that is true in our neck of the woods) and their travel and office budgets exceed $200,000.00. Most of their contracts are for five years and if we get a bad superintendent, the school board has to pay the full value of the contract to that person in order to get them to release the contract early. This has happened twice and cost our local district more than a half million dollars.

 

When you add up the costs of teacher and staff salaries, health insurance plans, classroom supplies, equipment replacement, technology directors for each county, special education equipment, school nurse (if one is provided), guidance counselors, and sports....you can see how fast the dollar flies out. Because we have such a sports freak oriented community, the art and music teachers always get let go first and that's even in years when the sport budget is being increased? Also, they spend a lot of money buying worthless currciulum that gets scrapped after a couple of years because the teachers are practically threatening mass suicide if they have to keep using it. Which then necessitates the purchasing of more usless curriculum that the teachers will grow to hate and so on......

 

It wouldn't cost this much to have schools in America if we had a no bells and whistles approach. Sports, art, and music would have to provided for from within the community or entirely financially supported through fundraising, no busses, and smaller, steamlined, non-glitzy buildings plus more teachers and far fewer bureaucrats.

 

Sigh.....its amazing how much it costs them to do so much less than I do for $500.00 or less per child.

Faith

[Pamela H in Texas]

Yes, I completely don't get it either. I can imagine there are only a billion other things to skimp on. The education of children should not be one of them! They NEED teachers. They NEED decent class sizes. they NEED materials. They NEED outside time. They NEED healthy food. They NEED subjects including science, art, and music.

 

It makes no sense to me AT ALL that it is okay to skimp on ANY of this.

[MomLovesClassics]

It just makes me sad that itis more about running an institution than the quality of education children are getting. Teachers need proper supplies. If that is workbooks, worksheets, decent curriculum or whatever is necessary. Curriculum don't necessarly need to be the latest and greatest. It appears around here some new schools have been built. When building new schools, they could use natural light to help cut down on power bills, that would save a ton of money right there. But you could not do that with older buildings it would cost more than it would save. I don't begin to know how to save money in a public school system. I just think it is sad in order to save they choose to skimp in the classroom.

[justamouse]

This is what's happening in Jersey

 

http://www.thecartelmovie.com/

[JulieJ]

I totally agree.Here in our district they are cutting 7 more teachers for next year so the class size is going to get bigger yet again. The district already charges a book rent for each student which can run into the hundreds so where is the money going?

[nova147]

Here in Illinois, the state just stopped sending money to the districts. Just stopped. They took our tax dollars, promised to use them for education, and then did something else with them. Our local high school has a sign out front (you know the kind - they change it to tell you what is happening each week) that has been keeping track of what the state owes them. Last week they changed it to $5 MILLION! Five million dollars? To ONE district? It blows my mind. (BTW, we're not that big a district -- less than 50,000 people live in my town.)

[Crimson Wife]

Cushy pensions and retiree health benefits eat up a tremendous portion of the budget. My MIL is a retired schoolteacher and it's ridiculous the kind of pension & health insurance she gets. She was eligible to retire at 57 (though she didn't actually decide to retire until she was 59) and receives a guaranteed annual amount of around 75% of her final salary, with cost-of-living adjustments every 5 years. This is in addition to Social Security. And she gets 90% of the premium paid for family health insurance up until both she and my FIL are eligible for Medicare. Private sector companies did away with these kind of cushy retirement benefits 25 years ago. You're lucky if your employer offers family health coverage to current employees and a 401k contribution match.

[swimmermom3]

Cushy pensions and retiree health benefits eat up a tremendous portion of the budget. My MIL is a retired schoolteacher and it's ridiculous the kind of pension & health insurance she gets. She was eligible to retire at 57 (though she didn't actually decide to retire until she was 59) and receives a guaranteed annual amount of around 75% of her final salary, with cost-of-living adjustments every 5 years. This is in addition to Social Security. And she gets 90% of the premium paid for family health insurance up until both she and my FIL are eligible for Medicare. Private sector companies did away with these kind of cushy retirement benefits 25 years ago. You're lucky if your employer offers family health coverage to current employees and a 401k contribution match.

