"6th graders in the richest school districts are 4 grade levels ahead of children in the poorest districts."

[SparklyUnicorn]

And no, it's not racism. In the ghetto(s) I was in in the inner city, yes it was mostly black and some Latino. But in high school, when I was in the rural equivalent of the ghetto, it was mostly white, partly black. And in both instances, the cursing and sexual knowledge is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a completely different way of life, and that way of life does not prioritize healthy and well adjusted children.

 

Right only those in the ghetto know about cursing and sex. 

 

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say well-to-do kids also know about cursing and sex.

[*lifeoftheparty*]

...

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by *lifeoftheparty*

[ChocolateReignRemix]

No, they have an intellectual difficiency because half of their vocabulary consists of curse words and slang, and instead of being read to they are listening to gangsta rap, and instead of watching Sesame Street they are watching whatever trash television the older people are watching. They aren't being fed nutritious foods, nor getting proper sleep- all of which have an affect on your IQ and ability to learn.

 

Irony at its finest.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

It's not JUST knowing about it. It's when it's ALL they are taught. It's when it's glorified and modeled.

 

Forget it... this is why "they" keep spending millions of dollars throwing money at schools and nothing changes. All the studies show that these kids from these areas are failing, and are the main victims of the school to prison pipeline, yet NO ONE wants to even look at WHAT underlying issues are behind it. Because racism. Let's just throw more money at the problem, and blame the teachers. That will fix it.

 

Except that the underlying issues are discussed, but addressing them adequately is difficult due to systemic racism and classism.

[SparklyUnicorn]

It's not JUST knowing about it. It's when it's ALL they are taught. It's when it's glorified and modeled.

 

Forget it... this is why "they" keep spending millions of dollars throwing money at schools and nothing changes. All the studies show that these kids from these areas are failing, and are the main victims of the school to prison pipeline, yet NO ONE wants to even look at WHAT underlying issues are behind it. Because racism. Let's just throw more money at the problem, and blame the teachers. That will fix it.

 

Oh so when they go to school they get a full curriculum in the basics of cursing, pornography, and drug dealing?

 

I did not know that.  That sounds like a very unique curriculum.

 

I think this is very unfair.  I believe you that some people live in some crappy environments, but you really need to take people one at a time and not assume all of this for each and every one of them.

 

 

[hornblower]

I don't think anyone is saying that all people living in poverty are living lives of addicts and criminals. But it's also not fair to dismiss that this is true for some. 

I did several breastfeeding sessions with at risk mothers, through a program that was designed to provide parenting support. I'm in a large area with a fairly vibrant social service network, public health programs, and numerous outreach programs to assist families facing significant barriers. 

It was extremely eye opening. Some of us needed debriefing afterwards. 

The social workers told us it was nothing compared to what they were dealing with in the poorer neighbourhoods, or in some smaller or more disadvantaged communities. 

I've read reports that here it is estimated that about 20% of mothers who require social service intervention have clinical alcohol abuse problems, and another ~15% have other substance abuse issues. If they're clean, their partners or family members possibly are not, or their friends aren't. It's just such a hard thing to break out of. Some of them choose to just walk away but for many, it's just impossible, especially when it's deeply interwoven with cultural/ethnic identity. They can't really distance themselves too much from their communities but the communities are not very supportive & sometimes are outright disruptive. 

The moms face multiple barriers - lack of education, substance abuse, mental illness, young age. They are trying hard but I think it was very, very difficult for them. The children were frequently difficult children, kwim? Some may have had fetal exposure, some had health problems. It takes a lot of patience and skill to cope with parenting a child with additional needs. So many supports are needed for these families.... 

[SparklyUnicorn]

No doubt..no doubt at all. 

My city that I thought had major issues is looking better by the minute here. 

 

 

I don't think anyone is saying that all people living in poverty are living lives of addicts and criminals. But it's also not fair to dismiss that this is true for some. 

I did several breastfeeding sessions with at risk mothers, through a program that was designed to provide parenting support. I'm in a large area with a fairly vibrant social service network, public health programs, and numerous outreach programs to assist families facing significant barriers. 

It was extremely eye opening. Some of us needed debriefing afterwards. 

The social workers told us it was nothing compared to what they were dealing with in the poorer neighbourhoods, or in some smaller or more disadvantaged communities. 

I've read reports that here it is estimated that about 20% of mothers who require social service intervention have clinical alcohol abuse problems, and another ~15% have other substance abuse issues. If they're clean, their partners or family members possibly are not, or their friends aren't. It's just such a hard thing to break out of. Some of them choose to just walk away but for many, it's just impossible, especially when it's deeply interwoven with cultural/ethnic identity. They can't really distance themselves too much from their communities but the communities are not very supportive & sometimes are outright disruptive. 

The moms face multiple barriers - lack of education, substance abuse, mental illness, young age. They are trying hard but I think it was very, very difficult for them. The children were frequently difficult children, kwim? Some may have had fetal exposure, some had health problems. It takes a lot of patience and skill to cope with parenting a child with additional needs. So many supports are needed for these families.... 

 

[*lifeoftheparty*]

...

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by *lifeoftheparty*

[*lifeoftheparty*]

..

 

Edited December 18, 2016 by *lifeoftheparty*

[hornblower]

fwiw, lifeoftheparty, I hear what you're saying.  There is a reason for the 30 million word gap & it's not all just because mom and dad are busy working 3 jobs. 

Some of it is systemic. 

Some of it is cultural. 

Some of it is personal. 

It's complicated. 

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I don't think anyone is saying that all people living in poverty are living lives of addicts and criminals. But it's also not fair to dismiss that this is true for some. 

 

I did several breastfeeding sessions with at risk mothers, through a program that was designed to provide parenting support. I'm in a large area with a fairly vibrant social service network, public health programs, and numerous outreach programs to assist families facing significant barriers. 

 

It was extremely eye opening. Some of us needed debriefing afterwards. 

 

The social workers told us it was nothing compared to what they were dealing with in the poorer neighbourhoods, or in some smaller or more disadvantaged communities. 

 

I've read reports that here it is estimated that about 20% of mothers who require social service intervention have clinical alcohol abuse problems, and another ~15% have other substance abuse issues. If they're clean, their partners or family members possibly are not, or their friends aren't. It's just such a hard thing to break out of. Some of them choose to just walk away but for many, it's just impossible, especially when it's deeply interwoven with cultural/ethnic identity. They can't really distance themselves too much from their communities but the communities are not very supportive & sometimes are outright disruptive. 

