Public Education: A real mess.

Wanna know what's worse than a public education system that consistently fails to educate your children? ...One that charges you for the privilege of the experience.

School Districts Nationwide Implement Controversial 'Pay To Play' Fees

An Ohio school district is the latest to implement a controversial "pay to play" policy, reports The Wall Street Journal. Medina Senior High, faced with budget cuts and repeated rejection of proposals to increase taxes, has started charging students for, well, just about everything. After-school sports, clubs, electives and even required courses such as Spanish all carry a price tag.

The Dombi family is feeling the strain; education and activities for their four children racked up a bill of $4,446.50 this year. And even then, they had to make some tough choices -- their oldest daughter had to forgo choir as it would cost an additional $200.

...

But school fees continue to pop up in districts across the country. The Kansas City Star reports that 28 percent of districts in Kansas have instituted some variation of the pay to play fee. The Shawnee Mission School District is one of these, although its fee takes a different approach: all high school students must pay a $90 participation fee, regardless of whether or not they participate in activities like sports or band.

:shk:

Liberal or conservative. Does anyone really think this is headed in the right direction?

This is insane! Now future generations are now in more debt than the current generation.

reply to post by loam


Here in Kali any NON school needed courses have been pay to play for a long time.
I know i payed alot for 4 boys and some for the 2 girls.
But foreign languages are a requirement so they cannot charge for those.
The Gumment has a duty to see our children educated, it is why they have the exit exam nowadays.
You are talking of pay to play not pay to learn.
I will say that sports do make schooling a bit easier for its social benefits but given the choice i'd go with education.

Hasnt school classes and it's after hours sports programs always costed money?

reply to post by TheWhaler


Kind of yes kind of no.
Back in my day we payed a deposit for uniforms and outright bought our jerseys. (personalized stuff)
Electives such as arts, foods, band, wood, metalshops, all payed for by the school.
Nowadays for sports their is a fee to be on the teams and uniforms are still the same, pay for bus trips Etc.
Electives music, if any special equipment needed and student does not have, student provides.I.E. drumsticks instruments,Etc.
Foods, for schools that still have get an itemized bill for goods used, same thing with metal and wood shops, art class.
But things like English, math, history, science, and in Kali foreign language as it is a pre req. are all handled by the state and fed grants.
Our founding fathers believed the free publics schools were the foundation of a free and fair society.

reply to post by loam


The real problem that I see with the public education system in the US is that in order for the individual school districts to receive the government funding they require to properly educate the children, the children are required to take government mandated exams to gauge the effectiveness of the district's teaching abilities. In other words, if the school does not do a good job of teaching the students, they don't get the government funding they need to do a good job.

It's a vicious cycle . . . we don't have enough money to teach the kids well and the kids don't score high enough to get us the money we need to teach them well.

The result is that the schools spend an inordinate amount of time teaching the kids Test Taking Skills rather than the facts they should be learning in reading. writing, and mathematics. They teach the kids how to rule out answers in a multiple choice question; which answer is the most incorrect/least likely, etc.

Another pet peeve of mine is how they are teaching the kids to solve math problems by estimating rather than teaching them how to solve the math problem to get the exact answer. I remember when I was in school, we spent some time talking about estimating and all, but it was never used as a replacement for knowing how to do the actual math to get the correct answer. I think this is just another example of helping the kids to pass the government mandated multiple choice tests.

I think the best solution is to completely redesign how the school district's receive their funding. I do not know the best model for that, but I do see the inherent flaw in the current funding model.

As far as the OP, the only way some of these schools can continue to pay for the teaching curriculum for the students is to require that extra-curricular activities, unfortunately, be payed for by the parents.

Be Well.

This is a huge can of worms to open.

There is a certain amount as a parent I am willing to pay beyond what I already pay in taxes to support public education. The sports, musical, arts....etc. are important to growth in children. They should not be subject to dismissal because of lack of support.

Like healthcare, education is vital. It should not see its budgets cut.

