<p>Our D was in a huge school where counselors barely knew any students (senior class was 1400). They had a good system to gather info but we quickly realized we needed to do everything a “step ahead” due to scholarship applications and early action. Daughter asked her 2 key teachers in June of junior year if they would be willing to write LOR. They gave her their requirements which made it easy to get everything to them early Fall. It gave her time to organize her resume and to compile the “brag” sheet. The counselor rec was required but I believe the strong teacher recs were the most important factor.</p>
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<p>Should have thought about the children before letting the nuts run the asylum. The price of decades of wasteful expenses, self-protection, and disregard for a balanced budget is now in full view. </p>
<p>It has never been about the children.</p>
<p>My kids’ GC went on maternity leave. It really didn’t matter, since her role was mostly administrative (get the transcript to the school). Colleges know that most kids in this country have GCs who wouldn’t know them if they tripped over them.</p>
<p>D2’s GC went on maternity leave 2 times in 2 years. Lucky for her, the GC was pregnant fall of senior year and went on leave that spring. But the year before she was on maternity leave in the fall. Naviance made GC’s (and students) life a lot easier. They could send everything electronically and students could track if their things were sent online.</p>
<p>Greenbutton - Speechless. This infurirated me when I read this last night. I thought I would be rational this morning. I just don’t understand how education for our kids can be on the chopping block. Just beyond belief. And your point is well taken, it is happening over and over, city after city. I guess through your eyes, my GC issue is nothing. Understandably so…</p>
<p>care2, I think your worries about the absent GC are perfectly reasonable – in the best of all possible worlds, every school would have one. But at least in my state ¶, school districts are under siege. A state legislator who suggested the education budget should be based on what schools need, and be on the shortlist of non-negiotiables, was roundly criticized for his leftist socialist fiscal “idiocy”. In 3-4 years, districts here will have a double-digit increase in pension funding (a crisis the state created by not paying their share for about a decade) that will bankrupt many of them, and ones that survive will do so by cutting staffing beyond the bone. Charter schools continue to bleed districts, publics are charging students for everything from band shoes to AP textbooks, and private schools (truly private, tuition based) can’t provide the ADA supports and/or are beyond the reach of average parents (and there aren’t enough of them, anyway). Privatizing schools (as in Philly and DC) hasn’t worked and shows no measurable success. Arg!</p>
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<p>What should be beyond belief is that today’s “dire straits” is a direct result of the apathy of taxpayers to “mind the store” for decades. Elections for school boards and for bond financing are usually poorly followed and pass with a yawn. This has led to ever growing budgets “negotiated” between paid mercenaries appointed by the same representatives of the service providers, and all kind of “extorted” benefits and sinecures for administrators and employees. </p>
<p>As the expenses have greatly outpaced inflation, and we are now witnessing a revolt from taxpayers who routinely reject bond financing, especially when the use of the funds will be to augment salaries. Construction of new schools fare a little better. </p>
<p>This, however, does not stop school districts to continue to spend like drunken sailors, as it was in a famous case in Allen, Texas where the school found enough money for a 60MM football stadium with lavish athletic facilities and a 40MM barn to house its transportation units! </p>
<p>Here’s one reality. The model of financing via property taxes has reached its natural limits. Homeowners are not realizing the large increases in value for their homes as it used to be. The percentage of taxes cannot be increased ad infinitum when salaries have been mostly stagnant. And all of that is weighted against the promise that K-12 should be free, no matter what the school decide is worthy of an expense. And such expenses include salaries and benefits for janitors and painters in the six figures range, as the recent discussions about Milwaukee exemplified. Yes, 100,000 dollars a year for a painter! That should buy plenty of books or the iPads everyone thinks are necessary today. </p>
<p>Sooner or later, we will have to realize that public education should not be free for all, and that its funding should come from more than property taxes. A good start would be the creation of a FAFSA type of document that transfers part of the funding to the parents who use public education. The best part is that it could serve as an indication of what will come at the end of the secondary education. </p>
<p>Simply stated, the end of the myth of Other People Money is simply disappearing. Only the beneficiaries of the system think the horn of abundance is limitless.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I can only speak from my experience with our schools, but we (the parents) do participate greatly to the benefits of our children. From a band parent perspective, we have raised over $25K to contribute to new uniforms. We the parents purchase shoes, gloves, camps, most buy or rent instruments. We the parents even clean up the stadium after every event for $100. Far cheaper then hired help. Transportation to some away competions. We pay for AP classes, DEs etc. All sorts of fees upon school starting. I know several parents that have to save money over the summer to register their kid for “public” school. No pay fee no receive schedule. All the clubs my kids are in, we pay club fees for them. One of my kids is in the reading club. The books are in the library. But there is a club fee. The fee finds it way back into the school. I have sent more drinks and snacks then I care to mention. Every field trip is paid by parents. Every single sport has an entrance fee. Every single sport has a booster club. Parents at work making money for their children. School having fund raiser - ie party after school that the kids pay $5 to attend, while the parents have “donated” everything to make it happen. Or school after prom party for $40 pp to raise money, on top of prom entrance fee. I could go on, but just a few examples. And if you have more than one kid, it really adds up quite quickly. So yes, taxpayers do contribute, but to think that is the total of what is actually needed isn’t quite a true assesment. Limitless, I don’t think so…Free, nope nada.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I know that parents have to contribute towards some of the EC expenses. While it might be shocking in the public K-12, that is old news for the privates. Everything costs money today. </p>
<p>My point, however, remains that if parents were presented a bill for say 10 percent of the expenses, they might pay closer attention to the other 90 percent, and become an advocate for better spending controls, and more equity in how funds are distributed. People would scream at getting a bill for 900 to 1,200 per kid in K-12, but they usually ignore the 9,000 or 12,000 because the funding is so arcane to them. Were they to receive a detailed cost per capita of the lavish salaries paid to those superintendent (or janitors) they might raise an eyebrow. Especially, if the inflation in such salaries over the past two decades would be shown!</p>
<p>The biggest problem --except for actually raising the money-- has been the blatant disinterest in how education is actually funded in this country. And it has a lot to do with the myth that the money comes from magical sources.</p>