 

The moms face multiple barriers - lack of education, substance abuse, mental illness, young age. They are trying hard but I think it was very, very difficult for them. The children were frequently difficult children, kwim? Some may have had fetal exposure, some had health problems. It takes a lot of patience and skill to cope with parenting a child with additional needs. So many supports are needed for these families.... 

 

I mentioned the substance abuse issue earlier, but is a factor that has to be addressed.  Combine that with the fact that young men in some areas are likely to have a criminal record before age 21, and you have a self perpetuating cycle.

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Well off districts definitely have their complex problems.  My father's boss (years ago) stretched himself to move his kids to a well off district.  He and his wife worked several jobs to make that happen.  He figured good district equals success for his kids. Drug use and addiction were pretty common (heroine being the drug of choice).  So kids ending up in rehab wasn't unusual.  But from the outside none of this is as obvious because in large part the people living in that area had the money to deal with their kid being in such situations (and this is not just about the drug addiction because often that turns into their kids committing crimes to get more drugs).  Again, the district is one of the best in terms of results.  All three of his kids wound up with drug problems.  But they didn't get bailed out nor sent to nice rehab centers because their parents didn't have a dime more to deal with it.  They were already stretched thin.  We knew that family well and watched this whole thing play out over many years.  All three kids dropped out.  One ran away and nobody ever heard form her again.  One died from a heroine overdose.  The other has struggled on and off for years with addiction and hasn't held down a real job.

 

 

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Well off districts definitely have their complex problems.  My father's boss (years ago) stretched himself to move his kids to a well off district.  He and his wife worked several jobs to make that happen.  He figured good district equals success for his kids. Drug use and addiction were pretty common (heroine being the drug of choice).  So kids ending up in rehab wasn't unusual.  But from the outside none of this is as obvious because in large part the people living in that area had the money to deal with their kid being in such situations (and this is not just about the drug addiction because often that turns into their kids committing crimes to get more drugs).  Again, the district is one of the best in terms of results.  All three of his kids wound up with drug problems.  But they didn't get bailed out nor sent to nice rehab centers because their parents didn't have a dime more to deal with it.  They were already stretched thin.  We knew that family well and watched this whole thing play out over many years.  All three kids dropped out.  One ran away and nobody ever heard form her again.  One died from a heroine overdose.  The other has struggled on and off for years with addiction and hasn't held down a real job.

 

Drug abuse can have an impact on any area, but it disproportionately affects lower income communities.  And as you point out, a lack of resources to help address the issue means the outcomes are often worse.

[SparklyUnicorn]

My point being that well off doesn't mean this does not happen a lot.  It means kids get bailed out and supported a lot more.  So if you grow up poor and get involved with this crap, that's it.  Nobody is going to bail you out.  So we are in a sense led to believe that somehow the poor kids are weaker and we presume it's crappy families.  It might not be that at all.  It's just they don't have anyone bailing them out and giving them chances to succeed.

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Drug abuse can have an impact on any area, but it disproportionately affects lower income communities.  And as you point out, a lack of resources to help address the issue means the outcomes are often worse.

 

Really, I imagine poor kids are more likely to get caught up in dealing drugs than taking drugs. 

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Really, I imagine poor kids are more likely to get caught up in dealing drugs than taking drugs. 

 

Earlier I wasn't referencing the kids as much as the adults having substance abuse problems.

[Murphy101]

We can accept those kids are being raised in a different culture. (I often refer to my FOO as being from an alternate universe, so their lives understandably make no more sense to me than meeting someone from an alien planet would.)

 

I have no problem with saying these things are tremendous difficulties to bridging the culture differences so we can provide genuine education and opportunities to those kids.

 

I have a big problem with writing children off bc they come from a culture I can't understand and saying those parents don't love their kids.

 

Especially as I know for a fact, the biggest difference between the ghetto and the rich district is often nothing more than one has a pretty and polite facade, which makes them acceptable.

 

Porn, drugs, cussing, having kids by multiple partners and more are a daily part of a lot of rich educated people's lives. But hey, in public they are polite so I guess it's okay. And even if they aren't, well geez, that's embarrassing and sad, we shouldn't send them to prison, they will just go to a really nice treatment spa. And they almost never have their children taken away or have it suggested they didn't love their kids.

[Reefgazer]

In our district, this funding situation is true; the poor neighborhood schools are getting the same as the wealthier neighborhood schools.  However, the money was spent differently.  Poorer schools were more likely to have physical facilities that were old and decrepit, so they cost more to maintain than the schools in wealthier neighborhoods.  That left less total money for actually educating kids than in wealthier schools.  Maybe that is one reason for the data.

I found a chart somewhere in the last year that compared the funding of schools in high vs average vs low poverty districts. It was broken down by state. People are always saying schools in poor areas are severely underfunded, but almost across the board, the chart showed it wasn't true. They were getting statistically the same per student funded as the rest. Now perhaps they need more to hire more remedial/special ed teachers, but the idea that they are spending maybe half of what the rich districts spend doesn't seem to be true.

 

[Murphy101]

In our district, this funding situation is true; the poor neighborhood schools are getting the same as the wealthier neighborhood schools. However, the money was spent differently. Poorer schools were more likely to have physical facilities that were old and decrepit, so they cost more to maintain than the schools in wealthier neighborhoods. That left less total money for actually educating kids than in wealthier schools. Maybe that is one reason for the data.

Right. And someone else already mentioned that state funding is just part of the funding schools get. In wealthier districts, they get a LOT private funding. They have big companies donating materials and sponsoring things. Ghetto schools just don't get much if any of that comparably.

[Joker]

I just don't believe that poor districts get as much. It hasn't played out that way anywhere we have lived. Where we are at now is ridiculous. We had to move quickly and didn't do enough research but we landed in the least diverse place we've ever been in. Just a bit up the road is a district much more diverse and with lots less money.

 

Our district is putting in a 10 million dollar student center next year at the high school. Yes, 10 million! It's basically only for athletes as it will have an indoor track, larger weight room, four basketball courts, and I forget what else. The school itself already has a weight room, an indoor pool, and two indoor gymnasiums. It wasn't voted on and they say it won't raise taxes. I have no idea how that can be but we're new here. Those around us and who are from here don't see the big deal. 

