Educational costs are out of control...now high school edition...

[Engineer]

What's in the online portion? Answers to questions from the book?

There are online assignments, papers written online, quizzes online (not sure if tests) - yes, they are open book (useless). Lots of crap that isn't needed.

My daughter has had professors tell her that most of the class would be the online portion and she had to go maybe three to four times to the classroom the entire semester. Everything pretty much was online and book was used as a reference.

 

[jpiniero]

I dunno but when I was in public school (Kindergarten through High School) the yearly fees were anywhere between $500-800.

For public school; I had heard of fees for things like sports and even transportation, but textbooks is a new one.

 

[Engineer]

For public school; I had heard of fees for things like sports and even transportation, but textbooks is a new one.

transportation? Please tell me that I'm not going to have to pay a 'Bus taxi' fee to send my kid to school?!!

Head explodes!!!

 

[Engineer]

It will probably help keep the books in better shape. Kids abuse the hell out of those books.

by the way, a new policy was put into place that if your child brings the book back in much worse shape than when they received it, the parent will be responsible for paying FULL RETAIL PRICE for a new one. I told my daughter we were taking photos of every book, both inside and out, and saving as proof of condition received as I can see this going very badly (toward making parents pay for books that were in shitty condition to begin with before student received them).

 

[halik]

College is currently a poor investment. Persuade your daughter to investigate a trade or technical school.

Wrong-o, college is a great investment if you pick a field that is in demand.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Never heard of this. Why do you need to log into a website if you have a textbook?

i think they have videos and tutorials. he may also be talking about course websites, where his kids instructor forces kids to buy the customized text in order to access that site for things like quizes and notes. its basically a scam

 

[Kaido]

College is currently a poor investment. Persuade your daughter to investigate a trade or technical school.

Depends on what career path you're going after. College has been the golden ticket that has gotten me into a couple great jobs - despite my lack of experience in some cases.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

1) i buy new textbook
2) redeem website code to get access to online portion if textbook content. (Like a Steam code)
3) i take class
4) i want to resell book as used to recoup costs, but i can't because it's useless without the code. (The used code is not reusable.)
5) the next student has to buy a new book

I have had a lot of professors - and even a couple colleges - who bent over backwards to keep textbook costs down. I took a math class recently that used an open source textbook, and the local CCs all stock used texts at their bookstores for pretty reasonable prices. But it's a cultural thing for an institution. A Big 10 school or State Research University has no interest in making the effort because 1) their students can, mostly, afford it, and 2) those are the professors who are getting paid to write textbooks.

im surprised open source texts havent caught on more, when i was in grad school there were already tons of open source collaborations and quality free books on subject like quantum field theory, algebraic topology, lie algebras, linear algebra etc..but that was years ago and apparently profs dont use them. there are some subjects like calculus and physics that you could write a good open source book and never have to rewrite it, like...evar.

 

[DrPizza]

In NY, it was demonstrated that school's could NOT require students to purchase graphing calculators. The school's had to purchase them. I don't know what Kentucky's constitution says about education, but it's likely no one considered that charging a rental fee is likely unconstitutional, as they are required for providing the education.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Wrong-o, college is a great investment if you pick a field that is in demand.

Depends on what career path you're going after. College has been the golden ticket that has gotten me into a couple great jobs - despite my lack of experience in some cases.

If the only metric you're looking at with regards to a college education is total earnings, then the best possible career is Air frame Inspection and Repair. It is taught at community colleges around the country. There are jobs going wanting for this specialty in both private and government. There is another career path worth looking at in medicine. My daughter earns $45/hr as a Physical Therapist Assistant in Phoenix. Both careers mentioned take two years not four in school. I say again, college education from a purely ROI perspective is currently a poor investment.

 

[shortylickens]

You could get a lot of money back if you stopped give tax breaks to married people with kids.

They get more more benefit from the government and pay less. Thats fuckin bullshit.

 

[WHAMPOM]

It will probably help keep the books in better shape. Kids abuse the hell out of those books.

Really? My High School books had to be returned in "GOOD" shape or we had to pay for them. Same for the County Library, torn, bent or marks on a page got you a fine.

 

[Engineer]

You could get a lot of money back if you stopped give tax breaks to married people with kids.

They get more more benefit from the government and pay less. Thats fuckin bullshit.

I'm a "married people" with kids.....and I could get more back by giving it all back? :hmm:

 

[Engineer]

Just for reference: The county board of education cut the budget by 5% (20 million dollars) for next year. Quite a few people not replaced or laid off. Also asked for a property tax raise (AGAIN) and apparently, FEEs to make up the difference.

 

[NoTine42]

Let's guess, taxpayers are probably contributing $7,000-$10,000 per student, meaning each classroom is getting $140,000-$250,000/year an the administrators can't figure out how to squeeze out a few thousand for books because the administrators would rather travel to some conference while earning a 6 figure salary.


We need to put teachers in chare of their own budgets.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

WTF is this crap? Have we cut educational funding to the point that a person now has to treat high school (middle school next?) like college and buy your own child's books? Really?

Does this happen anywhere else?

Are not able to find online where your county/city budget publication is for public education? My county makes it freely available to anyone with Internet access. This is well beyond the traditional means of access it.

You should get involve in civics and get more property owners to pay more for education since you are probably not paying a majority fraction of the first child and less than each one thereafter.

