[thatguy0900]

Because teachers love their students. The school says the budget is coming up short and there won't be enough crayons to go around, so the teacher has the choice of telling the students that there is no more crayons or just buying a bunch of crayons themself. But applied to all supplies.

[sudosysgen]

This heartbreaking. I can't imagine how it must feel like as a teacher, especially one that is short on cash.

[diveanon]

Teaching has to be the worst job in America right now.

[cornell532]

Where does all of the money go?

New York City is spending nearly $30,000 per student this year.

[smcg]

Bloated administration, expensive tech that doesn't work or is less good at educating than pencil and paper...

[aaomidi]

Oh boy when you find out about all the "edu-tech" companies that have sprouted up, creating "solutions" to non existent "problems". A lot of them also have family/friend relations to local governments :)

[Buttons840]

Want to do some good with your coding skills? Build open source edu-tech.

Imagine questioning the district on why they're spending so much when an open source options is both cheaper and better.

[mcv]

I imagine good edu-tech requires some expertise that not every open source developer has, though.

On the other hand, look at the massive amounts of high-quality data in something like Open Streetmap. It should be possible to do this.

[aaomidi]

> Build open source edu-tech.

They existed, they just didn't get adopted really. E.g. https://moodle.org/

There's so many ways of justifying not open source. Heck it's so easy to create FUD around open source projects.

[mcv]

Is it too much to ask to first spend money on teachers and basic supplies, and only if money is left over after that, spend it on extras, new tech, experiments, and administration?