[luuknam]

Think what you want. I was a "hood rat" my junior/senior year of high school, and college, before I joined the military. I saw first hand how kids in the inner city are raised. I saw young children left alone all day while the mom worked, and then left alone at night when they went out. Mom had kids by 2-4 different guys. I saw the crap they ate, the filth they lived in. I saw them watching hardcore porn with their drug dealing cousins.

 

I was there when my boyfriends mother woke him up at 3:00 am because their was someone outside wanting to buy crack, and he "needed to go make that sale!" Getting a taste of that crap was one of the biggest reasons I left Atlanta and joined the military.

 

We're all families like that? No. There were families with a mom and a dad, who had clean houses, and standards. But they were the exception, not the rule. And there were nice people- but they truly saw nothing wrong with elementary age kids watching porn, and cursing, and being around drugs. And that is why those kids will never make it out of the ghetto, and don't care about education, and why no amount of money will fix the schools. You need to fix the families.

 

A curse word here and there is nothing. Having your kids listen to explicit sexual music is an indication that you don't care that much about your childs well being, IMO.

 

You're missing the context. The context was someone judging a family on seeing them ONCE, just because they had explicit music on while driving up to the park in a poor neighborhood. I'm sure there are plenty of people who horribly neglect their kids, etc, but that does not mean that explicit music = terrible parenting or not caring for their child's well-being.

 

Now, I think the cited lyrics were too much (wouldn't want to listen to it myself), but my kids are familiar with e.g. Eminem. I'm sure I'm a terrible parent though, and that everybody should be able to conclude that in the time it takes me to get the kids out of the car at the local park.

[vonfirmath]

This also makes me wonder about parent involvement at school. When I was in primary mum and various other mums went in to do readers a couple of times a week with all kids. I know child protection policies have made this harder as well as increased family working hours. I wonder how much impact that has.

 

Its pitiful. We REALLY struggle to get parents to volunteer/come to PTO meetings. All of it. If it weren't for high school kids needing volunteer hours (for honor society, maybe even just graduation?) We could not do most of our events.  Teachers also volunteer more in order to enable stuff to happen.

[ElizabethB]

I grew up in a school that was working class poor, there were many children who got free lunch, many of my friends were latchkey kids, we almost all wore toughskins, because they were cheap and indestructible. A new kid came to our school trying to make fun of us for wearing toughskins saying we weren't cool. We looked at them like they were crazy. (Demographics, statistics, anyone?!?!!) We learned to read in K with the "I See Sam" series and when I saw that it was implemented in primarily Title I schools, I asked my dad (he was a schoolteacher in a nearby district) if my school was Title I. He said, not quite, LOL. Here is the research on the "I See Sam" series in K, a good phonics series, so not only are we looking at K reading when 1st grade was the norm, but phonics when there were a lot of whole word programs going on. From the report, "...there were about one-third fewer functionally illiterate high school seniors among those who received reading instruction in kindergarten as compared to those who did not. Then, they say, "For these students to be even comparable to higher social class groups, who did not receive kindergarten reading instruction, would be a signifiant accomplishment. The fact that they read better overall and that there were substantially fewer students in the functionally illiterate group is quite surprising." (p. 926) All the kids I grew up with in elementary school could read well, much better than the children taught with balanced literacy today.

 

http://www.3rsplus.com/documents/The_Long-term_Effects_000.pdf

 

Literacy is more highly correlated with earnings than IQ:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/profitable.html

 

When poor methods are used, it hurts the poor and minorities more. ELL because they don't read the language, people with generational illiteracy can't teach the phonics their children are missing or the math they don't understand and don't have money for tutoring. The literacy differences for minorities are sad:

 

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Phonics/litpercent.html

 

And yet, my minority and poor students have made the fastest gains when I have worked with them. (Usually because they have less of a sight word guessing habit to overcome so once they are taught well, they improve faster, the upside of your parents not having the time/knowledge to work with you when sight words are sent home for homework!!)

 

Tutoring growth is crazy, as the methods get worse, more and more people turn to tutoring which hurts those who cannot afford it. I can't find current stats, but here is a good quote and an article from 2011, "The 'supplemental education' sector is now an estimated $5 billion business, 10 times as large as it was in 2001, according to Michael Sandler, founder of education-research and consulting firm Eduventures."

 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/behind-americas-tutor-boom-1318016970246

 

There are many reasons for the difference, but one of the saddest but easiest to fix if the will were there is that poor methods are making the poor poorer. It is cheap to fix, too, you could teach Blend Phonics from a white board for a few dollars per class. You can work on vocabulary that way, too, they focus on one word at a time and take turns making oral sentences from the word, if they don't know the word, the teacher makes a sentence for it. There are a ton of good free phonics programs you could teach from a white board. Heck, the first few "I See Sam" books are free to print, too!! They worked for me and all my friends in toughskins. Unfortunately, the ed schools are enamored with whole language and sight words and have ignored the evidence for years, although the new brain research is even more compelling in favor of phonics and against sight words.

Edited May 6, 2016 by ElizabethB

[ElizabethB]

Wow, it has been a while since I read that report...you all HAVE to look at the chart on page 927, I will link it here again. The report is based on the use of a program they call various acronyms but is known here as "I See Sam" (a good, cute phonics program that is free to print!!)

 

http://www.3rsplus.com/documents/The_Long-term_Effects_000.pdf

 

There were 10.5% fewer Asian illiterate students, 13.5% few Black illiterate students, 7% fewer hispanic, 2% "other" (which included white students) 9% "low class," 6% "middle class" and 3.6% "High class" students in the I See Sam schools...so it was even more powerful for minorities and the poor, but helped everyone. They define illiterate here as reading below 5th grade level in High School, the students who had the program in K were assessed as high schoolers, along with comparison students in their high schools that went to elementary schools that did not use the program.

 

Here are the I See Sam books that were used in my K classes and are the books used in the report above, except they were cute primary colors for the covers:

 

http://www.marriottmd.com/sam/

 

So, I was already planning some stuff for this summer...anyone want to join me and Don Potter on a nationwide campaign to promote good phonics methods and put them in the hands of parents and teachers across the nation?

 

Don likes Blend Phonics for ease of use and simplicity and cost. I like it, too, but I do love the little I See Sam books and Webster's Speller, too.

