In Belgium, we now have a law that forces schools to buy essential school material for their students.

It's for kindergarten and elementary schools. They have to buy things like crayons, pens, scissors, other drawing materials ... Basically everything a kid is required to have while at school.

The reason behind it is a matter of social equality. As I'm sure you all know, popular (kids) shows bring out a lot of merchandising, which logically is very popular. Any parent would know how when a kid sees it, they want nothing but. Also, the kid that doesn't have any, will pretty much be left out, by the other kids that do.

Now the problem with this social phenomena is that not everyone can AFFORD to buy their kids this stuff, which generally is rather expensive, especially compared to the more 'brandless' stuff. Which often is of just as good or better quality.

So they want to level the field by having schools buy these kind of things.

In practice, it's already noticable that now that schools are starting again, many schools wait to actually buy it, because 1. they're on a limited budget, which hasn't actuall increased, after this law, 2. they assume many, if not most, parents will buy this stuff themselves anyway, regardless of the law. So they wait and buy it for the kids that don't have it. Result, you still got the 'have's and the 'have not's.

Is this another example of social security taking it too far, or is this a good idea, one that perhaps still has (a lot of) growing pains.

Discuss ...

There will always be "haves" and "have nots", regardless. Are you going to buy the kids clothing? Shoes? Etc. If not at that age, certainly later in the school process. The problem is two fold :

1) Western society school systems unusually "shephard" kids into large classrooms with their peers.

2) Schools cannot give the level of parenting on a per situation basis that a parent can. To be more blunt, schools cannot punish your children for "being a jerk" adequately. Not with the authority and credibility that a parent can.

Preschool-Kindergarten Supplies

1. Crayons $3.50
This is for basic 8-16 pack crayola crayons.
The more desirable and higher count crayons
Will be more expensive, knock off brands like
Rose will be slightly less.
2. Elmer's Paste $1.00
One small jar of white paste
3. Scissors $3.00
One pair of blunt tip safety scissors,
various colors will cost more.
4. 1 dozen #2 pencils $2.75
This is the basic price for plain yellow pencils.
Colored, glittered or printed pencils will cost
significantly more, even up to $10.00.

5. Ruler $0.50
The plain wooden ruler, flexible plastic, colored,
or printed rulers will cost more.
6. Smock $6.00
A lot of schools do not provide individual smocks
although they usually still provide the finger
paints and other messy activities where smocks are
needed. Printed aprons can cost more up to $15.00.
7. Eraser $0.75
The classic big pink eraser... other colored or
oddly shaped ones will cost more.
8. Storage box $5.00
Most children will need some sort of small art box.
A lot of classrooms for young children simply have
large tables and not desks, their supplies are kept
in cubbyholes along the perimeter of the classroom.
9. Kleenexes 4 packs $5.00
This is also another thing that isn't so simple.
Kids will want to find the brightly colored boxes that
have all the designs and cost significantly more.
10. Back pack $20.00
It may be a little cheaper or go up to $100.00 if
your kid is really picky about the brand name.
I know it's hard to believe that a four year old
could be picky about a brand name, but remember what
they're influenced by. Also, backpacks with spiderman
or dora the explorer will run a bit higher than $20.00.
11. Lunch Box $10.00
This is for a basic primary color cloth lunch bag.
Usually young children (if they're going to have a
lunch box), will want it to match their backpack and
it will run a bit higher.
12. Wide ruled chart paper 3 tablets $12.00
This is the classic paper with the giant lines to help
young children learn to form letters.
13. Folder $0.10
Most children will require at least one folder to bring
home important papers and homework so that the papers
are not crumpled in their little back packs. A .10 cent
folder is well, what you pay for. Children usually will
want something printed with their favorite characters
and they can run up to $4.00 or so just for one folder.
14. School Books $75.00
In many states parents will have to pay to rent text
books. Even for a child in preschool or kindergarten
these “rentals” can run near to $100.00. Most of these
books are going to be buy only books as they will be
soft work books. The buy only ones are usually
expensive considering they may only be 60 pages. States
they provide school books usually have higher property
taxes.

