Ed100 Chapter of the Month #8: Resources

by Jeff Camp | March 3, 2019 | 1 Comment
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Education Takes Resources

Public education is the largest single function of government.

Add up all the expenditures for education, from preschools through college, and the amount spent in this country easily exceeds the amount spent on national defense. Like they say, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Money in education is the focus of Ed100 Chapter 8, but this chapter is even more broadly about resources. Not everything of value costs money. Chapter 8 is the Ed100 Chapter of the Month for March-April. This post is the eighth of ten for the Ed100 Chapter of the Month Program, our biggest effort yet to help parent leaders make a lasting difference in their schools and districts.

What's in Ed100 Chapter 8?

California's funding for education has been skimpy for decades, and this chapter lays out the facts. It's not just about dollars, but about costs — California is an unusually expensive state to employ college graduates, and the upshot is that students in this state have less of everything. Voters are directly to blame for most of the problems; this chapter explores Prop 13 and Prop 98, the initiatives that dominate the amount of money that goes into the system. It also explains LCFF, which sets the rules for where most of the money goes. Parcel taxes are of vital interest to about a tenth of schools in California, and this chapter explains how they work. Finally, this chapter examines the role of volunteers.

The lessons of Chapter 8 delve into these topics. As always, the very best way to learn from these lessons is to discuss them. To help you get the conversation going we've prepared discussion guides in English and Spanish. Each chapter is matched with a brief summary video that you can use to bring everyone into the conversation (even if they haven't actually read the lessons). Here's the discussion guide for Chapter 7 in English and Spanish:

About the Ed100 Chapter of the Month Program (CHAMP)

Each month of this school year we are featuring one chapter of Ed100 through email and social media. It's all scheduled. This month (March-April) we are featuring Chapter 8.

Each lesson of Ed100 includes a simple quiz. For Lesson 8.4, the quiz looks like this:

By completing the quizzes, you earn tickets, which help you in two ways.

Ed100 Graduate CertificateEarn your Ed100 Certificate!

First, they count toward your Ed100 Graduate Certificate, which you earn by completing the quiz for each lesson in Ed100.

Second, tickets count as chances to win in the next drawing, which is coming up on June 4. If you're lucky, a ticket you earn could win $1,000! for your PTA!

Tips for PTA Leaders:

The Ed100 drawing is a great tool for creating urgency. If you are trying to get an Ed100 group going in your school group or PTA council, a short presentation can help make it clear.

Your board members might not be the only ones interested in becoming Ed100 Graduates this year. If you have the opportunity to speak to your school community, why not invite them to join you? Tell them about your PTA board's plan to use the Ed100 Chapter of the Month.

You might also want to draw inspiration from the Ed100 Big Book of Questions, an ever-evolving public set of question slides for ALL of the lessons in Ed100. The slides don't give away the answers, but they tell you where to find them.

Ed100 Lesson 8.3 - About what fraction of the costs of K12 education are covered by property taxes?

Ed100 Lesson 8.9 - How much money does a typical school raise through donations?

How can we help you succeed with Ed100? Drop me an email or leave a comment on this blog post! I'm jeffcamp@ed100.org.

P.S. Thanks to our friends at the San Mateo County Office of Education for translating ALL of our Discussion Guides into Spanish.

Questions & Comments

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francisco molina March 6, 2019 at 7:34 am
I have a question: Is it normal for a district to be financially involved in non-educational projects ?
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