 

Oh, oh, oh! Don't get me started. Several years ago when I was in our local MBA program, a student asked one of my more outspoken professors what he thought of Oregon's Pers program. Now remember, this is a tenured professor at a state university. His comment was, "Personally, it's great. I'm tenured. If I'm a lousy teacher, there is nothing you can do about it. And I'll leave here with large amounts of money."

 

He gave us a Machiavellian grin and queried, "Or are you asking what I think of it as a business practice?" "Well, if you want to drive a private sector business into the ground quickly, just adopt our state model." Ouch!

[Jeannie in NJ]

here in South Jersey and I assume it is the same in the rest of the state, they are slashing the budgets llike crazy, numerous teacher layoffs, cutting sports in middle school, summer school, afterschool buses may get cut. My son is in a wonderful special education program where he is thriving in a self-contained classroom with 9 students and one teacher and 3 or 4 aides (some of the kids in the class have severe needs and have an aide just for them, my ds shares an aide with a couple of other kids. I hope special ed. will be immune to the cuts. This is the 2nd year that my son (age 12) has been in this program and he has a huge improvement in his learning.

[Rosy]

Well, I will say that I'm not one to support tax increases for public schools. I am already paying over $3000/year. Schools get in the neighborhood of $10,000/year per kid. There has to be a way to lower costs and still provide a quality education. What about giving parents a mileage reimbursement for transporting neighbor kids instead of providing expensive school buses? Forcing textbook publishers to stop updating editions every other year? Getting rid of teachers' unions? Better utilizing volunteers? There are so many cost-saving measure than can be put in place. I'm not saying it's simple or that all approaches will work in all districts, but I also won't improve a tax increase until I see a genuine effort to use the current budget more wisely. If I can educate my kids for under $1000 a year for 3 of them, I'm sure there's room for improvement.

 

*ducking and running*

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

This is what's happening in Jersey

 

http://www.thecartelmovie.com/

 

I suspect this sort of corruption is happening all over the country:( I noted the charter school segment and the excellent performance. I do not think I agree with Diane Ravitch on charter schools.

[Pippen]

Well, I will say that I'm not one to support tax increases for public schools. I am already paying over $3000/year. Schools get in the neighborhood of $10,000/year per kid. There has to be a way to lower costs and still provide a quality education. *

 

Our district has had fairly rapid growth over the past 15 years so increasing taxes for school buildings has been important.

 

Where I'm seeing a lot of waste is in our district's quest to improve test scores. They decide on one course of action, train the teachers, buy materials, decide it's not good enough, so they go looking for something else. They're also constantly adding in more assessment programs. I saw it in our elementary school as we had a lot of at-risk students and now it's catching up to the junior highs. Last year they added a second language arts period for the middle school grades and now they're talking about totally revamping the lit classes for next year because one of the three middle schools is struggling in their reading test scores.

[RoughCollie]

In our former school district, they spent $12,000 per child, per year, and ran out of copy paper and had no money to buy more.

 

Due to budget constraints, the district charged $260 per year for a child to ride the school bus, unless the child received a free lunch (very few kids in that category).

 

They also charged a hefty sports fee (>$350) and a $150 activity fee for each activity a child was involved in.

 

I never could figure it out. Meanwhile, the parochial school nearby charged $5,000 per child per year, and had no nuns teaching for free. They needed the parents to supply copier paper too, but that was understandable.

 

Every year, there was a tax override on the ballot for the schools and "for the children". We always voted against it. Plus, the overrides that passed, that were supposed to cost each homeowner $75 a month, always added $200+ per month to the property tax bill.

Edited April 20, 2010 by RoughCollie

[Nicole M]

As to the copying... years ago, the workbook approach was thrown out along with "rote learning." So teachers started making photocopies instead. :confused:

 

I work at a college, and the amount of paper that is used on our music department copy machine is outrageous. Huge. It's an enormous cost each year, so I can see why that would be cut, as it's something that can be controlled, unlike, say, heat or fuel for driving busses.

 

But then, what will probably happen is that teachers will be spending their own money at Kinkos to make copies. My sister is a teacher and spends a great deal of her own money on supplies.

 

The whole thing is a mess. "It's a broken system," is what my sister always says. Sad.

[outtamyshell]

Our local high school has 'gone green'. Teachers have a very limited number of copies available. So they put all of their files online and the kids are expected to print them out. I think it's funny that they call it going green when each kid is expected to print a 30 page power point for a new chapter.

