School supplies shouldn’t burden teachers or students

School already has started in some places around the country, and the rest of nation’s students will be taking their seats within the next few days.

But getting ready for school–for both teachers and kids–has changed dramatically during the past generation, and not for the better.

Kids and parents used to be responsible for getting the school wardrobe ready for the year–a new pair of oxfords to be worn every day and dutifully changed to old shoes upon returning home, new wash pants and shirts for boys and several dresses for girls. School supplies meant a writing tablet, a couple of yellow No. 2 pencils and a box of 16 sharp new crayons.

These days, the ante has been severely upped. In most school districts, families get a list of what they’re expected to show up with at the school door on the first day of class, and that can include not only very specific requirements for mechanical pencils and dry-erase markers but hygienic and janitorial supplies such as antibacterial cleaners, facial tissues and even toilet paper.

That shouldn’t be happening. Nor should teachers be forced to pay out of their own pockets for basic classroom instructional materials that help them get the educational point across to larger and larger classes that come in with more and more social deficits and require ever-more sophisticated teaching methods to succeed.

But that’s the pass we’ve come to in this country. As reported in the New York Times a few days ago, a survey by the national Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country, showed that in 1996, teachers paid an average of $408 during the school year to purchase materials for their classrooms.

Five years later, the figure had risen to $443 yearly. In a similar online survey done this year by the NEA, the 700 teachers who responded spent an average of $1,200 of their own money–that’s a whopping $130 every month of the academic year directly out of their paycheck–to subsidize the education effort.

That’s a bit like asking reporters to give up their mileage reimbursements and buy their own notebooks, expecting firefighters to chip in for the gas when the alarm bell rings or wanting retail clerks to help pay the electric bill for the stores where they work.

A couple of members of the U.S. Congress have become concerned enough about this situation that they’ve introduced bills to do something about it.

Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan introduced H.R. 2989, which he calls the “Teacher Tax Relief Act.” His bill would increase the amount that teachers can claim as a credit for money they’ve spent on their students to $400, from the current $250 level.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas also has submitted a bill that takes a slightly different approach. His proposal, H.R. 402, the “Teacher Tax Cut Act,” would allow teachers simply to subtract $1,000 from the federal income tax that they owe.

Camp’s bill probably addresses the issue of teacher reimbursement better, because it’s tied directly to the amount that teachers spend to improve the educational environment for their students.

Paul’s bill seeks more to reward teachers for the job that they do–”(to) let America’s professional educators know that the American people and the Congress respect their work,” he says–whether they spend extra money on their students or not.

However, Camp’s bill, while the better approach, doesn’t go quite far enough. Teachers who use their own money to purchase supplies for their classrooms–whether educational materials or construction paper or cleaning products–should get all their money back, not just a maximum of $400.

By limiting the amount, we perpetuate the problem, to quote the old song, that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” because higher-paid teachers in wealthier districts will be able to afford to subsidize their jobs far more than their counterparts in poor, rural and inner-city schools.

Rep. Sue Kelly of New York, herself a former schoolteacher, urged her fellow members of Congress to support Camp’s bill.

“When teachers take such great initiative in their teaching methods (to buy classroom supplies), they should not be taxed on the money they are putting back into our classrooms to help our children learn,” Kelly said.

That just makes sense.