No Stupid Questions

It wasn't always the case. Back when I was a kid, the school provided most things. Textbooks, crayons, paper, scissors, glue, etc. I had to bring myself, a pencil and eraser, and a notebook.

Somewhere along the line they figured out they could be pocketing that money instead of spending it on the kids, let the parents deal with the expenditures. Now you've got superintendents with quarter of a million dollar salary, over-budgeted construction projects that aren't always necessary (and they arent allowed to reallocate those funds elsewhere, so they just construct more bullshit), and they still find the time to screw over the teachers (who are making as much as a highly paid retail employee).

Because education in the US is a fucking joke, just like everything else in this shithole country.

Edid: sorry i was in a shitty mood earlier lol

Our schools are generally underfunded and hardly anyone with any real power gives two shits.

Schools are sabotaged. They underfund the actual school so they can't afford common supplies like this, or repair their AC or building upkeep, etc. They vastly underpay teachers so there are fewer of them, increasing workload per teacher so there's more burnout and less effective teaching. They make wedge issues like the book bans, sex ed and anti-trans bills that prevent teachers teaching the obvious reality in order to increase anger at teachers to burn more out. They pass bills that allow people to take their taxes out of schools to move to other schools in richer areas or to keep if they homeschool (to indoctrinate).

They are the US republicans and the purpose of this is to ensure the most amount of poorer people are uneducated, don't get a chance to get higher education. Which leads to ensuring fewer have well-paying jobs, and more people live desperately and can't quit their jobs, move or exercise their right to assembly. This ensures a life-long near-slave caste of workers so billionaires have cheap labor and who are easily manipulated emotionally through fear keeping Republicans in power.

What is "basic school supplies" for you? In Europe, there is a list of basic supplies students need and the displays show up in stores around July: things like pencils, pens, erasers, paper, binders, folders, punches, staplers/staples, paper clips, correction fluid... There's a lot

Conservatives, mostly.

Conservatives believe in neither education nor government. It's no surprise that when they have power, they fuck up both of those things.

Also racism. A common facet of conservatism. It's part of why conservatives don't like public programs- the wrong sort of people might benefit.

Many people here are talking about under-funding of education in the US. If you look at expenditure per student vs GDP per capita, the US is actually doing fairly well when compared to the rest of the world. Our problems aren't funding related (though I wouldn't argue against more funding). Our problems are allocation and priority related.

See here for data: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-expenditures-by-country