Total = $144.60
Total w/o books = $ 69.60



Something else of note, the child will often have need to do school projects at home that require the same school supplies mentioned above. Usually, the teacher will not allow any student to take home their little box of school supplies and it's usually recommended that you have two sets. A parent may also have need to purchase things like construction paper or poster board to complete these projects. Throughout the school year, these supplies will often need to be replaced which comes to even more cost. I only listed basic school supplies, but when a child is walking through the school supply isle they usually want to buy markers and colored pencils and all sorts of items that aren't on the basic list. I think if parents really want to save money on school supplies they shouldn't even bring their child to the store with them. They should just buy whatever is cheapest and what is on the list. If you take your kid with you, the supplies could cost well over $200.00 rather than the mentioned $70.00. This is also for a young child, as kids get older they’ll need more and more supplies that are more varied and expensive. Not to mention the cost of books. My senior year of high school, my total book cost reached up to nearly $400.00 (for rentals, I only had two books that I actually kept and they were soft workbooks for French and Latin).

So a kid has their books and tools for the school year, and then you have to think about the clothes and shoes. It's highly doubtful your child can fit into the clothes from last school year, so here comes an entirely new wardrobe. Not to mention, a fair amount of public schools now have uniform policies.

While the initial price of basic school supplies is not unmanageable for a young child, I think if a community wants their government to provide school supplies they have to know the money has to come from somewhere. This is usually going to mean higher property taxes. When you compound the price of school supplies with new clothes/shoes and books then that’s a price that can be overwhelming to many parents.

An alternative to relieve parents? Schools could easily purchase materials in bulk for half the cost of less and simply have parents buy these materials when they register their children without the school being tempted to make a profit. For a family on a strict budget 35 bucks is a lot less than 70. For a family that can just fling money around, I doubt they'd care and still buy all the crazy colored and shaped supplies.

*I took prices from various vendors online vendors including wal-mart/target etc.

It's really much more than you'd think at first glance.

And the cool (smart) thing about it is that it's NOT coming from extra taxes, it's coming straight from school budget, which has not been increased.

Which means that school related (and funded) trips need to be cut back. But that is something I can understand. You NEED school equipment, while you don't _need_ to go on a trip.

Ofcourse you should offer the opportunity, but I can see that much more as something parents need to pay (or not) for, rather than school budget. It's more an extra, than an essential.

Sure it sucks for the kid that happens to have poor parents, but I think it's better to face the reality that you can't afford as much as other people, than live in a tax-funded dream of luxury.

In the past, all this would have meant tax increase, luckily they got smart enough to no longer do it. For one, it would be punishing those tax payers who don't have any kids, and second, why should poor parents do anything about their financial situation, if the state does it for you. It's just the wrong way of dealing with it.

The real gap in education materials, atleast here in Canada, is when you get to college/university level. Some programs require you to buy very expensive laptops and some extremely pricey software (CAD programs/Photoshop ect.). I don't see the need for that kind of law in aiding kindergarten students with crayons and safety scissors, when that stuff is largely inconsequential to their learning anyhow. In the case of the University/College materials, these are things which will directly influence whether or not the student can even participate in certain programs.

Using a law like that to make universities and colleges buy the necessary materials, as well as adding a certain amount of tax subsidization (back) to the schools budgets.

The bottom line is that the government needs to start stepping in on tuitions, really. They're becoming overly noninclusive for poorer students, a trend which will only further divide people as 'haves' and 'have nots'.

The bottom line is that the government needs to start stepping in on tuitions, really. They're becoming overly noninclusive for poorer students, a trend which will only further divide people as 'haves' and 'have nots'.

While it's hard to nail down what the fair price of an education should be, the trend that disturbs me is that the rate of change in tuition sharply outpaces inflation. When I was in graduate school, it went up 7-10%/year for undergraduates (*), while professor salaries and other expenses just kept up with inflation. The university's endowment grew rapidly during this time as well. There were some major campus initiatives (new buildings, etc.), but those were generally funded by (and named after) corporate sponsors, or else government programs.