Not picking on you, but this is how the broken system has worked for generations--and I haven't found one parent willing to pay 100% of their child's basic education--well, except those home schooling.

BTW, for the 2014 year my county is expending ~US$11,600 per pupil. Imagine a household with 2-3 children in the school system and then consider paying for 50% of it.

Betting your property taxes don't cover much of it. In my county approximately 70% of my paid property taxes go into the school system. And I had no children in this school system ever (nor will I).

heck, I'll swap you my $2600/year pay into the school system for your daughter's $1300 semester book bill (which is really high to me, too).

 

[Engineer]

You are probably right in that my property taxes probably don't cover 100% of the cost of one child per year but that is not the only form of school taxes in KY (which is on EVERYTHING including utilities and even portion of my local payroll tax of over 1%). The problem is the local school system blew up administrative salaries and created positions for people that they did not need and when the federal grants ran out, boom......now what do we do? Well of course, they put a rental fee on books, cut teachers, cut teaching days, grew class sizes and threw other fees into the pot. Throw in the fact that on top of all of this, the board of education has asked for a property tax raise. The book fees, in one way, are something that many wish for and that is for the people that have kids in schools to pay for their own and this is just a tax on those parents (at least the ones that pay) instead of increasing the total bill on society in general. Maybe we will go the way healthcare has gone with those who 'can and do pay' paying for everyone else that gets service but can't or won't pay!

One bright spot is that the superintendent did take a 5% pay cut but only because his proposals were so outrageous that the public backlash forced him to reconsider, especially since none of the top brass were included in any of the preliminary cuts. Oh, and lets renovate about 5 schools per year at a cost of $60,000,000 per year ($12,000,000 per school) including the one across the street from my house, which was built in 1991....so a mere 23 years old and needs a $10,000,000 renovation? WTF again.

By the way, the $1,300 semester book bill is at a university and not part of the required K-12 system that I'm referring to the book rental feet (public schools renting books). I'm sure, however, that many will fall into the 'free or reduced' category and not have to pay a fee for their books (based on free lunch - which sets fees for everything from art, field trips, and most likely books too).

 

[shortylickens]

I'm a "married people" with kids.....and I could get more back by giving it all back? :hmm:

I mean the government (state or federal) could do better if it stopped giving all these freaking exceptions and special benefits. Close the god damn loopholes.

 

[Engineer]

I mean the government (state or federal) could do better if it stopped giving all these freaking exceptions and special benefits. Close the god damn loopholes.

What loopholes? A deduction or credit for each child? What special benefits?

Negative EIC I tend to agree but it's moving along like a fully loaded train now (and growing) and going to be hard to stop.

But, that's for another thread, probably in P&N.

 

[mugs]

WTF is this crap? Have we cut educational funding to the point that a person now has to treat high school (middle school next?) like college and buy your own child's books?

You live in Kentucky, so probably? Sounds like something they'd do.

I haven't heard of it happening in New Jersey.

 

[DrPizza]

I looked into it a little bit more. Seems the practice is becoming more and more common as places are getting away with it. Nonetheless, if students are constitutionally provided a "free public education," then schools may NOT charge students fees related to required courses. The ACLU brought suit against California over the same; the suit was dropped after California made a specific law about what fees were allowed and weren't allowed.

Contact the ACLU - maybe you can be the unnamed parent in Kentucky who finally fights back against the ridiculousness. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/education/10education.html

Edit: oh, and as long as the money is rolling in, there's no consideration of alternatives. Most of the over-priced textbooks are garbage, sold with all sorts of add ons to make them appealing to those who choose those texts (online quizzes, lesson plans, etc.) The only think I've ever found textbooks good for is providing homework problems. With minimal work, I've eliminated the need for a text in a couple of my classes; retaining a text only in Calculus because I don't feel like the hassle of going through the university I teach through to have the course reapproved without a specific textbook.

 

[norseamd]

School books are one of the many scams perpetrated on students. Text books need to be open sourced, and made available gratis to anyone who wants one. People who hoard knowledge are bad people.

this

 

[Jumpem]

Training in accounting does not have to be done at a university. With regards to paying for, excuse me, renting textbooks in hs, it's been around since suckers convinced themselves gated communities and "prep " schools were the key to success. Why reasonably intelligent parents continue to buy into the "good school " hype is beyond me.

It does, actually. There are credit hour requirements if you ever want to be certified.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Let's guess, taxpayers are probably contributing $7,000-$10,000 per student, meaning each classroom is getting $140,000-$250,000/year an the administrators can't figure out how to squeeze out a few thousand for books because the administrators would rather travel to some conference while earning a 6 figure salary.


We need to put teachers in chare of their own budgets.

Administrative bloat is a cancer from K-12 on through to graduate/professional schools. Of course, it's easy to understand why, given imbeciles like slugg with zero relevant training know exactly how to teach anything, as he's demonstrated in this thread, haha.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That really sucks. I learned after my 1st year of college that in half the classes we never even ended up using the book, or if we did, the teacher provided photocopy handouts anyway. There are so many books that ended up in the recycling and were barely even opened yet I had paid 100's for them. Such a waste.

There is lot of corruption when it comes to the book thing though, a lot of situations where the teacher makes money through the book purchases, or other weird stuff like that, so they make you buy all these books you wont actually need but they get a cut. I don't know exactly how it works I just recall hearing something about it being rather sketchy.

The fact that they are forcing to buy is even more sketchy.