However, in order to make sure we are getting the most from our school system we should expect to see some kind of gauged results such as testing, maybe not gov'ment testing as I find those tests to be lacking. You can't have teachers teaching that are bad at it...can you? (like any job performance review)

The other problem is the percentage of childrent that go to public schools that live in families that are already subsidised by goverment assistance. This is a double wammy to the system. (I am not being an elitist here, just pointing out the other problems with the system.)

There will never be a "good" answer concerning public schools other than parents just throwing in their chips and switching to private or home schooling in order to get their children the education they need.

There's tons more stuff to consider, debate and talk about. To big of a topic.

From what I have seen the more the federal government spends in the public school system, the worse the system gets. For most of the time I was in public school, there was no federal dept of education at the cabinet level. Since the last demonkrat disaster of a president(Carter) created it in 1979, US education has been in a "race to the bottom" as far as actual quality instruction and student learning goes. Interestingly, in 1939 the precursor office for this agency was part of the Federal Security Agency. The FSA, among other things, also hosted the War Research Service, a secret program to develop chemical and biological weapons from 1942 to 1944.

I have said it a million times, close the federal Department of Education/Indoctrination and put it all back in the states hands. Then, if the states do not do what they are supposed to do, then they have to answer to the people. I would refuse to pay those fees and I have refused and I shall see the outcome if they allow my child to graduate even though they feel I owe them money, that is what my taxes are for. I am sick and tired of paying for others incompetence. But seriously what can they do about it if you refuse to pay, I would think if one did refuse to pay to play, then I would be inclined to think that No Child Left Behind would actually prove to be of some benefit in this case.

Incredibly disturbing, but not surprising. Keeping people stupid means keeping people dependent.

This is the first I have heard about this article, so thank you OP for posting it.

As a public school teacher myself, I find this appalling at best and downright criminal at worst. While sports have always had some sort of fees attached to them, as well as instrumental music education (my forte), never in my life have I heard of students being required to actually pay for the courses in order to take them! I understand the need for parents to shell out money for certain types of instruments that are small enough to be economically feasible (trumpets, clarinets, flutes, drum sticks, trombones, as well as reeds, oils, etc. to maintain the instruments), and that the school would provide the bigger ones (tubas, drum kits, marching equipment, etc.), but to charge for an arts class, and then charge for a spanish class (both of which are required according to NCLB...no if's and's or but's), is just lunacy!

The fact that the teachers didn't fight this, nor did the union fight this (from what I can tell), is just crazy! Yeah, the public doesn't want tax increases, and nobody really does, but how much money were they going to save compared to the amount that they are shelling out now?! I bet they would have saved more money with a 5% tax increase per thousand dollars than shelling out 5,000 a year for their kids to get a well-rounded education!

My question is: what percentage of the population in this town is over the age of 55? How many of that age bracket voted the budget down? If history holds true, it was probably closer to 60-70% of that age bracket. This has happened several times in the district that I went to school in, as well as the district I currently work in. Somehow, the powers that be made due, but the fact that this is now spreading to Kansas is nuts. The schools know that this is illegal, they are being forced to do more with less, and the public doesn't give a damn. Is this the school's way of giving a wake up call to the people that reside within the district? I have no idea.

Articles like this make me hate being a teacher more and more....not because of the kids I work with, but the communities, administration, and the like that don't support the efforts to give their children a proper education. I do the work because I love to do it. I love the kids, and I love seeing their faces light up every time they understand and really grasp a new concept. How am I supposed to do my job with everything else coming down on me?

And public schools wonder why there is such a shortage of teachers in this country....




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-truthseeker

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reply to post by loam


The problem with the educational system is that it is an over glorified all girl's club run by leftist's. In order to fix education all you have to do is bean count it.

Mandate 50-50% female to male ratio among teacher staff, also mandate a proportional number of leftist's,rightist's and independents/moderates among teaching staff= problem solved.

Also prohibit female guidance councilors from giving guidance to male students(and vice versa).

Schools need to teach the value of knowledge. Instead of dumping it on them with no real explaination of why they need it or what can be done with it.

Charging for education should be illegal.