Including room and board, it costs ~$190,000 right now for a four-year education there. Financial aid and loans are needed for all but the very top of the economic food chain.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

(*): Graduate students in the sciences have a tuition, but it's generally taken care of by the research advisor and sort of invisible. I'm sure it went up as well, but I never figured out how much.

An interesting case is what happened at my University. While I was an undergraduate, the tuition was fixed by the state legislature at an artificially low level. The University constantly lobbied the legislature for the right to raise tuition, arguing that they found it difficult to compete for top faculty. While unable to raise tuition, they responded by assessing all manner of "fees" which were not subject to review by the legislature. I don't have one handy, but I think by the time I graduated my bill was actually 75% fees and 25% "tuition".

The thing that always irritated me is how some students and faculty fought against the University's desire to set its own tuition on the grounds that this would harm economically disadvantaged students. Tuition would inevitably increase, which would supposedly price some people out of the school. This just wasn't the case, depending on how the additional tuition was spent. Instead of arguing against a tuition increase, they should have been arguing *for* a tuition increase along with an accompanying increase in the amount of need-based financial aid.

Suppose the initial tuition were $2500/yr. That's pretty close to what I was paying. Suppose also that 20% of students received financial aid, at an average of $2500/yr per student. That's roughly accurate. Now let's suppose that the University were to apply a 100% year-to-year increase. Would it be possible to both generate additional revenue *and* not put any more stress on lower-income students? Certainly. For any student unable to pay the new tuition amount, just don't make them pay. Voila. Only students who can afford the increase receive the increase. The University generates more revenue, can hire better faculty, etc., and poorer students don't pay any more than they already do.

Ironically, the system of extremely *low* tuition was actually *worse* for lower-income students, in that it severely restricted the amount of financial aid money the University had to dole out.

Sidenote: From what I gather, this is similar to how Ivy League schools operate. Raise tuition through the roof, then offer copious amounts of need-based financial aid. Your tuition may be astronomical, but that's irrelevant if 90% of your student body isn't paying full-price.

I think there should be no financial aid whatsoever outside of what you can broker with loans. Price competition becomes more of a factor, keeping efficiency high, tuitions low. Problem solved. Good thing capitalism already thought of this whole scenario.

I think there should be no financial aid whatsoever outside of what you can broker with loans. Price competition becomes more of a factor, keeping efficiency high, tuitions low. Problem solved. Good thing capitalism already thought of this whole scenario.

Private universities can presently charge whatever they can get away with, and offer (or not offer) direct financial aid as they wish. That capitalism isn't suppressing tuition prices.

Instead, nearly all (all?) private universities have voluntarily chosen to offer need-based financial aid for the simple reason that it buys reputation-- you get better students when money isn't a hard barrier. A number of top schools have gone to a purely need-based model for similar reasons.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I'm referring to federal financial aid and with any luck, its total abolishment.

Your original supposition was the old Randian saw: unrestrained capitalism will benefit the consumer and drive prices down. What you're seeing now from private universities is the opposite-- universities presently operate in a highly capitalist economy (allowed to charge whatever they want, not required to justify costs, etc.), and prices are increasing, often 8-10%/year. This is the exact opposite of your prediction.

They voluntarily offer financial aid because their business runs on reputation, and therefore they need the most talented students, not only the wealthy ones who can pay full tuition.

Federal financial aid works in a similar fashion-- it won't get you into a college that you wouldn't qualify for, but it might let you attend a college that you would qualify for but couldn't afford.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

It is not a capitalist economy. Risk appraisal and competitive salary structure are broken by federal and state education aid. In a capitalist structure free of interference, the actual risks associated with lending out that much money to people would play a heavy factor into who was able to take out what loans and who would be willing to go to what schools. The IRR of a college education is severely restated due to these external forces, how can you argue its unfettered capitalism?

