Inland Utopia

School projects, the money pit of public education. Ever since teaching standards have changed projects have became more grandiose ever since I left the K-12 system as a student thirteen years ago. Due to the declining state of public education, schools have been demanding more out of the parents when even the parent’s pocket book is just as barren or strained as the school district budget.

When school districts are so strained where they ask parents to bring tissues and toilet paper you know something is wrong. Budgets are so constrained that both parents and teachers are expected to pay what was not funded. I remember back in the mid 80s when I was in first grade that crayons, paper and other needed materials were provided and all we had to do was come as we were to class.

Where is this missing money?

Also, teachers should be required to provide options to parents for school projects so parents do not need to feel compelled to spend forty to one hundred dollars on a school project. Parents are also fiscally strained as the teachers who feel compelled to spend ten percent or more of their salary for the school supplies that students come in unequipped and to furnish their classrooms so they would be welcoming spaces.

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Recently the California Teachers Association is advocating for more spending for education. However due to this volatile economic climate they are asking for too much at the wrong time. Even if we fed our education spending to be increased 100 percent and became the top spender in public education, it is likely that education will not improve.

The solution for our education problem is to mandate that 70% of our education funds go actually into the classroom or the school the student belongs to. Also, we should tell parents that teachers are not the total end-all for student achievement, but parents are also part of the equation for student success. Teachers can only do so much for student achievement, but a student’s desire for learning is also influential in how a student achieves.

It is cultural fact of life that those demographics that encourage achievement and success will make it to the top. We just have to make it where we can spread the culture to all ethnic groups and income levels.