Money

I will be posting an education paper on this topic but I felt it needs commenting now. An administrator at my school sent all special education staff an email. The subject: Who wants MONEY????? The message:

Hey guys-
I know time is valuable, and budgets are tight. There is $250,000 available to be given in grants. Please take some extra time, and apply. It should not be too difficult to get the money. If you need things for your rooms, money for CBI so students can get community based instruction, software you think would be helpful, school supplies (white boards, organizers, etc). Please consider as our students can only benefit if we supply them with more resources.

If you are to take this email at face value, you can see that money is available for supplies and we are being given a chance to tap into that resource for the good of the students. However, the problem is the line "Please consider as our students can only benefit if we supply them with more resources." Special programs are in place for the litany of classification we can place on a student. The CBI (Community Based Instruction) program is funded by the state and is available to any special education student that qualifies. Software cannot be purchased, nor can books, programs, or other tangible supplies without approval from the district. That would be fine if it weren't for the three to six week approval process.

Bureaucracy, over-spending, and a continued lack of resourcefulness doesn't do anything to foster student growth because the system itself is broken. Until we fix the system, no amount of spending is going to provide for students any better than what we are already doing.