Teachers trading Kleenexes for extra credit in strapped classrooms

[DuctapeFatwa]

In California, Palo Alto High's budget is so tight that Sonia Ferrandiz-Bodoff's German teacher offers three extra credit points to any student who brings a box of tissues to class. In Cupertino, Calif., science teacher Katheryn McElwee gives her Monta Vista High students five points for a roll of paper towels.

Even English teachers at Harker, a private school in San Jose, Calif., that charges up to $21,000 a year tuition, have resorted to awarding extra points for school supplies.

"The teachers are pretty desperate, and so are we," said Sonia, a freshman.

With school budgets shriveling, teachers are enticing students to help stock the supply shelves in exchange for extra credit. In some cases, the tissue-box bonus can bump a B-plus to an A-minus, but other teachers say it has almost no impact on a student's final grade. Either way, some education leaders say any credit for Kleenex undermines the grading system.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/nation/8088954.htm

[Exultant Democracy]

1. Classrooms with no supplies undermines the school system,

The teachers are giving out extra credit and a lesson in civic responsibility.

[teach1st]

2. It won't change much until...

The sorry funding we classroom teachers get won't change much as long as we pick up the slack. It's time to tell the students and parents: "I'm sorry, we don't have enough ____. It's not being supplied."

[SiriusLiberal]

3. It's quite common

I've thought about doing, especially in cold and flu season. 105 students a day can empty a Kleenex box rather quickly.

[notadmblnd]

6. It's quite common here in Michigan

not the extra credit part but since my son started school, tissue has been on the list of school supplies parents are requested to provide. They've also requested snacks like pretzels and graham crackers.

I've had my son in both private and public and it's always been sop along with paper, pencils, crayons, rulers and various other tools that used to be provided for the children.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. It's the American Way!

It teaches children about the Free Enterprise System.

It shows children that privilege must be earned, as in "paid for".

It also makes children aware of the evils of Socialism by showing them how bad a state-run educational system is. (I know it's a private school, but it's the thought that counts.)

Finally, it provides an incentive for avoiding poverty. Just as the kids who can't afford to bring tissues to class get lower grades, so poverty is like getting an "F" in the School of Hard Knocks (which as everybody knows is the only school that anyone speaks well of).

So straighten up, kids, fly right, and keep your noses clean!

--bkl

[Athame]

13. Not to mention what it says about health care

and how valuable THAT is to our society.

I agree with the teacher who says it will not change until we STOP allowing this nonsense! :grr:

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

5. What a GREAT idea!

I am a teacher and THAT might just work!

I have 107 students a day. I just bought a box of Kleenex last Thursday and after four school days it was GONE.

I just can't afford this. I send them to the bathroom for that sandpaper toilet tissue.

[Il_Coniglietto]

7. We've been doing that for years

It's been a normal thing. Bring in tissue boxes and get 20 extra credit points. It's more common in elementary and middle school, but some high schools do it too. I wish my school would do that with toilet paper. We never have any available to use.

[hatrack]

8. Pardon my naivete . . .

This is California, right? California, commonly cited as (depending on economic ups and downs) the seventh- or eighth-largest economy in the world? The really big state on the west coast with 35 million people, more or less?

And teachers are assigning extra-credit points for kids who bring kleenex, pencils and notebook paper to school?

WHAT THE FUCK?????????????????

[ithacan]

9. and Palo Alto no less...

one of the wealthier communities.

But hey, they don't have to pay the high taxes, thank god (and the republicans) for that!!!

[SheilaT]

10. When my kids were in public school,

included on the list of supplies each kid had to show up with on the first day of school, was a box of kleenex.

But a private school charging $21,000 per year is badly mismanaged if they're not able to buy basic supplies. My kids are now at an independent school that charges about half that amount, and we don't have to send in such basics. It is hoped we'll donate extra money, or buy things at the yearly fund-raiser.

The hard truth is that it costs a great deal more to adequately educate students than most people realize or are willing to pay. Whenever you read support for a voucher system based on the supposed fact that most private schools charge less than whatever a given state allows per pupil, you are being lied to. Here in Kansas, the real cost for my kid in his private school is around $13,000 per year. Of course, that keeps him in classrooms of no more than 15 students. California, understandably, has higher costs (teacher salaries, real estate, and so on) but $21,000 sounds just about right to be at the high end of the true cost of education.

So when you're told that a $3,000 or even a $1,500 voucher will buy a year's schooling, that's only if the teachers are paid well below the prevailing wage, the classrooms are overcrowded, there are poor or non-existent science labs, and a crappy physical plant altogether.

[DuctapeFatwa]

11. You nailed it. The voting class is simply not willing to pay to educate

kids whose parents can't afford a private school.

They prefer to pay to bomb schools, and the kids who might have gone to them, if they still had legs.

[madrchsod]

12. this year my high school

won`t have yearbooks. so my daughter`s senior class won`t have their last yearbook. there were yearbooks during the depression!!!! and yes the teachers find all kind of creative ways to raise grades-it`s the fuck`n "leave no child behind" bullshit. extra 5 pts. for just about anything..

[Dogmudgeon]

14. This is in Kally-fawnya?

Call for da Snotinator!

Arnold knows the problems of teachers and children. Didn't any of you ever see Kindergarten Cop ... ?

--bkl
"We want to give de children
of Kolly-fawnya
a quality education
with de pencils and de paper
and de extra-soft tissues
and dat sort of thing ... "

[koopie57]

15. Terrorists?

These people don't sound like terrorists to me. Well, unless these kleenexes are the ones with aloe in them maybe.