In Britain, we've had well subsidised education for a good while now. Nearly all people capable and willing to put in the schooling effort can be guaranteed a degree regardless of their financial situation.

But this comes with two major problems:

1. Everyone has a degree. This sounds damn cool over all, and makes the people of Britain generally good employees. But imagine the job market for someone without one... Job Experience is still the most valuable asset when applying but I can easily out-compete people simply because I have a degree to tack onto the end and make a big deal out of. This means capable people who couldn't get through the expensive and lengthy process of University and instead opted to work early are very likely to be left out somewhere down the line, and stuck trying to work higher in their 'job chain' to a better level. The result is not pleasant for the people that either didn't want to -have- to do a degree or couldn't for other reasons. It also means complete idiots (in non-exam situations) get jobs that very smart, competant people -should- have gotten.

This also means that certain areas have a huge excess. I know people with media degrees, varies kinds of English degrees, Animation, Economics, etc. end up working as managers in bars. Or even retraining to fit another position, in very different fields like Human Resources or Accounting.

2. Our University system boils down to a 'benefit now, pay later' style. This is great for some but the majority end up in a cycle of credit-card style debt, and once they get into employment the interest on what they borrowed to get their education rises according to their income. Add to this other kinds of debts you start to acquire mid-twenties (mortages, cars, actualy credit-cards, etc) and it becomes a rapid downward spiral for anyone who slips up on their personal accounting. This can strip people of 2-3 years where they work almost entirely to shift their debt while trying to find an opening for that degree in Geography or Archaelogy (or anything not science/business based) and earn enough to keep up with the large debts they've acrued. This is the system biggest flaw, although Scotland and recently Wales have completely removed it by paying tuition fees in full. This also draws more people toward Scotland, and is the reason it's 'intellectual' industries have boomed. They're doing much better out of Science and Computing now, and might even make a name for it yet. I think we've all heard of Lemmings. And Grand Theft Auto. They're Scottish inventions :)

Anyway, our social bint has brought up these two problems and are something to watch out for in future with the trend of trying to increase how many people continue to get degrees. Whether or not they crop up elsewhere, we'll see!

Yhorian

My solution would be to keep the education free, but train only the amount of people your country needs trained(this applies to higher, university level education) and not too much over that. Thus, you can pick the ones who are most capable of working in that field for training. This way you wouldn't waste smart minds and wouldn't have overtly large amount of people with degrees running around. Also, you'd be able to improve the quality of education when there are less people to educate.

> My solution would be to keep the education free, but train only the amount of people your country needs trained(this applies to higher, university level education) and not too much over that.

Even if you could come up with a realistic number, it puts a stop on investments. If a company wants to hire someone but can't because of state enforced limits, something is wrong. One of a government's mayor concerns should be providing employment.

> Thus, you can pick the ones who are most capable of working in that field for training.

There are people who are actually better at doing the job they want to do than others, but who suck at being a student. Sure, you can do tests to determine who get's in. But you run the risk of only getting the good students, who are extremely good at theory, but suck at the practical, because they would be good at doing those tests.

For example, I met a first year dentist student once who had scores of 95% on the theoretical courses, and like 20% on the actual physical work. Okay, she would get better at it with practice, and pass (barely), but I find it something of a scary thought. She'd know what to do exceptionally well, but she'd suck at actually doing it.

> This way you wouldn't waste smart minds and wouldn't have overtly large amount of people with degrees running around.

If there's a max limit of 100, and I happen to be the 101st, why am I denied my chance for the career I'm dreaming of, while the guy who registered before me does get it? Just because he happened to be earlier than me? Maybe he's more qualified, maybe I am. You'll never know, cause I don't get the chance to prove it. Theoretically, you could get a hundred crappy guys who happened to register faster than the rest (maybe they made sure they were faster just because they know they suck :P), while you deny the guys really deserving a chance.

> Also, you'd be able to improve the quality of education when there are less people to educate.

