The annual posting of lists of basic supplies for classrooms by teachers is a national embarrassment

[Guest]

It never ceases to amaze me the just basic basic stuff public school teachers are asking random people to donate because their schools provide so little beyond textbooks.
 

@CitizenVectroncertainly this nonsense doesn’t happen in Canada?

[CitizenVectron]

Not to the same extent, at least as I understand it. In general, Canada has large, taxpayer-funded school divisions (with standard curriculum), and very few private schools. As such, the schools supply everything that is generally needed for the school. Now, parents will be asked to supply basic stuff for their kids (pencils, binders, etc), but there are usually programs for lower-income kids who need those things provided for them.

 

Teachers usually do spend their own money to go above and beyond, and it's often a sticking point in union negotiations. That's another big difference--in Canada, as far as I am aware, all teachers are unionized and belong to very strong unions, at that. As such, they make good wages across the country (perhaps with the exception of some very high COL centres like Toronto, but I am not familiar). 

 

But to answer your basic question--no, schools in Canada generally don't ask for donations for their basic needs, because schools are tax-funded and many have the power to just raise their taxes. That's not to say it doesn't happen, especially for some low-income students. But it's not as common.

 

Also, as a result of almost all divisions being large and tax-funded, there is typically very little difference in quality of education between schools. So you don't see people sending their kids to the next town over for better schools, etc. In fact, in many/most places you legally have to send your kid to the nearest school. So funding is generally the same per school (based on number of students), so you won't see poorer areas lacking supplies, etc. It's one of my favourite parts of our system, that kids, whether rich or poor, all just go to the same schools. 

[johnny]

my district gives me 400 dollars to use at office depot. i’m not an elementary school teacher so i don’t need all of it. i use up the extra like 250 that’s leftover to stock up on things like pens and notebooks for my students who need/want them. 

 

but i always see elementary teachers asking for donations as well as some science teachers for lab projects. sucks 

[gamer.tv]

UK education is funded so that with careful management teachers never need to spend money themselves - but it is no where near close for the ambitions to the UK has for schools (a world beating education for all and full provision to support people socially, those that are disadvantaged and those deemed at risk). Like the most of the world it’s a sector that is deemed necessary, vaguely respected, but woefully undervalued.

[DarkStar189]

My wife worked at a huge early childcare center for years. Always had to buy a ton of basic items out of pocket for her class every year. Always made me mad.

[Ghost_MH]

8 hours ago, CitizenVectron said:

Not to the same extent, at least as I understand it. In general, Canada has large, taxpayer-funded school divisions (with standard curriculum), and very few private schools. As such, the schools supply everything that is generally needed for the school. Now, parents will be asked to supply basic stuff for their kids (pencils, binders, etc), but there are usually programs for lower-income kids who need those things provided for them.

 

Teachers usually do spend their own money to go above and beyond, and it's often a sticking point in union negotiations. That's another big difference--in Canada, as far as I am aware, all teachers are unionized and belong to very strong unions, at that. As such, they make good wages across the country (perhaps with the exception of some very high COL centres like Toronto, but I am not familiar). 

 

But to answer your basic question--no, schools in Canada generally don't ask for donations for their basic needs, because schools are tax-funded and many have the power to just raise their taxes. That's not to say it doesn't happen, especially for some low-income students. But it's not as common.

 

Also, as a result of almost all divisions being large and tax-funded, there is typically very little difference in quality of education between schools. So you don't see people sending their kids to the next town over for better schools, etc. In fact, in many/most places you legally have to send your kid to the nearest school. So funding is generally the same per school (based on number of students), so you won't see poorer areas lacking supplies, etc. It's one of my favourite parts of our system, that kids, whether rich or poor, all just go to the same schools. 

 

See, the issue in the US is that rich and affluent white folks didn't want their tax dollars going to fund the schools for the poors and blacks. Policy was written around that so property taxes mostly fund schools. Come from a nice, white neighborhood with fancy estates and you wind up with a school that can afford anything it wants without requiring teachers to provide quite as much from their own pockets. Come from a part of town with nothing but multifamily apartments and subsidized housing, you end up with a school that can barely afford textbooks and teachers stuck having to provide a lot of they're own teaching material.

 

My wife actually taught at the poorest school in our district for a spell. She bought a laser printer for her class and had to hide the power cable for it. The school did not provide her with any paper. Students were expected to bring their own pencils and notebooks. If they couldn't afford to... too bad. She ended up buying spare notebooks and pencils for her students as well. She didn't even get a syllabus. She was given copies of the standardized tests and told to just figure out how to get her students there, but not to worry too much because they expect 70-80% of their kids to not get there by the end of the year.

 

This is all very much working as designed.

[CitizenVectron]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

See, the issue in the US is that rich and affluent white folks didn't want their tax dollars going to fund the schools for the poors and blacks. Policy was written around that so property taxes mostly fund schools. Come from a nice, white neighborhood with fancy estates and you wind up with a school that can afford anything it wants without requiring teachers to provide quite as much from their own pockets. Come from a part of town with nothing but multifamily apartments and subsidized housing, you end up with a school that can barely afford textbooks and teachers stuck having to provide a lot of they're own teaching material.

 

My wife actually taught at the poorest school in our district for a spell. She bought a laser printer for her class and had to hide the power cable for it. The school did not provide her with any paper. Students were expected to bring their own pencils and notebooks. If they couldn't afford to... too bad. She ended up buying spare notebooks and pencils for her students as well. She didn't even get a syllabus. She was given copies of the standardized tests and told to just figure out how to get her students there, but not to worry too much because they expect 70-80% of their kids to not get there by the end of the year.

 

This is all very much working as designed.

 

Theoretically this could have happened in Canada (as schools are also funded through property taxes), but a few things have prevented it, I think:

• Some places (like my own province) collect all the property taxes for each division for the whole province, pool them, and then divvy them back out based on student count. The downside to this model is that individual divisions can't choose to increase their own taxes like in other provinces (theoretically the province takes different geographical needs into account for things like transportation, etc, since busing is also paid for by taxes, and some rural divisions need more of it, but there are always arguments)
• Canada (outside of the GTA and Vancouver) tends to have very concentrated/clearly demarcated urban areas, and single, large school divisions in each city. Where there is more than one division, it is almost always a second publicly tax-funded division run by Catholics (using public curriculum), but there is no border between them, they operate schools across the entire city, just like the public division 
  • An example is the city of Edmonton, population 1 million. They have two publicly-funded divisions, one public, the other "separate" (i.e. Catholic, but using the public curriculum)
  • Edmonton Public Schools has 218 schools, Edmonton Catholic Schools has 101 schools. Both serve the entire city, with their schools spread pretty equally everywhere
  • So, each collects its own property tax (when you pay your taxes, you can choose the education portion to go to the public system or catholic system) and then uses the funds, but must abide by the provincial, public curriculum
• Teachers and principals within divisions are almost always shuffled around every 3-7 years, so that no school ever accumulates all the best teachers (or all the lemons). This ensures that all schools get equal quality of teaching, regardless of affluence

 

 

As a result of these things, people don't really get better school systems in richer neighbourhoods because typically the division covers the entire city (or rural area) and the money is spread out equally, along with the education staff

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I'd say it's more of an "international" embarrassment. 

[Jason]

lol for a moment I forgot sbl had posted this thread and thought @Commissar SFLUFAN had posted his own very different thread