When a teacher spends personal coin on classroom materials they at least have the freedom of choosing what to buy for their classes. Soldiers do the same thing when they buy boots, web gear and fighting knives through private sources. Having a $300 Randall might not make you more dangerous in a knife fight, but the freedom to blow your money on one is what it's all about.
I know teachers who travel abroad on school breaks and spend hundreds on posters and souvenirs and bring back tons of photos and lots of travel stories to share with their classes. This is mostly a good thing for the students but it really isn't something that I want to pay for, so it's exactly the right thing for these teachers to contribute on their own nickel.
The hard part is when certain public school systems get stiffed on basic supplies and text and reference books and teachers have to take up the slack or go without. For many reasons this does happen in certain places.
I appreciate the comments and agree with them. Let me ask you though. You're a teacher that is dedicated to your kids, right? The school year starts and you don't have school books, teaching aides, even the basics like chalk. Are you going to allow that school year to progress more than a week before you call your fellow school teachers together and call a press conference about it?
Seriously, just how dedicated to those kids are you, if you don't? It's a national scandle how few pennies make it into the classroom of every dollar that schools get. It's about damn time someone who's on the inside cared enough to blast the school board out of the water for allowing this to take place.
I cannot believe for a momment the teachers who come here and claim that things are as bad as they do, then admit that I was continuing to play along. Which is it? Are things really that bad? Are these teachers admitting that they play along with going to community leaders and telling them what's going on? Or are these people just lying their arses off?
Something stinks is river city, and I say the school systems are rotten from the top dog to the lowest lackey.