By Bob Harris
As our school year draws to a close, one must evaluate what our students have accomplished and what more they could have done if there was proper funding. Too many schools need refurbishing and more funding for supplies and modern equipment. Too many school use closets as classrooms, have laboratories which are just old, and have dilapidated halls and rooms.
Many schools do not have supplies such as paper or crayons or modern equipment. Too many teachers spend their own money to buy classroom supplies. Many schools ask parents to send in paper and glue and crayons and paper towels and tissues so their children can have supplies.
It is the middle-class schools which have limited money for disposable supplies. Why do some schools ask parents to send in supplies to the classroom and printing paper to the main office? While schools in poorer neighbors get more money, it is usually not enough. How many schools do not let students write in workbooks because there is not enough money to buy more workbooks? Why do some schools ask parents to buy textbooks for their children?
Some schools do innovative things to fix up their schools. Old, dilapidated lockers built into halls are painted by art class students and covered with bright murals. Too many students have to sell candy or balloons or knickknacks to provide more money for school trips or student government needs or uniforms for teams. Why can’t the school system provide money for disposable student needs?
Some of the first things the school budget cuts when there is a shortage of money are art or music or gym or the needs of the special needs children. There programs are the heart of many schools and should not be underfunded. Why do middle class parents have to pay for some of these programs themselves?
Years ago, tuition at city two-year colleges was paid for by the city. Why is the price of public city and state colleges so expensive? Poor people can get all kinds of grants, but the middle class, who have clawed themselves upward, are faced with high college costs for their children. There is lots of money around in the city if the government will just use it wisely. The Department of Buildings could generate so much more money if they would just collect the fines levied for illegal actions. Some illegal construction should be fined at a higher rate to make them really stop.
Too much money is going to charter schools, with high salaries for the managers, expensive private companies providing services with no check on them by city, state or federal regulators. Too many charter schools look “good” because they do not enroll low-functioning special needs children or low-functioning ESL students or children from dysfunctional families.
Our federal government is spending billions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan and in Libya and in the past in Vietnam and what used to be Yugoslavia. It is amazing how many of these places are now tourist stops and how many are trading with us now. We try to make Afghanistan a stable place. It never was a country but a collection of tribes and clans. The Middle East was owned by the Ottoman Empire and just divided up by the British and the French with disregard for tribal allegiances and religious differences.
The Shiites and Sunnis are Muslims have co-existed for centuries, but we try to work with countries with majorities or minorities of these now at odds with each other groups and we spend billions of dollars there which we could better use for our schools, infrastructure, STEM programs and job training programs. Doesn’t anyone realize that if we remove Assad in Syria then his Alawite Muslims will become millions of refuges also seeking places to live?
