Readin’, Writin’, and Mainly Arithmetic
If you’re a school teacher in Nevada, here’s what we have for you.
You can now go into debt to buy supplies for your students. In fact, they’re encouraging it and making it easy for you. (Click the little one to get the big one.)
This is the Silver State School Credit Union. A beginning teacher makes $34,684 in Nevada and probably has a truckload of college loans to pay off. And, that teacher is expected to buy school supplies.
That’s a very cool way to keep taxes down.
Thanks to Ralph for the heads up.
Sheldon Adelson tossed millions to Romney, Gingrich and others in the GOP. His net worth is estimated at nearly 20 billion. What a guy to avoid paying anything toward education. Probably pays his casino workers too little to buy pencils for their kids. There’s money in Nevada, but not for families or education.
1As a former teacher, I averaged $600-700 per year for classroom supplies out of my own pocket. Over 25 years that’s approximately $16,000. It’s not a fortune for the likes of the Kochs, but it was for me. That’s one reason I cannot abide the rhetoric of a**holes like Scott Walker and Chris Christie who like to denigrate teachers by implying that they are greedy for wanting a decent pay.
2When I saw this on Facebook, my head came close to exploding. Teachers should not be expected to purchase supplies for their students. It’s simply wrong.
3The average teacher spends between $400 and $1,000 per year on classroom supplies, they estimate that in the US teachers drop $1.3 billion on supplies yearly. This just includes basic supplies (paper, pencils, etc.), not things like food for kids who are hungry, or bandages etc for scraps and bruises. The IRS lets you deduct $250. The last year my husband and I taught e took the time to actually track our spending – out was close to $5,000 when you included the school fund raisers. Admittedly ours was a poor urban school district but you get my point.
4My son teaches Math in a Texas school. I’m proud of him. I wish he had majored in accounting and earned a CPA. I see no upside to his career, so long as learning hating T’s exercise any degree of control.
5Its the same way in Alabama. The teachers, who aren’t getting much to begin with, are expected to take up the slack if they want to teach at all. The parents are constantly getting communiques from the school PTA’s that money needs to be raised to pay the electric bills!
6Sorry about the typos, my cell phone and this highway do not mix. Let me add I’m a passenger not the driver!
7This is so wrong.
8Here’s something to make you feel even worse. And it’s happening in California: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/06/6051639/in-twin-rivers-schools-some-wear.html
9And how much does Society value the upbringing of our young?
10Public employees in every Republican-governed state are being punished for belonging to unions. I really do think it’s almost that simple.
11Me, again. Just found out that the sales tax in Alabama is now 10%. This is mainly their source of taxation. I find that a bit odd since they have at least one casino back in operation after Katrina along their Gulf Coast. But, as my source says, they do not know what let alone how about taxation. All they seem to do a lot of is run around brainlessly screaming about federal taxes and how Washington is killing them!
12This just reinforces an essay a teacher wrote about why she was quitting– reasons topped by parents who wouldn’t accept less than A or B grades for students who did no work and, even worse, administrators who backed them up. Having to teach kids to take multiple mandatory tests that did nothing to evaluate creativity or imagination. Also very tired of being told over and over that it “must be nice to have so much time off” when she was working 80-hour weeks, half of that unpaid.
13Maggie, here is the tax rate info from Taxrate.com: Alabama (AL) has a state sales tax rate of 4%. Depending on local municipalities, the total tax rate can be as high as 12%.
For example, Montgomery adds a rate of 2%, and Birmingham adds a rate of 4%. Prescription drugs are exempt from sales tax. Food is taxable.
I haven’t done any research yet to see what municipalities add taxes specifically for education.
14Isn’t forcing teachers to buy their own classroom supplies a tax on teachers? When will Grover Nordquist condemn it? (Hint: when Beelzebub takes up a job as a ski instructor on the glorious powder slopes of the Alternative Destination.)
15When we lived in Arizona, my wife was president of the Parent Teacher Student Organization (PTSO, kind of like the PTA) for the elementary school where 3 of our kids were students. Over the 3 years she participated, the group raised ~$75,000 for the school, and spent the money mainly on classroom improvements. At the end of each year, they took a small sum from the account to carry over to the next year’s group, and distributed the remainder of funds directly to each teacher on an equal share basis, to help defray some of their personal expenses for classroom materials. Usually, it was $100 to $200 per teacher. The group that took over after my wife’s last year as president spent the money they raised to place commemorative plaques around the campus, honoring themselves. Nothing spent for classrooms or teachers. They also accused my wife and her fellow officers of misusing funds because they gave money directly to teachers. No good deed goes unpunished.
16if bankers and lawyers were expected to do this there’d be lawsuits out the ass!
17Roar. When I saw that I wanted to grab someone and shake them really hard. SHAME.
18hrummpf! i thought the “school supplies loan” image was humor. seems not. the teachers’ own credit union is promoting this, and charging interest! the whole thing is outrageous.