What happens to the people you deny? They don't vanish. They still need something else to do. Likely something they don't like doing, and they may take away other people chances too, creating a cascade of drop-outs who should have gotten their chance, but didn't.

I think in the end, this would be a social disaster.

>> My solution would be to keep the education free, but train
>only the amount of people your country needs trained(this
>applies to higher, university level education) and not too
>much over that.
>
>Even if you could come up with a realistic number, it puts a
>stop on investments. If a company wants to hire someone but
>can't because of state enforced limits, something is wrong.
>One of a government's mayor concerns should be providing
>employment.

That is correct. But the point is that if you have, for example, 10000 unemployed historians living on social security or not finding job that has any need for such education, why use government money to train more if there aren't any jobs for the current workforce? Why not direct these people to train themselves into some other occupation that does need the work force?

Thus, reducing the # of people trained would mean that you'd have less people with useless degree, but not less people with useful degree, as you naturally don't reduce the numbers of professionals in training the society has use for.

So, the number of people trained would somewhat correspond to the need for professionals of that field in the work market.

>> Thus, you can pick the ones who are most capable of working
>in that field for training.
>
>There are people who are actually better at doing the job they
>want to do than others, but who suck at being a student. Sure,
>you can do tests to determine who get's in. But you run the
>risk of only getting the good students, who are extremely good
>at theory, but suck at the practical, because they would be
>good at doing those tests.
>
>For example, I met a first year dentist student once who had
>scores of 95% on the theoretical courses, and like 20% on the
>actual physical work. Okay, she would get better at it with
>practice, and pass (barely), but I find it something of a
>scary thought. She'd know what to do exceptionally well, but
>she'd suck at actually doing it.

How do you gauge this?

>> This way you wouldn't waste smart minds and wouldn't have
>overtly large amount of people with degrees running around.
>
>If there's a max limit of 100, and I happen to be the 101st,
>why am I denied my chance for the career I'm dreaming of,
>while the guy who registered before me does get it? Just
>because he happened to be earlier than me? Maybe he's more
>qualified, maybe I am. You'll never know, cause I don't get
>the chance to prove it. Theoretically, you could get a hundred
>crappy guys who happened to register faster than the rest
>(maybe they made sure they were faster just because they know
>they suck :P), while you deny the guys really deserving a
>chance.

Apply first isn't the criteria. You'll pick the people with best credentials and have an entrance exams as an additional method of proving yourself for those whom you don't otherwise get in based on their previous credentials(such as the relevant High School diploma grades). So, if you are 101st, it means that the 100 others were smarter than you or otherwise proved to be better, not that they applied before you, as you all had the certain period of time to apply.

>> Also, you'd be able to improve the quality of education when
>there are less people to educate.
>
>What happens to the people you deny? They don't vanish. They
>still need something else to do. Likely something they don't
>like doing, and they may take away other people chances too,
>creating a cascade of drop-outs who should have gotten their
>chance, but didn't.

If they were smart, they applied to more than one school during the application period.

>I think in the end, this would be a social disaster.

You're overthinking the problem. Reduce the government spending and let the market decide what careers are attractive based on supply & demand.

It would seem many people agree that communism doesn't fit human nature - why they feel compelled to break it up into smaller pieces and force-feed it piece by piece re-instituting the same problems but in a piecemeal fashion is beyond me.

It doesn't work and it creates more problems than it solves.

>It would seem many people agree that communism doesn't fit
>human nature - why they feel compelled to break it up into
>smaller pieces and force-feed it piece by piece re-instituting
>the same problems but in a piecemeal fashion is beyond me.

Halfway measures and compromises, mostly. Pure communism doesn't work because people are lazy; pure capitalism doesn't work because people are greedy and because they can solve problems with violence. Just because pure communism is a dumb idea doesn't mean it has nothing to teach us.

