Budget Problems

You may have heard that California is having a budget crisis. It's true: our schools are broke. We do not even have enough money for such essentials as textbooks. In fact we may not get new books until 2016. No, I'm not exaggerating. The state board of education is not requiring schools to buy books between now and then.

Yet today at our weekly staff meeting, we all recieved training in a new internet educational program that the district has subscribed to. What's worse is that, as usual, no one on staff was asked if we wanted this or would be willing to use it. I had never heard of it until last week. Had anyone asked me, I would have strongly suggested that we don't waste our money on it. The program is set up with tests and games to review each of the state standards. It is made to be used online, but teachers can also print out the tests for students to do on paper. In our district, most students do not have internet connections at home, and I only have four student computers in my classroom. So, I would have to mainly use the print function and give students worksheets. But if I'm going to do that, I might as well use the materials that come with our curriculum. If students do use the program online, the teacher can view a report of results for individuals or for the class, but the interface and information layout did not seem all that helpful.

If this program is not madatory, I will not be using it. I am afraid though, that since the district paid for it, they are going to expect me to show them results. This is on top of the academic vocabulary program that they are requiring us to start this year and the graphic organizer program we implemented last year. I guess with all of these programs that they've spent thousands on we won't have any time to open those outdated textbooks anyway.