patron-saint-of-smart-asses:

kompanie-mutter:

smugget:

kompanie-mutter:

I’d be curious to see where all that additional money is generally being put; I would be willing to bet a fairly significant portion of it goes towards inflated administrator salaries and things like smart boards and other technology in the classroom, whereas especially in schools in poor areas, something as simple as providing kids with free, nutritious lunch and breakfast can improve academic performance.

With high schools a lot of it goes to sport programs instead of educational stuff

Ew, yeah, you’re probably right.

Administrator pay is definitely a problem too. If people want public schools to function then they need to keep school boards small and local.

Okay, when it comes to comparing test scores, the US tests everybody, including those who have learning disabilities and get a lot of services. Last I knew (thoughI learned this information a few years ago), the US is one of the few countries that does that. Most other countries don’t test their below average students. Oh, and when common core came out, they made the tests ridiculously hard on purpose to make it seem like the kids taking the tests didn’t know anything. They did this for several years in order to push harder curriculum on the students.

And urban schools have such a different culture than suburban and rural schools. Very much students vs. teachers. Most teachers nowadays burnout after only a few years teaching in those schools.

I’m honestly not surprised by the spending. The companies keep changing reading series. Education ideologies keep changing, so materials need to be made to fit the new thing. And schools buy them because it’s the new thing you need to have it, which is a disadvantage to the kids because they’re being thrown into a new way of doing the same thing, and they HAVE to know it because, guess what! IT’S ON THE STATE (*cough* common core*) TEST NOW. There is so much politics and business crap involved.

Ugh. We really do a disservice to our students. Trust me, the teachers are as frustrated with this, if not more so, because we know how we wish we could teach, and with what materials if we were given the freedom to do so.