In honor of our first day of school here in Iowa City (August 19!!!), here is my cantankerous-blogger peeve-of-the-week: why are basic school supplies like paper, pens and pencils not provided by our public schools? (More extended post here.)
There are obviously bigger fish to fry, and I wouldn't even bother linking to it here except that I wonder whether in some small way it does raise a question about how our society conceives of education. Staff and administrator salaries, maintenance of the school buildings, training in behavioral management techniques like PBIS -- these things are central to a public education, and funded by taxes. Books, paper, pencils -- not so much.
..How can I comment?