 

Here is Don's Blend Phonics campaign page:

 

http://blendphonics.org

The purpose of this website is to promote Hazel Logan Loring’s 1980 Reading Made Easy with Blend Phonics for First Grade: Plus Blend Phonics Fluency Drills, as the definitive solution to the problem of illiteracy in The United States and other English speaking countries.

 

Edited May 6, 2016 by ElizabethB

[Elfknitter.#]

The kids in the richer districts do not do better just because they have more money. If you take a poor, failing child out of a poor district and put them in a rich one, chances are, they will still perform the same.

 

It is completely wrong to judge a school or teachers by the test scores. You can only judge the population of students for the test scores. My child would not likely perform as well if I stuck my child in an inner city district where it is seriously not ok for kids to care about reading and math and such. Kids will usually perform in a similar success level as their parents. And their parents will chose to live in a place that matches what they feel is important.

 

It is sort of like the time where there was a study saying kids who owned X number of books did so much better in school later on. So someone started a project to give books to all children. And it made no difference. It is a much bigger picture than that.

Just speechless.

[ElizabethB]

Here is a good website for ordering color copies of the I See Sam books and reading about the books, their history, and the research behind them.

 

http://www.3rsplus.com

[DawnM]

I think they could.  I think part of it is people not valuing education.  That could be in part because some people don't see education as helping them in any real way. 

 

This is a huge part of it.

 

I worked in inner city schools for over 16 years and I am about to head back to an inner city school (my choice, I feel that I make the most difference there and that is very valuable to me).  

 

The Asian parents I have had not only make sure their children are in school every day, but they sit their kids down at the kitchen table at night and make comments like, "I don't care if I don't understand the assignments or the language, you sit here from 4pm-6pm with the books open!"  I am not kidding.

 

The Latino parents often had to take care of other family members and valued family far more than education.  Students often had to stay home to watch younger siblings or cousins, or left the country for weeks at a time to go see family during school days.  At night students often had to help out with family things, particularly if the mother was working afternoons/evenings, the students had to cook, watch younger family members, clean, etc.....

 

The amount of homework I did NOT get back was astounding.  There was a period of time where I literally gave students homework ONLY in class because otherwise I wouldn't get it back.  But even before homeschooling I had the "we get them for 7 hours a day, surely they can learn what they need to learn in that amount of time" mentality.

 

Sometimes my Latino students would make a huge deal about how the Asian students ALWAYS got the As and were "smarter." I always made sure they knew they were absolutely just as capable, but that they needed to find the time to do the work as that was 90% of the issue.  It had nothing to do with intelligence being greater in the Asian community.

 

I am really excited to get back to work.

[DawnM]

I just don't believe that poor districts get as much. It hasn't played out that way anywhere we have lived. Where we are at now is ridiculous. We had to move quickly and didn't do enough research but we landed in the least diverse place we've ever been in. Just a bit up the road is a district much more diverse and with lots less money.

 

Our district is putting in a 10 million dollar student center next year at the high school. Yes, 10 million! It's basically only for athletes as it will have an indoor track, larger weight room, four basketball courts, and I forget what else. The school itself already has a weight room, an indoor pool, and two indoor gymnasiums. It wasn't voted on and they say it won't raise taxes. I have no idea how that can be but we're new here. Those around us and who are from here don't see the big deal. 

 

That has been my experience as well.  Poorer schools don't have the money to even fix things up, much less buy new materials, etc.....while wealthier areas do.  

 

When my kids went to school briefly (didn't even finish out the year) in 2007, they had so many fundraisers and other ways to bring in additional funds and rich parents happily participated.  Another thing they did was to send home a letter asking ALL FAMILIES to contribute $$300 for the year.  $100 would go toward library funding to get more books and such, and the other $200 went towards school improvement funds, like newer computers or whatever.

 

There are also businesses that will contribute money, like our expensive grocery store.  If you link your card, the school gets a percentage.  In the poorer areas, they don't even HAVE this nicer stores, much less the money to shop at them.

 

So, yes, it was not internal funding, that is state mandated, but they found ways to bring in lots of money.

 

The disparity between the wealthy schools and poorer area schools has always been great and has never been fixed.  When you see "look at these inner city kids and how well they are performing in this new charter school" pay close attention.  They only accept the brightest to begin with.  They only take students whose parents can get them there and back.   They can kick them out, unlike the local PS if they don't comply.

 

Michelle Rhee had some great ideas and I really thought she would help change things.  But then she was discredited and I have no idea if the allegations were accurate or not.  It makes me wonder if someone had it in for her, but I could be wrong.  Since then, and since the economy has had trouble and there are "more pressing" issues in our government, education has taken a HUGE backseat.   It needs to be on the forefront again or we are in huge trouble as a country with more and more poorly educated kids.  And it is with platitudes that we can say, "Well, not MY kid" but your kid will have to work with and deal with those who aren't homeschooled and don't have the education they need.

Edited May 6, 2016 by DawnM

[Carrie12345]

I wouldn't say it's just culture.

 

Free/close to free doesn't mean necessarily available. What if you live far from a library? And your parents are working multiple jobs to hopefully pay the bills? A trip to the library might just not be possible (gas, time etc...).

 

And those same parents are just done at the end of the day. If there's food on the table, it's been a terrific day. That doesn't mean those parents are unloving (which, btw, I know you didn't say). 

 

It just means that their financial, mental, emotional resources are maxed out. 

 

Frankly, if I were struggling to keep food on the table, storytime, crayons, reading books etc...would not be priority #1.  And that comes from someone who knows how beneficial those things are. It would be so easy to let them slide in order to focus on immediate needs.

 

I grew up in a middlish class family, at least 10 miles from the library.  My mom got us there regularly for the majority of our lives, but those trips definitely became less frequent (maybe even stopped - I moved out long before my youngest sister could drive) once she became a single mom juggling multiple jobs.

 

When I was very low income, I got my toddler to the library regularly, but it was within walking distance AND I was raised in a family where that's what you do with kids.  Had that not been my own experience, I'm not sure it would have occurred to me to bundle up a little kid and walk a mile through a sketchy neighborhood for story time or a sing a long or to browse.  Frankly, it was a pain in the butt.  But I knew the influence it had on me, so that's what I did.

 

For whatever it's worth, I still don't like to go to the library, but my kids love it.  Even though I buy almost all of our books, I suck it up and bring them every few weeks or so.

 

The combination of personal experience and access (or lack of either or both) is far-reaching.

