Discussion
  • Read More
    NYCSucksHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:14pm

    As someone married to a teacher working in an "at risk" school, I only have one thing to say to these whiners - fuck off. I'm so sick of people thinking all these government services should be free - my streetlights shouldn't cost me any money, my kid in school shouldn't cost me any money. Everyone wants all these first world privledges, but nobody wants to foot the bill for it.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Chosen UndeadNYCSucks
      7/25/13 5:20pm

      They're NOT free. Damn near everyone pays property taxes to (ideally) cover exactly the things you think people don't foot the bill for. Now, it could easily be said many people aren't wanting to pay nearly enough...

      ...but then most schools manage to complete education for students without hefty fee requirements and mandatory (overpriced) equipment tacked on top of it.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      aaaaaaaaaaaahrealburnerNYCSucks
      7/25/13 5:20pm

      Yeah, I think education should be only for the wealthy too—that's definitely how you build a healthy, enabled society.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    cheerful_exgirlfriendHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:33pm

    I do not understand the students being required to buy their textbooks. Sure if they lost the book they should pay.

    My daughter is going into 4th grade in California public school.

    Each year the teachers collect somewhere between $20 -$60 for field trips

    The bus is $399/year

    For fourth grade she has a 2 night trip to "Gold Country" $250.

    She has to be in band (all students do) a clarinet can be rented (not from the school) for about $150/school year.

    Each and every family in our school district is expected to donate to the school foundation (so our kids can have art, music, PE and tech lab) Last year the "wished for amount" was $450.

    I won't include expected teacher gift amounts or classroom donations (balls, pens, kleenex)

    I'm sure there will be more things to pay for but so far my tally is up to

    $839 before the donation to the school. We will likely give $200 and get that matched by my hubby's work.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Citizen-Kangcheerful_exgirlfriend
      7/25/13 5:39pm

      You got off lucky. We built a new multimedia center and asked every one of the 1,000 families for $1,500. That's just one year and one expense. Now, the argument can be made that I could have opted out since it was just being requested and not demanded. Believe me, when you're the chairman of the school's foundation AND you're the one doing the asking because you're the one the principal asked to spearhead the effort, bowing out is no longer an option. By the way, this is a public school in California...it's in a fairly affluent community, but it's still public school.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Archetypecheerful_exgirlfriend
      7/25/13 5:40pm

      Gold Country, are you in Nor Cal?

      God, I hope not. I have a toddler and I was (stupidly, apparently) waiting for the day when I didn't have to pay for his schooling/preschool any longer.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    ShygurlHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:59pm

    What about the parents that have 2-3 kids in HS? They can easily spend a couple grand just to educate their kids!

    I didn't click to the main article, too lazy. But what would happened if the parent just refused to pay? Are they kicked out? And if they are kicked out, does the parent go to jail for not sending their kids to school?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      WaterWishShygurl
      7/25/13 8:31pm

      I'm the "outraged parent" in the story. I just heard from another parent at the same school who has two kids and she has to pony up $1,500 this year. I know some of that is for sports, but still, it's fucking outrageous. I honestly don't know what would happen if you refused to pay. There's a $25 late fee if it's not in by July 31 at 3:30 pm, for starters. (You can split it into five payments, at least.) Then your kid would probably not be allowed to register for classes in a timely fashion, and would miss out on choices. After that, I am sure you would be harassed by a collection agency. Then I imagine they would hold your transcripts when it came time to apply to colleges. I'm guessing.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      ShygurlWaterWish
      7/25/13 9:13pm

      There has got to be some type of legal remedy for this. Isn't there?

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    JohninLAHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:16pm

    They had to purchase the hardcopy textbooks too? Granted, my HS wasn't the best and our outdated textbooks meant outdated maps and US History that ended 15 years earlier (apparently nothing noteworthy happened during the Reagan/Bush/Clinton era?)... but at least everything was free.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Hall & OatmealJohninLA
      7/25/13 5:19pm

      Same here. Hand-me-down books were the norm in my Oklahoma high school, usually being used for about ten years. I didn't pay for a textbook until I went to college.

      Reading this kinda blew my mind.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      aaaaaaaaaaaahrealburnerJohninLA
      7/25/13 5:19pm

      Yeah, I mean, I went to school in Texas (TEXAS!), and we never once paid for books. That seems insane to me.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    John BoehnerHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:20pm

    It's a sign of massive underfunding of our schools. When parents are expected to chip in for tissue boxes and dry erase markers for the teachers (and I went through a FANTASTIC public K-12 compared to others) it's time to set shit straight. Seriously, children should not be forced to endure punishment because their parents are expected to carry the weight of something as basic as public education.

