• BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    All you have to do is look at how much of the collected money actually guess to the school then ask what happens to the rest. That’s why.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Textbooks are a racket and not just for college students.

    Most of the money spent on education involves grifts for stuff like that, not for actual important shit like schools or teachers.

  • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Not American, and I have no factual answer but I assume it’s because the people at the top just take all the money and leave the schools to fend for themselves. Typical corporate nonsense.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      You’d think so, and while you’re right that the people at the top make way too much money, docking their entire salary at a large district like mine would only be enough to fund maaaaaaaaaaaaybe just under 5% of the schools in our district. And then you’d be left without leadership. If you cut everyone in my pay scale, you’d have enough to fund all the schools and then some, but you wouldn’t have teachers, custodians, tech workers, etc.

      But here’s something interesting: during the pandemic, since athletics funds were already allocated and athletic events were cancelled, we were allowed to use those funds as we saw fit within the district. Suddenly, we were able to feed every student and staff member for free. Yee haw, welcome to Texan education…

  • cattywampas@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago
    1. These are often for extracurricular things like school trips.

    2. Schools are underfunded.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      2 months ago

      Wrt 1, teachers buy out of pocket and request classroom supplies such as tissues, chalk, pencils, erasers, notebook paper, art supplies, graph paper, compasses, protractors, safety scissors, glue, , hand sanitizer, etc

    • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago
      1. The schools that aren’t underfunded have millions of dollars in funds earmarked for sports usually.
      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        i dont think its for k-12, but its mostly for universities, and colleges.

        • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          You would be incorrect. Many wealthier high schools put a ton of money into their sports facilities and equipment. Several HS in my state operate 10-thousand-plus-seating stadiums that look a lot like collegiate or semiprofessional facilities.

  • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Looking at the global median isn’t a good comparison, for starters. Many of those school systems aren’t comparable.

    That said, there’s not likely to be one reason. I could guess at them, but I’d rather not since some will inevitably be wrong.

  • hypnicjerk@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    without digging into the numbers, i can pretty confidently say that schools are more than 30% more expensive than the global median in the US. staffing costs especially.

    • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That was my first reaction. I didn’t find the global average spending number reported by the OP, but according to this page, the 2019 average spending of $15,500 per student (38% higher than OECD average) did consider purchasing power.

  • turtle [he/him]@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    One of the major factors to consider here is that public schools in the US are not equally funded by number of students. Instead, most of the funding is provided by state and local property taxes, meaning that richer areas where houses are worth a lot more, get much better funding for their schools. So while those rich areas’ school funding is probably much higher than the global median, the poorer areas’ school funding is likely much lower, in a very high cost of living country in general.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_funding_in_the_United_States#State_and_local_role_in_education_funding

    The other factor to also consider is that public schools in the US have fairly extensive athletic programs, meaning that they spend a lot of the funds to build and maintain things like American Football stadiums, swimming pools, etc., as opposed to only funding actual academic education.

    This is the best I could find on short notice about athletic vs academic spending, and it’s only discussing teacher vs coach salaries: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/more-spent-instruction-coaches-per-capita-look-state-hirko-ph-d-

    PS: Aside from fundraisers, it’s fairly common to hear teachers telling stories of having to spend their own money to buy supplies for their classes.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The other factor to also consider is that public schools in the US have fairly extensive athletic programs, meaning that they spend a lot of the funds to build and maintain things like American Football stadiums fields, swimming pools, etc., as opposed to only funding actual academic education.

      I bought my lab supplies. Bare minimum $50-200 a month in supplies. Lab chemicals, pencils and notebooks for students that didn’t have any.

      My classroom looked out over the fancy new football and soccer field. One of the middle schools had a field that local semi pro teams would rent out. The district couldn’t even fund busing - we’d have students show up 1-2 hours late every day because of the buses.

      Small towns will fund bonds for football fields and cleats; they don’t give a damn about anything else. If you are good enough coach, you can literally show your penis to students and the administration will cover it up, then quietly help you get a position in a new town.

  • KayLeadfoot@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    I don’t know the answer to your question, but I buy whatever the kids are selling. And I make like an idiot that knows nothing about it, whatever it is. (separately, am idiot, but I play it up)

    I figure, maybe I can help a little? The money is probably negligible towards whatever the need is, but learning to sling popcorn or cookies, that might stoke some spark of pint-size entrepreneurship in them :j

  • theotherbelow@lemmynsfw.com
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    2 months ago

    In my experience the outfits target schools to exploit the children’s relationships and free labor with family. We are talking incredibly low quality junk you cannot find at stores or really even online.

    At my school the goal was to sell like $1000 worth a crap to get a limo ride to a local restaurant.

    6,7,8 year old etc do not have a value of wealth. “Oh daddy/mommy/grandpa, I really really want the limo ride” etc.

    There’s no legitimate reason for such a thing to exist other than pure exploitation. After experiencing that I would demand to opt out for my children.

    • lovely_reader@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I absolutely agree, and having lived through it, it’s infuriating the way they intentionally exclude/call out kids whose parents haven’t signed them up or who haven’t sold any trash. They’ll send the kids home to sign up 10 email addresses and on the second day they’ll come back with some piece of shit stuffed animal for everybody who did it. A little kid doesn’t understand that the whole thing is a fucking scam. They’re just sitting in school watching the rest of their class play with cool new toys.

      • kersploosh@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        I think that goes to my point about simple comparisons being difficult. Norway has a high GDP relative to its size, so 4% might be more than enough for their situation. You also have to account for things like the labor cost of teachers, which varies by country.

        • Albbi@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Also the sort of things the schools spend money on. I don’t know from experience, but I think US schools pay for police officers to be at the school. That seems crazy to me, and expensive.

    • 52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org
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      2 months ago

      That’s $15,000 not $15. The answer is schools are corrupt fronts for contractors who milk the district of every dollar. Construction, service, demolition, and reconstruction of buildings is expensive!

    • wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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      2 months ago

      Or perhaps the dollars are being factored into to other workstreams in the system. We may be comparing apples to oranges here.

      • Do other countries use student busing? If not, are they considering that impact into their public transportation?
      • Do other counties have school meal programs?
      • Do other countries factor out athletics into its own separate budget?
      • what’s the average age of a public school?
      • Is sexual education separated into health budgets?
      • Physical Plants just cost more in America than most places, as we contract out both the design and construction and sometimes even the planning/permitting. Are these costs being factored in?
      • Are the average class sizes per teacher similar?
      • Are special needs costs factored in?

      I’d first like to understand the diffs of what comprises that 30% more calculation, from there we can explore why the fundraisers are needed.

  • FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    The real issue is these funds aren’t evenly distributed per student, school districts are funded by property tax which leads to poorer neighborhoods getting considerably less funding.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I worked high poverty district - like, basically all students got free breakfast and lunch, because so many were eligible it wouldn’t make sense to even check.

      The district got white flight to shit. No white kids in the middle or high school. There was one elementary school that the rich fuckers would send its kids to. That school was well funded. Teachers from there would show up in coordinated outfits, the kids weren’t thrown in classrooms with permanent subs, they actually got taught. It was in the rich neighborhood, so it had money - both the property tax shit and an actual fucking PTA.