 

Our public schools are just bread and circus to keep people distracted.

[melissel]

ARGH! We have a vote here in NJ tomorrow about the school budgets, and I was just debating what to do about it. Our property taxes are already $7,200 a year! On the one hand, I agree that it shouldn't be skimped on, but on the other, like FaithManor said, it just keeps going up and up, while results keep spiraling downward. I feel like I shouldn't be supporting such a failing system. I'd rather take my $240 of extra taxes and using to keep our library systems up and running efficiently *sigh* I hate not voting, but I don't know what to do.

[at the beach]

I am a fan of John Taylor Gatto who has much to say about dumping more $ into the public schools.

 

As for the retirement packages, I know of a teacher who is receiving in excess of $50,000 per year pension plus the medical benefits on top of that. This is available to a teacher (I think) after thirty years service. That would potentially be at 52. :001_huh:

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Yesterday I was told that locally teachers are no longer allowed to make any copies of any kind, the copy machine and paper are off limits to teachers. I could see setting limits, but cutting it out entirely? .

Have they discontinued copying or have they stopped letting teachers teachers use the copy machines? There is a difference. Maybe the district is trying to stop abuse of the copy machines. Perhaps copying requests are submitted to the secretaries and the secretaries do the copying, that way the number and types of copying jobs can be monitored and costs can be reduced.

 

There is a lot of photocopying waste in the schools. When I volunteered in the public schools teachers would copy things because they thought the pages were interesting, not because they were relevant. These pages might or might not be distributed to the students. Teachers would over copy - instead of making the 30 copies needed for hte class they would make 40 or more. At the end of the year the recycle bins were full of photocopies that were never used. There were teachers who would copy items for personal use, like magazine articles, recipes, garage sale notices, handouts for their daughters Brownie troop. I am not saying that all teachers abuse photocopying privileges but it does happen.

[angela in ohio]

We are in the middle of this. Dh is an administrator, and his district is down about $5 million in the last few years. He is just minutes from an ulcer over cutting his budget. Several random factors:

 

1. They don't spend an equal amount per child. The child with a one-on-one aide (more and more common) and several therapy sessions a week costs the district much, much more than they recieve for that child. So you can't look at it as the same amount spent on each child.

 

2. Some school districts cut things that will tick people off on purpose. They cut things that the parents will see as silly (paper) or that people will rally around (sports) in an effort to garner support for more funding.

 

3. The teachers' union is fierce. They would rather have no paper and their friends fired than pay $20 out of pocket per month for health care. In our state, they financially control their own health insurance plan, so the rates are higher, but no competition is allowed, as the unions fight it.

[MomLovesClassics]

Have they discontinued copying or have they stopped letting teachers teachers use the copy machines?

Teachers are not allowed to use copy machines, and can not make any copies. copy machine and paper is off limits.

[Pippen]

We are in the middle of this. Dh is an administrator, and his district is down about $5 million in the last few years. He is just minutes from an ulcer over cutting his budget. Several random factors:QUOTE]

 

I can imagine what a headache he has! Our district had to cut about $7.5 million from next year's budget, and still get two new schools up and running.

 

One of the big problems I've seen here is that they make these cuts, but when the budget eases up they start spending again, but not necessarily on important things that were previously cut. We live in a state that doesn't make it's payments all the time. It's not right, but it's the state of things and that's never built into the financial planning.

 

I strongly believe in funding public education but you don't want to get me started on waste. We actually have a full-time administrator to run the districtwide behavioral program (aka incentive program).

[Penelope]

 

1. They don't spend an equal amount per child. The child with a one-on-one aide (more and more common) and several therapy sessions a week costs the district much, much more than they recieve for that child. So you can't look at it as the same amount spent on each child.

 

This is what came to mind when I saw this thread. All the IEP stuff and the extra aids cost a huge amount of money. And it seems that every other kid has a diagnosis these days. Not that they shouldn't receive help, but

I would rather see charitable foundations set up to raise money independently and work with public schools to provide services for special needs children. For one, I bet they would actually be able to get more funds that way, and I think there's quite a good chance the funds would be better managed and allocated, and parents would have more of an influence.

