The Education Wonks
As a parent what drives one crazy in Texas is that the "required" supplies for elementary grades may cost as much as $200.00 then the teacher may take the supplies and distribute them to other children in the class.
EdWonk, it's heartening to hear that your school actually follows the law in this situation. I'm glad *some* school, somewhere, does.
And parents *do* pay for all these school supplies, in *taxes*. The way they're supposed to.
If the school district isn't getting the needed materials to the classroom then the teachers just encourage that failure by spending their own money on supplies.
Don't do it if you don't want to. And don't say you are forced to do so when you are not.
Notice the key word is 'needed' in the first sentence. What 'needed' means to one person is not what it means to another.
It is a cruel fact but our school systems run on taxes. And what is done with those taxes is, in theory, decided by elected officials. In reality almost everything is decided by professional administrators.
And costs of administration steadily grow faster than anything else in education. Until that is fixed nothing will ever get funds to the classroom.
Administrators never spend on students or staff... surely you jest!
Maybe you should ask a couple of administrators. They don't brag about what they spend on staff... or students.
I go next year for working near Texas and this blog is very informative for me, because my two child must go next year in US-School.
As a veteran teacher of over 25 years, there is no telling how much I've spent on my classrooms over the years. No, I haven't bought anything that was NECESSARY - but I have spent untold thousands of dollars buying supplies that made my classroom and my teaching more effective and more enjoyable for the children and myself.
Teachers spend their own money because, for the most part, they love their students and they want the best for them - and if the school doesn't provide it, then they'll do whatever they can to provide it themselves.
For myself, even though I might have school money available, many times I've bought things with my own money because there is so much paperwork and time involved in spending school money. If I need some supplies for a particular project and I don't have time to write out justification for it, I just buy it myself. I'm trying really hard, though, to stop doing that. I can't afford it anymore.
One of the best pieces of advice I received from veteran teachers is to only spend your own money on things you would want to take with you to another position- books, films, classroom decorations, etc.
As for the consumables (pencils, paper, tissues, etc), I've noticed that when I supply them the students become less likely to make the effort to get their own. Maybe it's different if you teach in a really poor area. I just get tired of students coming into my class with no pencil, but plenty of candy from the vending machine beside our school's supply store.
When I buy something (except consummables) with my own money, I clearly mark it with my name and a "P" for "personal" so that I can take it with me when I change schools or grade levels.
When I moved to my current school, the only chair available for me was a very unstable office chair with wheels. After having it tip over and deposit me on the floor twice, I went to Staples and bought myself two office chairs - one for my desk and one for the table where I work with my reading groups. Each chair cost $100 - but neither have tipped over with me, and I'm in my third years of using them. The school probably would have eventually bought a new chair for me - but it would have been at least a few weeks before I got it, and I wasn't going to take a chance on getting injured before I got a decent chair.
I appreciate your points! I too limit my classroom spending to only items I can take with me. Part of the reason I do the Scholastic Book Orders is to use bonus points to buy additional teacher materials.
I think Frau E commented on the expense of supplies per student. When I make my supply list, I try to limit what I ask for and consider expense. That being said, I am a communist about paper and pencils. You get a new pencil every Monday and donate your old pencil to the pencil bucket. And I pick up stuff as I walk through the school. It is amazing to me the number of pencils I find in common areas in the hours after students are gone.
Over the past 10 years, the amount of district money (tax money) teachers at my school have been authorized to "use" to order school supplies such as copy paper, writing paper, pencils, color pencils, manila folders, color paper, etc., has been reduced by at least 75%. And, this in times when California was "flush" with money for schools. The past year, I spent my $100 allocation on five cases of copy paper. In my classroom, I have a hand-me-down desk with a hard plastic student chair. My students sit in one of three different styles of student desks. The stucco outside my classroom door is cracked and in places, missing big chunks of it, exposing the rusting metal wall supports. The sprinkler system shoots water into my classroom if my classroom door is open. (it is vital to water the dirt outside my classroom....no grass has ever been there.) But I do have enough books for my students, IF I get no new students entering my class.
However, at our district office, they recently bought new office furniture, installed new plush carpeting, just about every secretary has a copy machine for her personal use and our superintendent garners about $600 per month for "vehicle expenses".
One little girl in my class told me just yesterday, "My dad wants you to send some paper home with me, because I don't have any at home."
I told her, "What do I look like -- a Super Target?"