[Caroline]

Here are some ways that poorer schools can look like they have the same funding, but really they don't.

 

1. Gifted students in a class with a gifted endorsed teacher count as 1.4 students. Wealthier students are more likely to be identified as gifted due to the way we identify gifted students. That means wealthier schools have more teacher allotments. Now this is somewhat counter-balanced in schools with high ELL populations.

 

2. My kids' schools raise hundreds of thousands from parents and local businesses for the foundation and PTA. This money is used to fund three more teachers at the elementary school and a science lab. It is also used to fund some state unfunded mandates like Arts in Education Day and Field Day. It is used to help our media center buy technology and books. It is used for facility maintenance.

 

3. We buy our kids' books for required reading for English. Poorer schools have to make due with class sets.

 

4. If our teachers want to use supplemental books, manipulatives, etc, the parents write checks.

Edited May 6, 2016 by Caroline

[madteaparty]

I can't believe you guys are saying school resources don't matter and blaming family culture. My family culture is advanced degree parents from top schools. But within the same district, (NYC public schools) we had to drive our kids to after school programs from their public schools in the boroughs to another public school in the upper west side for chess and other enrichment. Who's going to drive the kids when both parents work? So now I have to hire a nanny that 1. Can drive 2. Has a car 3. Is willing to brave that sort of traffic. That nanny deserves a living wage. at the same school, lunch was frozen, prehistoric pizza that came off the back of the truck each morning. (Pizza sauce is a vegetable, per NYC DOE). I would be nervous feeding that to my dog on a long term basis.

Other public schools within the very same "district" have salad bars and proper chefs. Why? Because the PTA pays for them. And this is the sort of inequality is not even reflected in that graphic because it is the same district.

[Carrie12345]

Whether or not someone has a family does not affect the value you of the degree. You are reaching greatly to try and include that in the discussion.

 

The data sets on this issue vary a bit, but often the breakdown is highest level of education received:

--No high school diploma

--High school diploma

--Vocational training

--Some college/associates degree

--College degree

--Graduate degree

 

Over time, having a high school diploma has been consistently observed as having a significant impact on future earnings, which is also true for each additional level of education.

 

The monetary value is generally easy to measure, but the perception is certainly going to vary with each individual's experience.

 

When I look at what I could make WITH a high school diploma, it doesn't seem very worthwhile.  When I see what my sister was making with her graduate degree, I want to cry for her.  That doesn't change what the dollars and cents are/were/could be, but the outlook doesn't exactly excite either one of us.

(Meanwhile, I'm eyeing my potential to get a degree similar to hers.  Clearly not for the money!)

 

My son has been raised middle to upper middle class most of his life, but has still needed coaching to stick with school (granted, college, but still) instead of "taking some time off" to make money as a grocery cashier.  The boy has all of his needs well covered, but the allure of more cash is strong.

 

If he were a 16yo sophomore in high school (the legal age to drop out in our area), living in poverty, I can't imagine that that pull would be LESS strong.  If it's no money now, some money now, or a little more money later, some money now looks pretty darn good.

[Carrie12345]

Both extreme ends of the graphic fit what most people intuitively know, but I'm more interested in the rest of the curve.

 

My district has a median hh income of 57k. Our breakdown is 49% white, 23% Hispanic/Latino, 26% black, 2% Asian, and we're in the +.3.  Nearly half of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch.  This area was almost entirely white until the past 20 years or so.

 

My hometown has a median income of 101k with a breakdown of 78/15/4/3.  They're in the +.4.  That's an enormous difference in income and demographic with hardly any change in outcome.

 

Steubenville City, OH is an outlier with a 19k median income at 1.1 above average.

Meanwhile, Bonny Dune Union Elementary is over there with $149k, 93% white, and .2 below average.

 

I want to know more about the schools that aren't landing where they're expected to.

 

 

[SKL]

I do think it's more cultural than anything else.  As in, communities have different cultural views of education and educated people.  You could be born a natural wiz kid in a community where wiz kids are beaten up, or you could be born book-slow in a community that punishes for not making honor roll.  Either would suck.

 

As far as spending, I feel something else going on.  I'm basing this on my own experience.  Those of us who are upwardly mobile have a sense of uncertainty about the future.  When I didn't have kids, it didn't matter to me, but now I have to do what I can to secure their future.  And I don't mean making sure they are rich, I mean not ending up like a lot of my classmates did - desperate.  I feel like I could be flat broke tomorrow by some strange turn of events - or drop dead - and I want my kids to be equipped to succeed regardless.  So I tend to front-load the investment in them.  (Yes, I have an "education fund" for them, but it won't pay for a fancy education.)  It could also be because if I stopped being able to help them, the help would stop.  (Nobody else would/could step up.)  I assume that's different in communities of multiple rich generations.

 

Regarding family ability to help with homework etc, I think that's part of it, but it definitely doesn't explain it away.  There are many resources in the community that are underutilized because it isn't "cool" or it isn't prioritized by families.  I used to work with a literacy organization in the inner city, and they would have free evening events for parents where they provided free books and training and offered tutoring etc.  Accompanying children/babies welcome.  Snacks provided.  These events were held in the neighborhood library, very accessible.  They were very poorly attended.  I know some people work evenings, but honestly learning just isn't a relative priority in those communities.  However, there are always some who are very interested.  If only it would catch on.

 

On a related note, last night I told my kids that one of the students we're sponsoring in a developing country has a mom who never went to school, and can't read/write.  My kid, who needs a lot of help at home, posed the question:  how can the student do her homework if her parent can't help her?  Good question from a 9yo.  Thankfully, even there, they have free homework help centers for those who manage to get there after school.  Of course some won't be able to attend for various reasons.

Edited May 6, 2016 by SKL

[MinivanMom]

*snip*

 

When poor methods are used, it hurts the poor and minorities more. ELL because they don't read the language, people with generational illiteracy can't teach the phonics their children are missing or the math they don't understand and don't have money for tutoring. The literacy differences for minorities are sad:

 

*snip*

 

There are many reasons for the difference, but one of the saddest but easiest to fix if the will were there is that poor methods are making the poor poorer. It is cheap to fix, too, you could teach Blend Phonics from a white board for a few dollars per class. You can work on vocabulary that way, too, they focus on one word at a time and take turns making oral sentences from the word, if they don't know the word, the teacher makes a sentence for it. There are a ton of good free phonics programs you could teach from a white board. Heck, the first few "I See Sam" books are free to print, too!! They worked for me and all my friends in toughskins. Unfortunately, the ed schools are enamored with whole language and sight words and have ignored the evidence for years, although the new brain research is even more compelling in favor of phonics and against sight words.