That being said, I think a trend towards needs-based financial aid in general has the danger of turning into a tragedy of the commons. If I'm middle class and there's no financial aid, there are diminishing evolutionary returns to having more than a couple children because I can't educate or care for them as well. On the other hand, if all my kids have a reasonable chance to be fed and go to a decent school even if there are thirty of them, from an evolutionary perspective, it's to my advantage to have as many children as possible. Although I wouldn't personally make that choice and a lot of people wouldn't, that the environment encourages/permits it (if true... I don't know that there's actually that much aid out there now) will gradually breed humanity in that direction. Ultimately that's got to collapse under its own weight like a pasture with too many cows.

Its my opinion that "universal aid to help the exceptional overcome financial barriers" does not in fact aid the exceptional. Rather it aids the mediocre and less than mediocre, while obfuscating the exceptional. A "tragedy of the commons" is a fair assessment. If you were to make college free for everyone in a real sense, you would not be helping the impoverished attain equal footing - rather you would be diminishing the intrinsic value of the degrees to begin with. In essence, "college for everyone" means "college for no one" and turns it into a mandatory decision rather than value based. This is why there is a prevalence towards higher and higher degress of education, with the Bachelor's being replaced by the Master's and Master's replaced by the Doctorates - at some level an employer needs to find distinction in a sea of CV's, when you remove one distinction you are merely shifting things upward.

Anything that removes the natural tendency of a job market to fluctuate around a meritocracy is, frankly, evil and wrong. That includes, but is not limited to: Quota hiring, quota education, free-for-all financial aid, etc.

The fact of the matter is, when it is difficult to aquire funding for something, you're going to think really hard about what you want to aquire it for. It means, for example, if a bank actually assigned an unrestricted risk premium to your education loan, you're less likely to go for a "fluff" degree which has no job potential. You're going to invest rather than waste.

That keeps the equilibrium of the job market competitive and reduces oversaturation. Why should someone interested in becoming a shift manager at McDonald's have to compete with someone with a BS in chemistry? The fact is that the person with the BS in chemistry just managed to fake their way through the diploma program but may not have the actual skill required to hold a job in that field.

Because at college/university, if you chose an expensive education, that's your choice.

Going to kindergarten/elementary is not a choice. For people who can't really afford to spend as much as other families on school, a financial aid would be most welcome.

>I don't see the
>need for that kind of law in aiding kindergarten students with
>crayons and safety scissors, when that stuff is largely
>inconsequential to their learning anyhow.

This stuff is not largely inconsequential. A lot of teachers for children 4-6 will have masters degrees where you’ll find teachers for ages 7-14 will not. It doesn’t mean one age group has better teachers and the others do not, but there’s a lot more to consider when teaching very young children than most people think. Learning to cut with their little plastic safety scissors and getting the “I can cut in a straight line award” isn’t only something to make the children feel good and have fun but it’s to test their fine motor skills. Kindergarten programs are developed to test students on multiple levels with tools like their little scissors. Tons of children are held back in Kindergarten for an extra year, not because they don’t know their letters and can’t read basic words but because they are falling behind in some other aspect of development. Of course various developmental aspects often overlap.

When it comes to helping college level students, sure something more can be done. At the same time, you can’t go to college if you can’t start with kindergarten. And college is elective whereas elementary school is not.

To me, I think government money would do better to educate parents to save their own money for their children. I know when I went to college, I was not permitted to have any sort of government financial aid due to the fact that my mother’s income (a single parent) was well over the limit for aid (compounded with I was not 24, I did not have a child, I was not married). She had zero savings for either of her daughters, which is sad. The saddest part about it is she didn’t even think about the need to save for something so expensive until it came time for college preparation. Personally, from my experiences even though I do not have children I’m already saving for prospective children. I plan to have a child/children within three years or so, and saving now will ensure they can go to the school of their choice without significant hassle. When I look at my friends that have children now, none of them are thinking about saving for their children. Some of them have kids that are already eight. That’s only ten more years before those big tuition bills start rolling in. They all have professional jobs and make an income that could be judged as higher middle class, yet they have no savings. I think it’s unfair to expect families that cannot do anything for themselves (aside from buying some giant house with rooms they don’t use or an over powered gas guzzling SUV when they only have two kids) to be given a free ticket for higher education. If money is really tight, a teenager can always work their ass off in the summers to help cushion the cost.