And bulldog, I am one of those teachers that distributes supplies that were brought out to the rest of the class. However, our school supplies cost $20...
I would be furious if I sent supplies to school with my son, only to have them confiscated and "redistributed".
Think of the confiscation and redistribution of school supplies as the students' first lesson in socialism; something they will most likely receive a lot of during their journey through our schools.
I don't buy things like pencils to hand out, but I do spend a fair amount on other consumables (that, like other people, I can take with me when I leave my current school, as I'm planning to do in another couple of years.) Whiteboard markers, staplers, tape dispensers, file folders, file boxes and other storage containers, cleaning supplies, wall hangings, colored paper and cardstock... That stuff adds up. I've also accumulated a substantial classroom library at my own expense. Fortunately, I really enjoy YA lit. Oh, and lots of books for my own use/reference.
Oh, and furniture. Two floor rugs (one to cover up the cords for my projector, the other to cover up a worn spot in the carpet.) Desk chair, to replace the hard plastic one that was here when I got here. Computer-friendly desk, since I already have carpal tunnel, and the 50-year-old teacher desk the school provides us with is definitely not ergonomically correct and there's no way I could attach a keyboard drawer to it (the way it's set up.) Printer stand. File cart (since my computer desk is really a computer cart, and there's no drawer storage.) Numerous power cords, since there are a whopping TWO power outlets in my entire classroom, powering five computers, two printers, two pencil sharpeners, one stapler, a minifridge (which I use to keep water which I sell as an ongoing fundraiser for my AVID students), speakers, and an LCD projector. A couple of gallons of paint, for when they switched me into my current room and I couldn't take my old bookshelves and cabinets, and my new room had horribly scarred and tagged furniture.
I've also bought my own computer (as the computers the school provides for the teachers are about six years old and still run Win98, and I'm very technology-oriented in my teaching), a printer (as the school supplies us with dot matrix printers), two electric pencil sharpeners (because I gave up trying to get my manual pencil sharpeners replaced, and the darn things never really sharpened) and an electric stapler (since every regular stapler I seem to buy jams within a month, even the expensive "no jam" ones, and I got tired of daily unjamming sessions.
Oh, and computer-related expenses--web hosting and domain registration (just renewed that!) for the teaching website I find absolutely invaluable and that parents and other teachers have complimented me on and thanked me for, my gradebook software and web access fee for that, video-editing software and a video transfer box (analog to digital) for the video projects my lit elective class... hmm, trying to think of what else I've accumulated.
So no, none of this stuff is necessarily "essential". I COULD teach in my bare concrete box of a classroom and have nothing whatsoever that makes it actually a NICE place for kids to be. We have teachers like that--if they died tonight, you could hose out their classroom and have it ready for a new teacher in about 10 minutes. I can't work like that, and I personally see it as a pretty sterile environment for nurturing student learning. I don't expect to have my every classroom design whim catered to, but it'd be nice to get a new computer every 3-4 years, not have to buy my own printer or toner, have a book allowance for my classroom library, and not have to buy my own staplers and whiteboard markers since the generic ones the school provides take 3 months to get here, are doled out parsimoniously, and inevitably fail much sooner than their higher-quality counterparts.
One can dream...
I bought those misprinted golf pencils-- kids now bring their own. It's great.
But I have spent untold thousands in supplies for my classroom. Last summer, the maintenance staff broke MY chair that I paid for with MY own money. I expected the principal to buy me a new one-- which wasn't leather like mine but is so comfortable that the kids want to sit in it (ummm- no.)
And it's mine if I ever leave.
Wonderful anecdotes, but what is the root issue here? Why are teachers (and parents) spending so much in the classroom?
What about young teachers that are just starting out and paying off student loans? Everytime I ask for suggestions from coworkers about how to make my classroom better it comes down to how much money I should spend on books or rugs or plastic baskets for it to be more comfortable. Does this really mean that better teachers are teachers that spend more money out of their own pockets? Especially when they can't afford to buy a house or pay for a vacation?
I am pregnant and my husband is out of work and am I expected to believe that I have to be the worst teacher on staff because I don't have the extra cash around to spend?
I NEVER buy ANYTHING for the school or students...EVER.
My kids don't have lots of things other classes have because I won't open my wallet. Parents complain. I tell them to go pound sand and demand they give me $$$ on the spot. They baulk. Discussion ends.
If the money these parents think should be in my classroom were so important, then they would make sure it got there. They NEVER do.
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