 

Maybe I'm naive. But it seems innovative ideas in ps are sorely needed.

[angela in ohio]

We are in the middle of this. Dh is an administrator, and his district is down about $5 million in the last few years. He is just minutes from an ulcer over cutting his budget. Several random factors:QUOTE]

 

I can imagine what a headache he has! Our district had to cut about $7.5 million from next year's budget, and still get two new schools up and running.

 

One of the big problems I've seen here is that they make these cuts, but when the budget eases up they start spending again, but not necessarily on important things that were previously cut. We live in a state that doesn't make it's payments all the time. It's not right, but it's the state of things and that's never built into the financial planning.

 

I strongly believe in funding public education but you don't want to get me started on waste. We actually have a full-time administrator to run the districtwide behavioral program (aka incentive program).

 

Until dh became a principal, I used to think there must be so much fat to trim at the top. Granted his school district operates on a leaner administration than most, but still, the administrators are overworked in his district. The sheer number of forms, reports, evaluations, decisions, etc. that must be handled on a daily basis are staggering. Some of it is nonsense required by the government, but most of it is just what it takes to run an organization: you hire and evaluate (and discipline) teachers and other employees, you buy curriculum, you send out reports to parents, you keep records, etc. It takes a lot of work to do it correctly. Each administrator works 60 plus hours for less than they would make for a comparable job in the private sector.

[Sandra in FL]

Cushy pensions and retiree health benefits eat up a tremendous portion of the budget. My MIL is a retired schoolteacher and it's ridiculous the kind of pension & health insurance she gets. She was eligible to retire at 57 (though she didn't actually decide to retire until she was 59) and receives a guaranteed annual amount of around 75% of her final salary, with cost-of-living adjustments every 5 years. This is in addition to Social Security. And she gets 90% of the premium paid for family health insurance up until both she and my FIL are eligible for Medicare. Private sector companies did away with these kind of cushy retirement benefits 25 years ago. You're lucky if your employer offers family health coverage to current employees and a 401k contribution match.

 

I totally agree with this. I think that in the city of Miami, 20% of collected revenues go toward pensions and retirees' health insurance. This is not even counting current employees' salaries, expenses, etc.

 

The governor just vetoed a bill tying teachers' performance to pay. I'm all for the model in some European country (Belgium - I think) where the money follows the student and so the schools compete for the students. It's very efficient and the kids get top-notch education for very little.

 

I worked for the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (4th largest district in the country) for 12 years before home schooling. You would not believe the waste that goes on. They have 3 people cross trained so that if you go on vacation there's always a backup. I got 5 weeks of vacation after working for 2 1/2 years. This is not counting getting 13 days of legal holidays, 10 days of sick leave and 2 days of personal leave every year. I went on maternity leave for a year, then personal leave for another year, then maternity leave for second ds. That's 3 years of paid health and legal benefits free. The teachers' union is very strong, and this is where a lot of the money is going - not to the students.

 

In contrast, my dh who works in private industry has no backup. He is the only computer person in the whole company. When we go on vacation, his laptop goes with us into Disney World. The company runs on the bare minimum so it can to stay afloat.

 

We won't talk about the very high medical deductible that each family member has. Basically only ds with medical problems uses our insurance because only he will reach the deductible. The rest of the family pays cash (cheaper because the doc doesn't have to deal with the insurance company) even though we also have to pay for the family health insurance premium.

 

To cap it all off, it's like vacation for the kids after FCATs (in March) are over. Ds goes to science class at the local ps, and the last 2 days have been spent watching Tom and Jerry and Johnny Test. I guess one could think about the force with which Tom hits Jerry with the frying pan and see some science in that. This is at an A-rated school too. Dd, in eighth grade, said one of her class-mates (in either Biology Honors or Civics Honors gifted) doesn't know how to do long division.

 

A friend of mine teaches Chinese in a public high school. She has to spend 20 minutes of every class doing FCAT prep, and she has to know the rubric and correct the essays herself. This is so that the all-important FCAT scores will earn the school a high grade. So each class, whether it's Chinese, Biology, etc. has to do this (in her high school).

 

This is not isolated to the school system but to almost every gov't agency. Sooner or later, some gov't (eg California) will be in trouble, might head toward bankruptcy, shed debt and start over. This is what dh's company did.

