The High Cost of School Supplies

A recent report on CBS News indicated that parents of elementary school children spend an average of $580 on school supplies.  What was more notable in the story was what items were on the supply list. In addition to things like four boxes of crayons, pencils, notebooks and a backpack, the list in some schools included hand sanitizer, zip-lock bags, Clorox Disinfectant wipes and even bathroom tissue. When interviewing classroom teachers who were preparing for the upcoming school year, many had commented that they spent as much as $500 a year for classroom supplies out of their own pockets. Apparently this is a growing trend across the country. As school districts pared and pruned their budgets, many items were excluded- things that schools used pay for. Now the burden is being shifted to the parents and the teachers.

Coincidentally, an article appeared in the Naples Daily News on August 15^th about the “World’s Finest Chocolate” factory and other fund raising organizations who collectively generate over $3 billion in sales from projects in schools, churches, civic organizations and such. All of this points to one central issue, America’s schools are grossly underfunded and parents and teachers must resort to a wide variety of initiatives to be sure that their children have everything they need to be successful in school. I attended a community meeting not long ago and met a woman who was the local PTA representative from an affluent public school. She remarked to me that whatever the school was lacking, the “ well-heeled” parents were more than willing to make up the difference. Burt what about children who come form socio-economically disadvantaged schools- what happens to them? They don’t have the use of the latest computers and technology. They may not even have the most recent textbooks. And forget about field trips.

The issue is education equality. How are we going to achieve it? Who will lead us in that direction? How are we going to pay for it? Until these questions are answered to the satisfaction of all of the parents of all of the children, we will continue to have a two-tiered system of public education in this country. One system for the affluent schools districts where parents can afford to pay and are willing to pay for a superior education and another system where there are shortages of books, not enough computers, and not even enough bathroom tissue.

c.2015 J. Margolis