 

I agree with all of this, but I think it extends beyond just reading instruction. When there is any kind of poor public school instruction, parents who are savvy & have the money will supplement with additional tutoring. Parents who are less savvy (this does not always mean poor or minority) do not think to do that. They just trust that the school knows best. 

 

I live in a very highly-ranked school district full of highly-educated, savvy parents, but we also have huge pockets of urban poverty. Over the past couple of years we have had huge amounts of drama in our school district over reading instruction, math instruction, high school math sequence, elimination of textbooks, 4x4 block scheduling, etc. When things are wonky with school instruction, the savvy parents supplement and hire tutors, but many other parents don't realize that they need to or lack the time and money to make it happen. Nobody thinks they have any chance of changing school policy, so it has just become standard among moms in my upper-class neighborhood to do damage control. They teach their children to read phonetically before kindergarten, they supplement math instruction at home (or take their kids to Kumon), they prep their kids prior to 3rd grade gifted testing (where placement is based on performance rather than IQ), and they hire tutors to fill in the foreign lang & math gaps caused by semester 4x4 block scheduling in high school. What parent living in poverty has the time or the money to do that . . . if they realize it might be necessary?

 

Our urban area (not surprisingly) ranks as having some of the biggest gaps in academic performance between rich & poor, educated & uneducated, white/Asian & other minorities. As an urban area, we also rank as having one of the lowest rates of social mobility in the country. Poor kids stay poor. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why. 

Edited May 6, 2016 by MinivanMom

[Library Momma]

Here are some ways that poorer schools can look like they have the same funding, but really they don't.

 

1. Gifted students in a class with a gifted endorsed teacher count as 1.4 students. Wealthier students are more likely to be identified as gifted due to the way we identify gifted students. That means wealthier schools have more teacher allotments. Now this is somewhat counter-balanced in schools with high ELL populations.

 

2. My kids' schools raise hundreds of thousands from parents and local businesses for the foundation and PTA. This money is used to fund three more teachers at the elementary school and a science lab. It is also used to fund some state unfunded mandates like Arts in Education Day and Field Day. It is used to help our media center buy technology and books. It is used for facility maintenance.

 

3. We buy our kids' books for required reading for English. Poorer schools have to make due with class sets.

 

4. If our teachers want to use supplemental books, manipulatives, etc, the parents write checks.

 

 

Wow - This is not the case at all where I live.  In my state PTO fundraisers do not have direct impact on education or school staff.  The money is used for field trips and perhaps special assemblies.  This is the same whether you are in a poor urban district or a wealthy suburban one.  There is not one district in the state where parents pay for classes or books.  In some of the poorer districts the fees for AP exams are covered but that is really about it.  In contrast to what another poster mentioned, it is the poorer districts that get the corporate sponsorships for things like robotics competitions and History Day.  

 

But money in the schools is a factor but not the real issue.  It is the poverty level at home combined with the parents understanding of how the education system works.  There are many parents from disadvantaged backgrounds that never had the educational experiences to prepare them to help their children.  I am not saying this applies to every person in this situation but there are many.  It is not a matter of the parents education level but rather their school experiences.  Unfortunately education can be a game with the child's future as the prize.  The tiger moms of the world take the competition level too far in one direction, but the disadvantaged are left behind at the other end.  There are many well meaning parents that don't take education seriously or don't really care.  They think that once they have sent their child off to school they have done their part.  They don't read to their kids, they don't have crayons in the house, they don't encourage homework, they don't show up to meet the teacher night or conferences. As the children get older they don't really understand that there are different educational paths and how to get there.  I have an acquaintance in this situation that wanted her 8th grader to a music magnet school.  She didn't realize that she would have had to have her apply to the school in February and wait for acceptance.  She thought she could just send her.  A smart, mature motivated student might be able to successfully navigate the school years and get themselves into college, but without parental assistance it is very difficult.

 

I know this type of discussion angers people on this board, but the people on this board who have experienced poverty are here because they value education.  They do take advantage of libraries and free services.  There are many that do not and most likely will never do so.  It is not that don't care about their children or want what's best for them but rather they don't really understand what opportunities are there for them and how to help. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

nm....need to rewrite that...

 

 

Edited May 6, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[MinivanMom]

I grew up in poverty. I attended a Title 1 elementary school in a rough, gang-infested neighborhood where I was one of the only white children. My single mother had a high school diploma (first gen to graduate from high school), but was so stressed and overwhelmed that we, as kids, were often just on our own.

 

What I had going for me, though, was a school district with good academic instruction and a gifted program that identified students based on IQ. I was taught to read by solid phonics, and then I qualified for our district's self-enclosed gifted class based on IQ scores. There were 30 kids put into this class. Many were white or Asian and had parents who were doctors, dentists, and lawyers. But there were several of us that had come from the other side of town. When this program began in 2nd grade, you could clearly identify which kids were which by math ability. The students from the poor schools were far behind the students from the good schools. I remember my teacher putting me in a corner to work on place value with unit blocks while the rest of the kids were doing timed multiplication tests, because I hadn't been introduced to the concept of multiplication yet. But by the time we got to 7th grade and tested for CTY, I had the highest SAT math scores out of this group of students.

 

Yet, if I had grown up in my current district, I would never have been identified as "gifted" at all. Because identification for gifted services is based on standardized test score performance here, a child attending a poor school, where they haven't taught all the concepts covered in wealthier schools, would be kept out of the gifted program regardless of their IQ scores. Because single-subject acceleration and placement at the gifted magnet both require the parent to A) know that they exist & B) apply for those services, a child who is far advanced compared to their peers will be kept at grade level if their parents don't apply on their behalf. 

 

A system like this makes no sense. Basing gifted services completely on performance creates a system that upper-class parents can "game" while cutting out highly-intelligent kids living in poverty. Requiring parents to apply for their kids to be accelerated or placed in gifted programs creates a huge barrier for a kids without a parent to advocate for them. Why would you not just evaluate everyone? Why would you not just offer it to every student that qualifies?

