HERE’S A NEW WRINKLE

toucan said:

I think public education is about "education" in its traditional sense, which I interpret as "academics." I believe the public should pay for solid academic training. As for the rest, I believe it is the parent's responsibility to pay for it.

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True, many families cannot afford to pay for a lot of extra-curricular activities on their own dime. That doesn't mean that the general public should be burdened with the responsibility. A lot of families cannot afford a 3-bedroom house, a new Toyota, or Sirius XM - all of which would contribute to the benefit of their children. But the public is not expected to pay these expenses. Why should we be expected to pay for extra-curricular activities?

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Keepermom2 said:

In our district you get approval to opt out of PE starting in 6th grade if you can prove you are training 5 hours a week in Dance or as my District told me Academy/Travel Ball who generally have at least 4 practices a week. My daughter loves PE so I won't take it from her yet nor can I as of now but, eventually I am going to want to do it so she has an extra hour to do school work during the school day since she will be spending so much time in activities.

Extra curricular activities helps to keep kids out of the bad stuff generally speaking and I believe does help the community at large. The better the districts are overall (includes satisfaction of what is offered) drives up property values helping all in the community.

If you really want to talk about something that taxpayers don't know they are paying for.... $100k a year for Activities Directors at each high school (In our district that is the case). That just burns me....this isn't a cruise ship. We also have a "Wellness Counselor" too. Considering she encouraged my daughter to lie to me, I am not all in on that one either. There is a whole lot of wasted money in education but money spent in extra curricular activities isn't really one of them.

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espola said:

Lie about what?

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toucan said:

I agree that K-12 schools have been used for all sorts of reasons beyond academics, and a quick look at your list proves it. You believe schools should be providing "physical, social and psychological" services to our children. In my opinion, you are not describing an institution whose purpose is education. You are describing an institution which supplants parents in the task of raising their children. And that, in my opinion, is why a school's function should be limited to academics. A public school should not take the place of parents, and we should not be paying billions of dollars so it can do so.

Now, I agree that private schools - in their efforts to develop "well-rounded individuals - include sports, arts and social activities. If parents want to delegate those functions to private schools and pay the tuition associated with it, well, that's fine by me. That is an individual economic choice made by parents.

But here, you are asking public schools to take over the role of parents for long periods of each day, and you want the general public to pay for it. But many taxpayers do not have children, and many more have no children of school age. While having an educated populace is a worthy endeavor that should be supported by all taxpayers, I cannot justify forcing the general public to pay for my daughter's cheer program, or your son's football program.

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