Back to school

I'm still not used to the Georgia school calendar -- the kids go back to school this coming Monday. This week my high schooler had "Fall Madness" where he got his schedule (not completely what he wanted) and had his picture taken and brought in my checks for PTSA, class dues (why is there such a thing??) and English workbook fees (ditto). My middle school son is skipping his, since the only purpose is paying out checks and I can pay for PTSA later. He doesn't even get his schedule until the first day of school! Tomorrow, my elementary school son has his "Sneak-a-Peek." That's where we find out who his teacher is, meet her, and bring in items from the interminably long list of school supplies.

American society should support free education for all. But when parents have to pay class fees, and supply the school with reams of paper and dry erase markers and boxes of tissues and ziploc bags, that's not happening. (Would you believe I even have to give one school a self-addressed two-stamped envelope at the end of the year if I want to receive my son's final report card!) We're also asked to purchase reading books for the kids (okay, we use the library for summer reading, although not for school-year reading. I don't know about you, but I remember teachers in Junior High handing out class sets of reading books to be returned). Free education is especially not happening where school team sports are concerned. Parents are supposed to join a booster club which asks for over $800 (preferably $1200!). On top of this, kids are supposed to fundraise ad nauseum. Pay-to-play in public school? That's not the way it's supposed to be. For art, too, I had to buy my son a large amount of school supplies. I remember receiving the first set of paints (oils in Junior High School and acrylics in High School), although we did buy our own canvases.

In Israel, they called it free education (there was even a "Free Education Law"), a lie. The school fees we paid were for everything from photocopying to insurance to trips to unspecified. Plus we paid monthly tuition for a government school! Further, schools supplied no books. We would receive not only a long list of supplies, but of text and workbooks that we had to purchase. And despite laws which claimed a book had to be good for five years, they would change so frequently that you couldn't pass them down to younger siblings. I was certain that book publishers and the Ministry of Education were in cahoots. I return to America and feel like it's almost no different.

I know American religiously observant parents cite free religious education as a reason to move to Israel (private Jewish days school education in America is incredibly expensive), so even with the fees cited above, it's not that bad. But funny thing -- just last week I read that they're trying to pass a bill now in Israel which would eliminate school fees. Secular families are complaining, thinking it's another way for super religious families (which have many children and often non-working fathers) to get something for free. But I think it's the way it should be.

In my opinion, all of society should take on and share the common obligation of eduating its young. Period. And for that to happen, all taxpayers -- and not parents alone -- need to supply what schools need.