 

Yes, our urban area has one of the lowest rates of social mobility in the country. That isn't culture or un-involved parents or the unavoidable effects of generational poverty. Our schools suck. They look good on paper, because all the rich kids with tutoring give us great overall test scores. But our schools suck. And that sucks most for poor kids. And we have a whole system of educational perks that are not accessible to kids without involved parents. That sucks for poor kids. A good school can make a big difference. Following instructional techniques that have been proven by research can make a big difference. Running a school system so that rich & poor children have equal access to good instruction and to educational opportunities can make a big difference. We could do better, but we choose not to.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I can't believe you guys are saying school resources don't matter and blaming family culture. My family culture is advanced degree parents from top schools. But within the same district, (NYC public schools) we had to drive our kids to after school programs from their public schools in the boroughs to another public school in the upper west side for chess and other enrichment. Who's going to drive the kids when both parents work? So now I have to hire a nanny that 1. Can drive 2. Has a car 3. Is willing to brave that sort of traffic. That nanny deserves a living wage. at the same school, lunch was frozen, prehistoric pizza that came off the back of the truck each morning. (Pizza sauce is a vegetable, per NYC DOE). I would be nervous feeding that to my dog on a long term basis.

Other public schools within the very same "district" have salad bars and proper chefs. Why? Because the PTA pays for them. And this is the sort of inequality is not even reflected in that graphic because it is the same district.

 

Well, I live in a relatively poor district in NY (not NYC).  There is no need to drive anyone anywhere because the schools offer everything.  They have three levels of sports (JV, V, and modified).  They have tons of clubs, afterschool stuff, radio station, TV station, every class and extra known to man.  Despite that, they don't really have the results to show for it.  But that's hard to say if they really don't have the results to show for it because what would have become of some of these kids without it?  I just don't know.  But surely there has to be some other factor beyond lacking school resources if having tons of resources isn't getting through to still too many people.

[LucyStoner]

I don't think anyone is saying that all people living in poverty are living lives of addicts and criminals. But it's also not fair to dismiss that this is true for some.

 

 

My husband was raised by an abusive addict. An affluent doctor to be precise.

 

He did very well academically K-12 and was a national merit scholar with the scores, grades and extracurriculars to gain admission into ivies. So one had to wonder about the impact of other things like parental educational attainment (both parents were college educated working professionals and on his dad's side, college was the norm stretching back through generations), norms around education and quality of the school district they resided in.

 

I've seen parental neglect and the impact of addictions up close and personal, both in my extended family and in my past professional work. But there's ano entire other layer of this in our culture and that is the abusers and addicts who are too educated and affluent to all but very rarely end up accountable to social services or on anyone's radar.

Edited May 6, 2016 by LucyStoner

[skimomma]

Per-student spending is skewed by so many factors.  I don't think it is even possible to control for those factors in a way to make meaningful conclusions about educational outcomes.  NPR recently reported on the district funding map found here:

 

http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/map-how-per-pupil-spending-compares-across-us.html

 

I spent some time checking out different districts and comparing them against my assumptions and anecdotal experiences.  I was pretty surprised at how my perceptions compared to reality.

 

I live in a very highly ranked district and I therefore expected funding to be average or above average.  It turns out that we are very much below average, $6000/student.  Then I looked at other local districts that are ranked much lower in performance.  Some had above average funding.  Partially this did not surprise me.  My district is in a STEM university town with the unusual combination of having a very low average household income for everyone not employed by the university.    This creates low school funding combined with a high cultural priority for education.  Meaning, the schools will succeed no matter how poorly funded they are because our local culture prioritizes education regardless of income.  It seems to be "catchy" if you will.  Even though perhaps only 30% of the district's parents are university employees who value education highly, the other 70% does too just because they are surrounded by people who do.  Obviously, not a scientific finding by any means but it does support what we do see that even when you throw a great deal of money at very poorly performing school, there is often little change in educational outcomes.

 

Another factor I had not considered is that vast variety in district sizes and how this impacts per-student funding.  The schools in my district happen to be in what I would call the "sweet spot" for size.  They have enough students to optimize class size yet are small enough to be able to quickly address problems as they arise.  Some of the other districts I looked at were so small that per-student funding was high simply because there are not enough kids per grade to fill a classroom.  If there are only 10 5th graders, the 5th grade teacher is going to cost more per-student than in a school with 25 5th graders.  Granted there are ways to combine efforts across grades but at some point a bathroom (and the costs associated with it) is required and needs to be there whether it is for 5 students or 100.  We have a one-room schoolhouse in a neighboring district.  No matter how you slice it, a building and the minimal staff required for those 8 students is going to cost more per student than a bigger school.  I would argue that very large schools also begin to lose the per-student funding advantage for other reasons.  This is just one example of at least ten I can think of that make per-student funding difficult to compare.

[BarbecueMom]

DH and I went to the same high school.

 

I grew up with a single, struggling, "just done at the end of the day" parent. There was a cultural expectation of doing well in school, but a subconscious expectation that "doing well" would not be something that would put a separation between us. I would get so upset growing up when I'd tell my mother what I was learning or doing or dreaming, and I was met with... a blank stare. She was trying to be encouraging, really, but what I saw as ambition, she saw as a wall being built between us.

 

And she's right. Those walls are painful or necessary, depending on what side of them you are on.

 

DH was upper middle class. His dad encouraged him to succeed in school, be independent, and take off across the country or world if necessary. The metaphorical "wall" was an expectation, and instead of struggling to watch it go up like my mom did, FIL was supportive in helping DH build it.

 

So take wealthy families and immigrant cultures with those "wall" expectations to one extreme (fully paid college, activities, after school tutoring), and on the other side you have families in poverty where the only riches they have is each other. And even if they could afford extra instruction or travel or camps, they're just helping to wall off their kids from a shared cultural experience.

 

I don't think funding or preschool or phonics can fix this.

[Library Momma]

I live in a middle to upper-middle class town (we do not have school districts but rather each town or city is it's own district).  In districts like mine you see over at least 90% of students graduating high school and heading to college.  But, and it is a big but, by 8th grade most students on the lower educational track do not go to the public high school in town, but rather go to vocational, agricultural or magnet schools for high school.  Most of these are state and/or regional schools (we do not have county governments) so their scores are not included with their town school district data.  It has been that way since I was in school in the 80s.