19Sherry, taxes on groceries in Madison County, Alabama, can hit 10%. My daughter is getting friendly with a bunch of farmers.
20Deb, I started out teaching and as much as I loved it I knew I could not keep at it cuz I was dishing out $$ for classroom supplies as well as helping some really impoverished children.
21RepubAnon, when teachers are forced to buy supplies for their classrooms, that is not taxation, it’s extortion. Seems with every state in heavy competition to give tax breaks to corporations to relocate to their state, public schools are the first to lose to corporate welfare. Trickle down conservatives are no longer piddling on our legs and calling it rain, it’s a full face assault.
maggie, many state require a 5th and sometimes a sixth year of education for teaching certification, then expect the teachers to take a vow of poverty for the ‘privilege’ of substandard wages and forced contribution. My hat is off to those dedicated teachers who continue to fight for their students, while shackled by silliness like the Bush “No student” policies, arbitrary testing and the whole boatload of crap they endure.
22George W. Bush once said, “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
Now with loans to teachers so they can buy supplies for their students, our educational system will no doubt allow future leaders to continue asking that question. With exactly the same phrasing. But it will be in spite of the efforts of teachers, not because of the efforts of teachers.
23Sickeningly true, Rick. All the more reason for Texas to elect Wendy Davis as their Governor. Wendy Davis, protecting education and children. Wishing every state had the opportunity to elect a governor that smart.
24If I had the out-of-pocket money I spent during thirty-fours years as a teacher, I would have a pretty good nest egg. And I taught in relatively affluent schools. Imagine the difficulties in many low income areas. Amazing!
25Both my sibs taught school, as did my husband and quite a number of cousins. All I can say is committed has two different meanings.
26One of my dearest friends finally quit teaching in the NJ public school system, where he started out in 1967. He put off retirement for years, because he loves the kids. He still teaches at a junior college. He, too, would have quite a nest egg had he been reimbursed for supplies. His pension is much smaller than it would have been had it not been so heavily invested in AIG.
I was working in a rock shop when a teacher from Sunset Park, Brooklyn asked if I’d come and bring some minerals to help her teach Earth Science. I didn’t bring anything from the shop; I brought pieces from my own collection (including one very expensive piece that was broken by a student). What the school provided for her was totally inadequate for a single lesson, let alone part of a course. I suggested a trip into Manhattan to the American Museum of Natural History, where the gem and mineral exhibit houses the third-best rock collection in the world (after the Smithsonian and the Colorado College of Mines), but it was not going to happen.
I also sold both of my trombones to a music teacher from Queens who had no instruments for his kids, at a very deep discount, because music is important.
Teachers need supplies. Most of them are already underpaid for the job they do. This loan program disgusts me, but I do understand the need.
27“This loan program disgusts me, but I do understand the need.” Zyxomma, you are seriously too nice and an extraordinarily beautiful person. However, post LBJ, the war profiteers have taken advantage of your good heart and the good manners of many of us who truly love children.
Education, food stamps, housing, aid to the elderly and disabled; so many things we can and should do. And yes, we can afford this. All we need to do is defund the war profiteer Republican plans. An overseas base here and there, a few military cuts at home, and by cracky cut back on a few of those targeted drones, and we won’t have so many threats to our national security. Kool. More money for families. And, nest of all, peace.
28I spend my own money each year; it gets old quick. A few years ago, my school was monitored closely by District office on our science lessons. The curriculum called for all of these hands-on labs but we had few materials. When we asked the district science coordinator “Princess Foo-Foo Guru”, she sent us a link to Amazon with the supplies listed. When we complained, the superintendent came to a faculty meeting to remind us how “blessed” we were to have a job. He also remarked about the 500 applicants for 1 teaching job on file. So we each spent approximately 40/month on the damn supplies. 🙁
29Michele, with all Our hearts, Jane and I wish we could tell you the troops are coming home. They deserve good jobs, the jobs Bush and Cheney promised them in Iraq. Jobs rebuilding schools, etc, etc, blah. These good men and women can do it here.
At the risk of sounding simplistic, we can save social security by raising the cap; that simple.
Make the friends of Bush/Cheney pay for their wars.
30I don’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade, but 34k/annum was my top salary, ever. That was working two jobs. And I do have two degrees. Call it a sunshine tax.
I was more appalled when the local courthouse began to accept traffic court fines payable by credit.
31The year I retired, after 31 years in a classroom with a masters degree and 52+ graduate hours (all straight A’s in advanced courses in my field), a former student of mine was hired as a supply clerk at our local power company – he made more than I did, and he didn’t have to buy his supplies. They have also paid for all of his advanced education.
“It will be a great day in America when education is properly funded and you have to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber!”
32On top of obscenities like this the Tpotty a-holes want to try to eliminate, or at least reduce the school lunches programs.Deb that last quotation makes me believe you’re from the same era as I am. I can recall when that was a poster.As true today as it was then.
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