No Stupid Questions

It encourages then to develop that grindset early.

How is that 15k statistic calculated? Sounds questionable. Do you have a source? Does that include social spending like the dedication of parents time and personal expenses such as in South Korea? Is that government spending? Are fundraisers only a USA thing?

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%.

[email protected]

It is socialism thinly disguised as capitalism.

The real issue is these funds aren’t evenly distributed per student, school districts are funded by property tax which leads to poorer neighborhoods getting considerably less funding.

Criminally underfunded, plus capitalism as a value.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_funding_in_the_United_States#State_and_local_role_in_education_funding

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.

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.

Comparing things like this between countries is not straightforward. For example, Australia spends $14.1k per student while New Zealand spends $8.6k. That's about 5.2% of GDP for both countries. From those numbers, would we conclude that Australia is overpaying, or New Zealand is underpaying, or that the two countries are comparable?

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/education-spending-by-country

I don't know the answer to your question, but I buy whatever the kids are selling. And I make like an idiot that knows nothing about it, whatever it is. (separately, am idiot, but I play it up)

I figure, maybe I can help a little? The money is probably negligible towards whatever the need is, but learning to sling popcorn or cookies, that might stoke some spark of pint-size entrepreneurship in them :j

Not the only reason, but the cost of living is higher in the U.S. than most other locales on the planet.

In my experience the outfits target schools to exploit the children's relationships and free labor with family. We are talking incredibly low quality junk you cannot find at stores or really even online.

At my school the goal was to sell like $1000 worth a crap to get a limo ride to a local restaurant.

6,7,8 year old etc do not have a value of wealth. "Oh daddy/mommy/grandpa, I really really want the limo ride" etc.

There's no legitimate reason for such a thing to exist other than pure exploitation. After experiencing that I would demand to opt out for my children.

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.

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.

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.

Have to teach kids to beg for the bare essentials early in life. That way they'll never know it could be different.

1. These are often for extracurricular things like school trips.

2. Schools are underfunded.

Not American, and I have no factual answer but I assume it's because the people at the top just take all the money and leave the schools to fend for themselves. Typical corporate nonsense.