19 July 2018 How Much For School Supplies?

How Much For School Supplies?

 

It is a national disgrace that teachers have to spend their own money to have enough supplies for the class room.  How would I fix this?  There about 50 million K-12 public school students in the US.  There are 3.2 million teachers. 

 

I propose we provide each student with a backpack and supplies totaling $200 dollars and teachers get a $1000 dollar stipend for supplies.  That would be $10 billion for the students and $3.2 billion for the teachers.  The total is $13.2 billion. The federal budget for 2018 is over $4 trillion, yes trillion, dollars.  My proposal comes out to a little over three-tenths of one percent of the budget.

 

How would I implement this program?  It would be through block grants to states based on the number of students and teachers. Each state would then block grant the money to each school district.  I want the purchasing to be done at the lowest level possible.  Local decisions for education are best.  Each state would use its purchasing power to order the supplies for the students.  Teachers would get a debit card or some on-line capability to purchase the supplies through the states supply chain and only through the states supply chain.  The American Federation of Teachers would recommend what each students backpack would contain, however, it would be up to the local Board of Education to make the detailed decisions after having public input.  

 

I don’t want this to be a competition for industry to bid on.  That would add too much bureaucracy and cost.   Each state already has existing contracts for basic supplies that can be used.

 

Every kid gets a bag. Every teacher gets a way to buy things.  For the cost of 3/10’s of 1% of the federal budget, this is a great investment for children’s education.  This won’t fix all the ills of the public education system, but it sure will fix one of the problems.