Solution to the problem? Like I said, education. This can be something that when you go to register your child in K-12 you are provided with information about savings programs specifically for college. It doesn’t cost the government that much money to include extra pamphlets. Especially with their first child, a lot of parents will want to read and review and sometimes save everything that comes with that first school year process. If parent are given this information early on, I think there’s a possibility for change. Some local banks even have quarter programs. They give you little folders to hold quarters and when it’s full with like five bucks you can deposit it into a no fee interest savings account specifically for your child's education. How hard is it to put a few quarters in a card every week? Even if a quarter cards aren’t going to pay for all of your child’s education needs, something is better than nothing and all those quarters over 18 years are going to add up.

Then you can start saying it’s a war against the “haves” and the “have overtime” not “have nots”.

The answer is not to make college mandatory, the answer is to do the exact opposite. In reality, the problem Europe is facing is an overabundance of "skilled labor" and an underabundance of "unskilled labor". That should serve as a lesson that it isn't an optimally efficient choice to keep pushing salaries up and workload down. Rather, emphasis should be placed upon fighting inflation and easing cost of living. It makes less sense to "destroy blue collar jobs" in a country than it does to "make blue collar jobs a viable life choice".

How much do crayons cost? Sheesh.

Are there "cool crayons" and "uncool crayons"?

Seems like a non-issue.

You don't have kids do you?
There are no non-issues. hehe.
If you make it to where the school is
super-conformy everyone looks the same
has the same stuff etc.. the wealthy kid
will find SOME way to claim that what they
have makes them better than the poorer kid.
be it better crayons, or having the uniform
tailored or what-have-you.

Just the way it is, so long as Parent X
thinks they are better than Parent Y
the kids will follow suit.
(Parents will generally not believe
how much they talk about their social
standing in front of thier kids unless
you tape it and show them hehe)

I Googled a little, and CBS at least claims the average back-to-school budget is $564/child. Given that the article mentions "latops and iPods" as possible budget items, that's obviously skewed by wealthy parents buying luxury items. However, it's not hard to believe that you could rack up ~$100/child/year buying notebooks, pens, pencils, crayons, craft supplies, and the occasional multi-year items like backpacks, rulers, etc. Not a huge burden, but something that very poor parents might skimp on, especially if they don't view education as an investment.

Given the things public schools do supply (building, utilities, staff, etc.), I don't think it's unreasonable for schools to offer an annual packet of those types of items free of charge to students who qualify for free/reduced lunches, etc. No sense compounding the effects of poverty on their education when the necessities are inexpensive.

CBS article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/30/business/main3221130.shtml


valguarnera@carrionfields.com

CBS also mentions the bulk of that will be spent on clothing, something the school isn't going to provide unless it's a situation where there's a school uniform. Maybe things have changed since I was in school, but all we ever had to buy was pencils, a red pen for checking other students' work, colored map pencils, some binders and paper. In elementary school, maybe some plastic scissors and construction paper. Also a backpack, but that wasn't an every-year purchase. When we *were* called upon to use semi-expensive items (graphic calculators) they were provided by the school.

I don't have specific memories of this, but I strongly suspect my teachers had extras on hand for kids whose parents didn't send them to school w/ the requested list of supplies.

I'm not against the idea per se; I just don't think it ranks very highly among the multitude of other educational problems we've yet to address.

I don't believe that's the issue. I think its a social issue, pertaining to children who have "better crayons" compared to children who have "cheap" crayons. In other words, its a communist's approach to education.

Well it's more than just crayons, and apparently if you add it all up, it would be more than you'd expect.

And apparently, yes, there are cool and uncool crayons ...

You can bet that, for instance, 'The incredibles' crayons would be more popular than brandless crayons.