US schools have more then enough funding.  The problem is it's spent poorly.

There are kids who don't have desks while they're teachers make tons of money.

The teachers union lobby is too strong while there is noone lobbying as hard for better and more abundent resources... so most of the funding gotten goes towards raises or other silly events like students days and such.

State funding has just as many problems.  In Ohio it's tied illegally too property taxes.  If you live in a county your property taxes go to fund you school system,  meaning those with higher property taxes are better off and often wasteful, doing such things as shipping in sand for a "beach party" (true story)... as well as those willing to vote up their school taxes.  While cities that are too poor to vote for better school taxes or where the housing values are lower... they have to go without.

Even with such poor funding in cleveland schools... each teacher makes 92,000 dollars when counting benfits.

Kids don't have anywhere to sit but teachers are making close to 100 grand.  For 9 months work.

Florida has the opposite problem... more money is spent per dollar per student on the lower property value areas then the higher despite also being funded by property value.

Furthermore, the US department of education has made it so that people teach a test instead of teaching kids anything usefull.

Really the US system's education problems have little to do with money and a lot to do with forced out of touch government mandates and the money being funneled mostly into peoples pockets.

Oh also there are a lot of useless administrators in school systems whose only job seems to be collecting a pay check.

Kasz, are you talking about college profs? To my knowledge the preschool through 12th teachers hardly get paid livable wages. At least in my state. They tend to be forced to live in trailers and have to work a second job as a grocery store bagger or bar tender. Despite the fact that they are required to have a college degree.

The universities here are suffering pretty bad though. They can't even make the ends meet after cutting all the unnecessary stuff. The students who are required to live on campus the first year are living in really poor conditions as it is.

Its odd, I wasn't in college that long ago and everything was great then, but they started making serious cuts the year after I dropped out.

90,000 a year is for your average cleveland school teacher K-12.

Not sure what state you live in or how your union is... South maybe?

The teachers union in a lot of states though make a killing and everyone ignores what the students need.

The average pay for a teacher is somthing like 44,000 not counting benfits which are usually very hefty.  Your state is likely an abnormality.

No, Maine.

Last I knew 24k a year was the average here.

That's odd... and well below the average... by a lot.

Like i said.  Average is like... 44K + benefits for K-12.

Because teachers have unions and students don't... and they rarely have any choice to not go to public schools.

Actually looking at the numbers the Average pay for a K-12 teacher in main is 44,000.

28K being the starter salary.

Whoever is getting paid 24 is getting hosed.

http://www.aft.org/salary/2007/download/SalarySurvey-ME.pdf

and that's without benefits.

and in recent years our local school district got rid of all the experienced teachers and replaced them with fresh out of college ones. And the high school principal had a PhD... he was really good. So of course he was out too.

Does that include private schools? pdf files crash my computer so I uninstalled the reader so I can't look. Private school teachers get paid a lot more. Parents who can afford to send their kids to a private school do. The town I work in, their school can't even afford paper for the students. In that town pretty much any of the kids who don't come from a poor family get sent to private schools.

Nope public schools only.

Maine is 44th in the country when it comes to teachers salaries though.

Still an average 44K with benefits isn't really that bad considering... i mean heck you get 3 months off and large swarths of your lesson plan can be reused year to year.

weird, must be influenced by city teachers or something.

If you think about it our tiny towns can't fund much in terms of education.