 

I also find the discussion many people have regarding tutors interesting.  In my school system most students enter Kindergarten (some at age 4 1/2) knowing at least the alphabet.  By 3rd grade (at least in my DS' class) the lowest reading group were students on grade level.  Those lower wouldn't be in a leveled group but rather would be pulled out for services.  That being said I know very few people who utilize tutors.  The only ones seem to be students who are really struggling and in danger of failing or having to repeat a grade.  There are tutors in the schools as well and the only difference between a rich and poor school would be using a school tutor versus and private one.  

[Dmmetler]

In our district, this funding situation is true; the poor neighborhood schools are getting the same as the wealthier neighborhood schools.  However, the money was spent differently.  Poorer schools were more likely to have physical facilities that were old and decrepit, so they cost more to maintain than the schools in wealthier neighborhoods.  That left less total money for actually educating kids than in wealthier schools.  Maybe that is one reason for the data.

 

And the other thing that was an issue for my former school was that we had a lot more repairs needed. Wealthier neighborhoods don't have windows accidentally shot out in gang incidents, or nearly as much vandalism to have to repair/repaint, or people breaking in to have a place to sleep.  Having said that, we also didn't have the "oops, too many students, we need another portable and teacher NOW" situation that many of the suburban schools do, where they practically resemble trailer parks because they're at 150% or more of capacity.

 

Here, I suspect that the budget ends up kind of being a wash.  The schools have the same base per student spending We have a lot of schools that are school-wide Title 1, and get extra money for that that can be spent on extra teachers, supplies, materials, field trips and the like. Since they're school-wide, it can just be spent on whole classes and groups, not on just the qualifying kids. The suburban schools, which have relatively low title 1 eligible percentages often have heavy fundraising and community support, which gets spent on extra teachers, supplies, materials, field trips and the like.

[EmilyGF]

Doesn't shock me at all, though it saddens me. 

 

I grew up in Los Altos, CA. I lived in Belmont, MA, which had schools that made Los Altos, CA schools look like Chuck E Cheese. 

 

I now live in the inner city of Chicago.

 

I've seen it all. And the more I see, the more complicated it gets.

Emily

[vonfirmath]

And the other thing that was an issue for my former school was that we had a lot more repairs needed. Wealthier neighborhoods don't have windows accidentally shot out in gang incidents, or nearly as much vandalism to have to repair/repaint, or people breaking in to have a place to sleep.  Having said that, we also didn't have the "oops, too many students, we need another portable and teacher NOW" situation that many of the suburban schools do, where they practically resemble trailer parks because they're at 150% or more of capacity.

 

Here, I suspect that the budget ends up kind of being a wash.  The schools have the same base per student spending We have a lot of schools that are school-wide Title 1, and get extra money for that that can be spent on extra teachers, supplies, materials, field trips and the like. Since they're school-wide, it can just be spent on whole classes and groups, not on just the qualifying kids. The suburban schools, which have relatively low title 1 eligible percentages often have heavy fundraising and community support, which gets spent on extra teachers, supplies, materials, field trips and the like.

 

Our school definitely has advantages due to being school-wide Title 1 (At least every year we've been there so far) Though evidently it is more headache for the principals as well. it is "worth it" headache rather than just bureacratic nonsense.

[Arcadia]

. When there is any kind of poor public school instruction, parents who are savvy & have the money will supplement with additional tutoring. Parents who are less savvy (this does not always mean poor or minority) do not think to do that. They just trust that the school knows best.

...

When things are wonky with school instruction, the savvy parents supplement and hire tutors, but many other parents don't realize that they need to or lack the time and money to make it happen. Nobody thinks they have any chance of changing school policy, so it has just become standard among moms in my upper-class neighborhood to do damage control.

Same here. Parents who are aware apply to lottery schools, or move their kids to private schools if they didn't get into lottery. Those who are not aware until many years later are panicking when kids start 9th grade and they realise they need to pay for tutors and test prep.

 

The local schools demographic does not even reflect the neighborhood school age kids demographic. The state test scores for the latinos/hispanic group would be the closest gauge to how good the school instruction level is. The asians, filipinos, vietnamese, whites would reflect the prevalence of afterschooling whether by parents and/or tutors.

[Dmmetler]

I will also say that I've been thinking about this, and I do think that part of the issue is that we're testing only a subset of skills.

 

I went from teaching kids of working poor families to kids of migrant workers to kids of inner-city, largely welfare poor families to teaching in a university lab school with kids of families with at least one PhD and usually two professional degrees. The default salutation for parents was "Doctor".

 

At age 5, there is little doubt that the lab school kids were WAY ahead of the other groups academically. It was usual to have a reading group at the 3rd grade level or higher. Almost all of our kids qualified for GT programming when they left our program and transferred to public schools-unless, of course, they went to private schools where all kids are gifted.

 

But the fact is, almost all of my urban kids could have beaten them on life skills. Even our lab school kids who had been in the Montessori side vs the Reggio Emilia side, where they'd had practical life had rarely used them outside of the classroom setting where everything was scaled to them. They had poured from a child sized pitcher into child-sized glasses, but not had to serve from a gallon of milk knowing that if they spilled it, there would be no more for a week. They may have practiced washing child sized or doll sized clothes and pegging them to a line, but they hadn't lugged the family's laundry down to the laundry room, climbed on the washer to get it in, and then pulled it out, lugged the wet clothes upstairs, and hung them through the house to dry, or washed clothes in the sink. They may have changed diapers on a baby doll, but not on a wiggly baby.  They could read, but not mix formula or warm a bottle. And so on. Migrant kids often had even more skills, those developed living in migrant camps that resemble a third world country, despite being in a 1st world one. 

 

It strikes me that a lot of the "behind"ness is a matter of perspective. My DD would have not been able to function at age 5 in that world. She could read and do math-but she would have been lost if she'd been faced with a crying baby.

 

[Dmmetler]

Our school definitely has advantages due to being school-wide Title 1 (At least every year we've been there so far) Though evidently it is more headache for the principals as well. it is "worth it" headache rather than just bureacratic nonsense.

 

From what I hear from teachers, the fundraising funded schools have the headaches as well. Apparently PTA mothers can practically match the US government in Bureaucratic nonsense.

 

[LucyStoner]

From what I hear from teachers, the fundraising funded schools have the headaches as well. Apparently PTA mothers can practically match the US government in Bureaucratic nonsense.

 

Practically match? Oh, some can far exceed the government when it comes to nonsensical layers of bureaucracy. One of my siblings is a PTA president. It's nearly pushed him to take up drinking as a hobby.