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These are often for extracurricular things like school trips.
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Schools are underfunded.
- The schools that aren’t underfunded have millions of dollars in funds earmarked for sports usually.
i dont think its for k-12, but its mostly for universities, and colleges.
You would be incorrect. Many wealthier high schools put a ton of money into their sports facilities and equipment. Several HS in my state operate 10-thousand-plus-seating stadiums that look a lot like collegiate or semiprofessional facilities.
I think #1 is sports. Have you seen some of these stadiums?
Public primary and secondary schools do not typically have stadiums.
This doesn’t really address the whole of OP’s question though. They are asking why our schools are so underfunded if we are spending so much more than average per student. The maths don’t math.
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One of the major factors to consider here is that public schools in the US are not equally funded by number of students. Instead, most of the funding is provided by state and local property taxes, meaning that richer areas where houses are worth a lot more, get much better funding for their schools. So while those rich areas’ school funding is probably much higher than the global median, the poorer areas’ school funding is likely much lower, in a very high cost of living country in general.
The other factor to also consider is that public schools in the US have fairly extensive athletic programs, meaning that they spend a lot of the funds to build and maintain things like American Football
stadiumsfields, swimming pools, etc., as opposed to only funding actual academic education.Edit, I’ve retracted the link about teacher vs coach salaries because it’s about College sports, not primary and secondary schools. I still haven’t found a good source for this info regarding those.
PS: Aside from fundraisers, it’s fairly common to hear teachers telling stories of having to spend their own money to buy supplies for their classes.
PPS: It’s also common to hear stories of poor families doing everything they can to move to richer areas just so their kids can benefit from the much better-funded schools. I’ve even heard of situations where they will register their kids with the address of a relative who lives in a better-funded area, for the same reason.
The other factor to also consider is that public schools in the US have fairly extensive athletic programs, meaning that they spend a lot of the funds to build and maintain things like American Football stadiums fields, swimming pools, etc., as opposed to only funding actual academic education.
I bought my lab supplies. Bare minimum $50-200 a month in supplies. Lab chemicals, pencils and notebooks for students that didn’t have any.
My classroom looked out over the fancy new football and soccer field. One of the middle schools had a field that local semi pro teams would rent out. The district couldn’t even fund busing - we’d have students show up 1-2 hours late every day because of the buses.
Small towns will fund bonds for football fields and cleats; they don’t give a damn about anything else. If you are good enough coach, you can literally show your penis to students and the administration will cover it up, then quietly help you get a position in a new town.
Jeepers creepers, this is so disheartening. I’m sorry that you had to experience that!
Textbooks are a racket and not just for college students.
Most of the money spent on education involves grifts for stuff like that, not for actual important shit like schools or teachers.
PSA, whenever someone asks you to buy something for a fundraiser just donate instead. Especially if you don’t want what they’re selling. They’ll get 100% of that instead of like… I honestly don’t even know, but it can’t be more than 25%.
30-50% if its an actual physical item is pretty normal. If it’s something like a discount card or coupon book, profit approaches 90%.
It encourages then to develop that grindset early.
Global median include countries that might not hold school in a dedicated building, for starters. Also shit just costs more here in general.
Those fundraisers.are usually for extra stuff, too. Big Field trips or events.
most of the funding for public goes into administration, and whats left is for the “schools themselves” which is usually not much, and many schools remain underfunded for generations.
Others may have different experiences, but AFAIK schools tend to be funded by the property taxes in their district. Combined with rampant, unchecked, failed desegreation, and you have some schools that are swimming in cash while everyone else begs to close that gap.
Looking at the global median isn’t a good comparison, for starters. Many of those school systems aren’t comparable.
That said, there’s not likely to be one reason. I could guess at them, but I’d rather not since some will inevitably be wrong.
Have to teach kids to beg for the bare essentials early in life. That way they’ll never know it could be different.
Well I’d reckon that that 15k is an average. Rich kid schools don’t need fundraising but poor districts do. Oh yeah and the funding for schools comes from local districts so if you live in a rich neighborhood your school is way more funded than if you live in the poor areas, which is why people are obsessed with that info if they have kids and want to move.
Also not all departments get the same funding. The football team gets a lot of the budget but the arts get scraps at best. So even if you’re in an ok school, because of how they spend the money, specific classes might need help.
Why the football team? The games bring in money, people donate because of the local team, and the odd lottery that one of those kids becomes a professional and might help out in the future.
Not the only reason, but the cost of living is higher in the U.S. than most other locales on the planet.
That was my first reaction. I didn’t find the global average spending number reported by the OP, but according to this page, the 2019 average spending of $15,500 per student (38% higher than OECD average) did consider purchasing power.
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All you have to do is look at how much of the collected money actually guess to the school then ask what happens to the rest. That’s why.
without digging into the numbers, i can pretty confidently say that schools are more than 30% more expensive than the global median in the US. staffing costs especially.