 

Sorry for the long rant,

Sandra

[pqr]

If public schools were actually providing children with a real education I would strongly oppose cuts but as the system is a disaster one can only hope that a dose of reality will recage some heads over there and have them concentrate on teaching children.

 

Cut away!!!!

 

Drop back to the "3 Rs".... teach children.... stop spying with web cams.... stop using schools as a social experiment.... stop the stupidity and when you have done that you may ask us to take more money out of our pockets.

 

Remember taxpayer dollars paid the salary of the teachers who used web cams to spy on students. Taxpayer dollars also pay for those failing schools out there and, as schools refuse to be accountable for their actions, I see no problem in demanding some fiscal responsibility.

[TravelingChris]

To Sandra, yes it is Belgium where the money follows the child and it really does work a lot better,

 

The health benefits and pension benefits are part of the very big problem. They are at a level that isn't sustainable.

 

I always vote no on school bonds and tax increases. I don't single out the schools either. I voted for almost 20 years in California. We would always be having bond issues for everything. Dh and I would consistently vote no. They would consistently be passes. Now CA has very serious financial difficulties mainly because of all the bonds that were passed.

 

I see that children get educated with very little money. WHile I know that special ed costs more, I don't see a problem with large classes. My older brother went to a very large first grade classroom at a Catholic school and everyone was reading by Christmas. I think the classroom had 38 kids. I know my brother didn't suffer any ill effects from it.

[applesing]

This is what came to mind when I saw this thread. All the IEP stuff and the extra aids cost a huge amount of money. And it seems that every other kid has a diagnosis these days. Not that they shouldn't receive help, but

I would rather see charitable foundations set up to raise money independently and work with public schools to provide services for special needs children. For one, I bet they would actually be able to get more funds that way, and I think there's quite a good chance the funds would be better managed and allocated, and parents would have more of an influence.

 

Maybe I'm naive. But it seems innovative ideas in ps are sorely needed.

 

I remember when I attended public school, prior to the mainstreaming movement. My cousin had special learning needs, and she was able to go to special education classes. The classes were taught on her level and taught her valuable skills that she uses to this day. She had a wonderful experience. I am sure that these classes must have had a better student/teacher ratio than the average class, but I cannot imagine that there was 1 teacher for each special education student. However, her teachers had degrees in special education, and I'm sure that was beneficial to the students.

 

Today our local schools have an aide for each special needs student. This is very, very expensive, and it is breaking the system financially. And I do not see that mainstreaming is educationally beneficial to any of the students. I definitely think that my cousin received a better education in her special education classes than similar learners are receiving today. Being in cognitively appropriate classes did not harm my cousin socially, either; rather, she is well adjusted and has a variety of friends.

 

I also think that mainstreaming makes the teacher's job very difficult -- meeting the needs of such a wide variety of students is nearly impossible. I think that the schools could save money and offer a better education to all if they would limit mainstreaming.

[bettyandbob]

The deal with pensions is that when a person takes on the career of teacher, they know they will never have the salary potential of people with equivalent degrees and years of experience in their field. As a result they will never have the saving potential either. That's why the pensions are so nice. And really they should be protected. My neighbor is a physics teacher, he has a doctorate, he was a state teacher of the year a few years back. On his salary he'd never be able to save enough in a retirement account to actually retire. I guess some people would like to get into an argument over which teachers actually deserve the pension, but that's not doable.

 

Special ed teacher positions should be maintained--the teacher ratio for spec ed students is set by federal law. So, any changes to class sizes can only be made in regular ed classes. There is a federal reimbursement for each sp ed student to the district, but I'm sure in some districts it does not cover the full cost of services.

 

I just read the post about dropping sp ed funding. I do not want to return to the dark ages of pre 1975 federal law requiring school districts to serve all children.

Edited April 21, 2010 by betty

[applesing]

I was a teacher, once upon a time. I found the job to be extremely stressful and exhausting. Being a good teacher is very draining! I have immense respect for people who can do the job well for several years.

 

When I left my teaching position, I took a huge pay cut. I also took a huge cut in health and retirement benefits. I also never had my summers off in later positions.

