Back-to-School Horror
It’s almost back to school time, so we’re hearing stories about schools and students getting ready.
Unfortunately, in the Washington, D.C. area, these are not children’s stories, but horror stories.
Just the other day it was reported that half of the city’s schools will not have a complete set of books for the students. Same problem as in 2005, when some students didn’t get books until December.
Gee whiz, back when I was in school, books were sorta important, kinda fundamental to the whole, you know, education-thing.
So what happened? The Washington Post was quick to report that the textbook department had its budget cut from $8 million to $1.5 million. And that it only has one employee.
But wait a second . . . D.C. public schools are spending about $13,000 per student, that’s third-highest among the nation’s 100 biggest school districts. Their overall budgets are going up, not down. And the city just found half a billion dollars to build a baseball stadium.
Many of the books have been bought and paid for, and sit in warehouses because there is no system for keeping track. I read that each school is supposed to have one person in charge of ordering textbooks, but less than a third of the schools have even bothered to appoint someone to fill this role.
This isn’t a money problem, but a case of incompetence or neglect . . . or both.
Will it ever change? Perhaps some competition is in order.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
