Public Schools NEVER have "Enough Money"

Did you know that teachers in the public schools  spend a lot of out -of -pocket money to make their classrooms complete. A 2012 survey found that on average teachers spend over 350 dollars each year of their own money on instructional materials and supplies for their individual classrooms.  They purchase items like play equipment, snacks, first-aid and hygienic paper products, winter necessities like gloves and hats for kids who come to school without or who need a spare, art supplies, even classroom computers and I-pads.  They care about their kids they spend hours with everyday and some report that the red tape it takes to get everything that is needed to keep things running smoothly and make a classroom comfortable or dun abd interesting  is difficult; besides, schools, especially in less affluent areas, have very limited budgets.  

Schools are always telling the public that they are in need.  They campaign for  levies; kids selll gift wrap door to door. Schools also look for handouts each year, donations of pencils and paper and glue sticks and other things given to parents in list form to purchase for the school each year.  Our poor schools, they just never seem to have enough money, but they are always taking on new buildings, buying new textbooks, starting new programs.

Spokesman Review, Sept 16, 2013 ran an article that talked about the school district starting a "charter school."  They will need about 2 million dollars to  make this special school for a few kids who get to go to the school if they win a lottery.  Do you think they will ask for pencil donations to the school?

Another article from October 15th was about how Spokane Schools are failing in the areas of language arts so they are changing their curriculum- overhauling reading and writing by replacing it with Common Core.  The school "needs" this overhaul because only 57 percent of the districts fourth graders are passing the statewide writing test.  

Maybe they cannot write because paper is not being supplied to them by the school for writing?  
Another article, dated Dec. 4th , told how Spokane schools grades  K-8 were planning to ditch what they were doing for math and try a free math program offered on-line, but only until someone could create a text that meets the standards for Common Core that schools are moving towards implementing, even though they have not seen the textbooks yet.  When the textbooks come out, (from the companies hired by common Core to create the texts, then they will HAVE to purchase them, but until then.... this math program,  EngageNY,  is supposed to be great... and it's "free."  However, our every changing schools are going to stop doing that when the Core Curriculum is ready to be purchased, and that will be quite an expense.

No one really knows how much it will cost to implement this Common Core, but it will be expensive.  Not only that but the people in positions of authority who have agreed to do it, have agreed sight unseen. No one has seen the materials that will be used as of yet. There will be the cost of training and testing... computers.... books.... but there is an even greater cost than what can be measured in money.  The greatest cost to every state and district, to every man, woman and child, will be the loss of local control over our schools.  With the immplementation of the Common Core program, school will cease to be run by local, elected officials and instead will be managed by appointed federal employees.  The cost is astronomically expensive,so expensive that some states, like Kansas and Alaska, who signed up, are thinking to bail out. 

In a Fox News Report dated Feb 2, 2014, Perry Charliamonte reported that in Maryland, educational experts estimated that it will require $100 million to upgrade their computers statewide to support the testing done in conjunction with Common Core.. Where does a school district get that kind of money?  In Washington State,  no one will talk real number, mainly because they haven't a clue.  This page will give you some estimates. 

Randy Dorn, Washington's superintendent of public instruction declined to give any numbers when he was interviewed by Jodi Lawrence-Turner in a January 29th, 2014 Spokesman Review article. He commented  that the cost of Common Core is "beside the point." He added,  “We aren't preparing students to be career and college ready, so I can’t put a price on it.”  He justified implementation of Common Core whatever the cost, saying, "If we fully fund basic education, that will free up local dollars.”  

Are you wondering.... How is it that we are not "fully funding basic education" already? Isn't that what taxes and levies pay for, what teachers in the schools are already working hard to do?  What "local dollars" will be freed up when we as a state, spend millions of dollarson Common Core that the school never seems to have?   

Oh yeah, it must be that money that parents and teachers, (not the school funding,) use to provide all those pencils and paper in our children's classrooms.  Just think.... of all the money that will be freed up locally when everything children do in school is done on a computer and parents and teachers no longer will have to purchase pencil and paper for the schools! 


Sign the Petition to stop Common Core:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stop-common-core-in-washington-state1.html