 

All that to say . . . teaching is hard work, and teachers should definitely be compensated. But it is possible, in light of the number of days off that teachers enjoy, that some compensation cuts could be considered during difficult economic times. The unions are so powerful. A free market educational system would not sustain the level of compensation and time off that teachers currently enjoy.

 

I say this as a daughter of a career GM factory employee whose family enjoyed incredible health benefits and my father's outstanding salary. My dad was compensated way above market level for his skill set. Look at what that compensation system has done to the automobile manufacturers. I am concerned that our country is going to suffer greatly from its overspending, and I certainly include education in that overspending.

 

That said, I certainly do not think that educators' salaries should be cut severely. But when our economy is suffering so drastically, I think that everyone should think creatively when considering budget cuts.

[justamouse]

ARGH! We have a vote here in NJ tomorrow about the school budgets, and I was just debating what to do about it. Our property taxes are already $7,200 a year! On the one hand, I agree that it shouldn't be skimped on, but on the other, like FaithManor said, it just keeps going up and up, while results keep spiraling downward. I feel like I shouldn't be supporting such a failing system. I'd rather take my $240 of extra taxes and using to keep our library systems up and running efficiently *sigh* I hate not voting, but I don't know what to do.

 

I pay 13k a year in taxes now, and in more wealthy parts of the state (Hunterdon Ctny) people pay 40-50 thousand a year in taxes.

 

I am seriously thinking of going back to school, finishing up some stuff and opening up a charter school. Esp with what I've learned homeschooling.

[LibraryLover]

I paid nearly 16k the last year my oldest child was in private school, and they got far more than the kids in the local (nice) public school did. We didn't have a single class that had more than 16 children. Parents supplied pens, pencils, notebooks, lunches (no caf) etc. My town, at the time, was spending about 8k per pupil, and I had no idea how they managed. Nobody was getting rich at our little school, and with most parents heavily involved with the school and their children. It was rare to see a child who wasn't getting some support at home. I saw how much it took for our school to maintain it's buildings and grounds, pay it's teachers, offer interesting programming (cannoing, Latin, Spanish etc) plus do such a good job with the majority of children.

 

Catholic schools depend on funding from the diocese, and do not have to use tuition money to pay for upkeep of buildings etc. Oftentimes, too, Catholic schools pay very little in teacher salaries, and there aren't very many frills. Classes can be quite large as well.

 

I am sure there is waste in public school. Yet I do I think it takes a ton of money to make sure all kids, no matter their special needs etc, get some kind of education. Esp when so many families are so poor, or have money but are neglectful. Public schools turn few away. I am betting special services take a huge chunk of money. That the occasional superindendant steals is not surprising. People steal from companies all the time.

 

I often wonder how any school can inexpensively do the job they are asked to do; or even with any amount of money, really? I am continually impressed by public schools who make any of this work. The majority of kids are public -schooled. If you pick up a newpaper and see some great accomplishment by a young person, the odds still favor schooled kids...simply because they are the majority. It's amazing they even do what they do.

 

It seems nearly an impossible job.

 

In our former school district, they spent $12,000 per child, per year, and ran out of copy paper and had no money to buy more.

 

Due to budget constraints, the district charged $260 per year for a child to ride the school bus, unless the child received a free lunch (very few kids in that category).

 

They also charged a hefty sports fee (>$350) and a $150 activity fee for each activity a child was involved in.

 

I never could figure it out. Meanwhile, the parochial school nearby charged $5,000 per child per year, and had no nuns teaching for free. They needed the parents to supply copier paper too, but that was understandable.

 

Every year, there was a tax override on the ballot for the schools and "for the children". We always voted against it. Plus, the overrides that passed, that were supposed to cost each homeowner $75 a month, always added $200+ per month to the property tax bill.

Edited April 21, 2010 by LibraryLover

[LibraryLover]

double post, sorry.

[mommycheryl]

The governor just vetoed a bill tying teachers' performance to pay.

 

I'm actually a little sad that didn't pass. I was in FL over spring break and there was a lengthy article about this bill in the paper. I know it wasn't a perfect system, an if NC implemented it it would probably mean less new material and more time spent on End of Grade exam prep, but we have some very bad teachers at our school (like one where kids went to the principal about her not teaching them enough) that stayed when we cut teachers last year because they had tenure. Completely nutty system.