    Old farts don't want to invest in public education through taxes? Enjoy your fucking uncured cancer when you're senile.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      nylonknotJohn Boehner
      7/25/13 5:37pm

      Indeed. People without children who complain about their taxes paying for education forget that they too will need access to doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, etc.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      John Boehnernylonknot
      7/25/13 5:40pm

      'Yeah, I'd like to see how your estate and trust is managed by that lawyer you made incompetent. BUT YOU'LL ALREADY BE DEAD, BITCH'

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Montauk MonsterHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:28pm

    I graduated from high school eleven years ago (ages or a blink, depending on your perspective) and I remember it was a big deal when some of the classrooms got dry erase boards. Such a treat, those were. So clean.

    Fuck a Chromebook, is my point.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      JohninLAMontauk Monster
      7/25/13 5:51pm

      Graduated 10 years ago. It was nice when the school library got equipped with this newfangled thing called the internet, and they rebranded it the "media center."

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      McCoy's MistressMontauk Monster
      7/25/13 7:05pm

      I never realized we're the same age! :)

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    StegoHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:21pm

    I criss-crossed the country in the 80s/90s/00s as I attended public school. Not once, not ONE FRIGGIN TIME, did my parents ever have to spend money just for me to attend classes. I never had to buy a textbook unless I destroyed it, and I certainly never had to buy a laptop (we had these things called "Computer Labs" with outdated, but completely functional, desktops for everything you'd ever need to do in school). Now I come to Massachusetts, and find that a co-worker was forced to buy a Macbook Pro for his kid to attend High School. Yeah, the area is affluent, but that's not the friggin point! Every affluent area has people barely making ends meet, and such expenses are unwarranted and insulting.

    I thought the only thing separating public from private education was an exorbitant fee structure. Guess I was wrong there, since Public Schools are enlisting it too!

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Cherith CutestoryStego
      7/25/13 5:28pm

      I know Burlington students have to have iPads, as well (like they pay for them but they are reduced). But most places in Massachusetts that is not the case.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    UKStory135Hamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:14pm

    Chromebooks should be no more than $250, this is a rip-off.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Sheeeeeeit-ClayDavisUKStory135
      7/25/13 5:22pm

      I would assume the 50 extra subsidizes the poors who can't buy one.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Heather SimonUKStory135
      7/25/13 5:48pm

      The mother said that they justified the extra cost by hyping all of the "proprietary software" they load onto it. Still a giant rip-off.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    peacelovecrazyHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 6:16pm

    There is a movement called 1-1 computing that has been promoting the idea of every student having their own laptop. In parallel, the federal Common Core which almost all states have signed on to, requires online testing. That means that schools have to have enough computers for every student in the school to take hours and hours of achievement tests on computers within a reasonable period of time (a week?). That means either huge computer labs or every student has to have a computer.

    The online textbooks (textbooks are usually free to students btw) are not downloadable so you have to have an Internet connection to access them. At school you have to have enough bandwidth for hundreds of students to access them at the same time. For poor students who don't have Internet at home, I guess they just can't use their textbooks or do homework (if it's online) at home anymore. ... there's more

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      peacelovecrazypeacelovecrazy
      7/25/13 6:24pm

      More....A school in VA already went down this path, spent a fortune (school paid for the laptops) and then had so many technical issues with accessing the textbooks online that they had to scrap it and buy paper textbooks.

      There's a school in NC that they're trumpeting as a success story with 1-1 computing. It laid off a bunch of teachers, saying they can handle larger class sizes, because of the laptops. So you see where this is going. This is another mechanism for transferring education dollars away from teachers and to private companies without good evidence that it will improve education or that it will improve it enough to be worth the exorbitant cost. Or force every parent to buy a Chromebook. Actually in our school system they were going to rent the devices for over $200 a year so I hope that $300 was a one-time cost to the parent. And I hope the school is going to do tech support (ha). Parents should be showing up at school board budget meetings. They're not going to get the info anywhere else apparently.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Chicago0048peacelovecrazy
      7/25/13 6:36pm

      I have a netbook that I paid $229. That's a far cry less than $300 and I'm sure parents can find used or new netbooks for about that amount today. If the schools have wi-fi, there shouldn't be a problem with a kid bringing their own laptop/netbook.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    captain_spleenHamilton Nolan
    7/25/13 5:55pm

    This seems relevant:

    Low-income families can get waivers for those fees.

    http://east.maine207.org/assets/6/23/FR…

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      WaterWishcaptain_spleen
      7/25/13 8:25pm

      The bar is very very low for waivers. There are hundreds of families barely above the poverty line who have to fork over this money. If they have more than one kid, or if their kid is on any sports teams, or happens to be musically talented and in the orchestra, it's absolutely unmanageable. Another parent I know with two kids (same school) is paying $1,500 this year.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      captain_spleenWaterWish
      7/25/13 8:27pm

      According to the waiver form, the line for a three-person household is $25,389

      Reply
      <