by Tracy Baker

Created on: April 18, 2009   Last Updated: April 21, 2009

Every parent in America has seen them - the end of summer television commercials advertising back to school clothes and supplies. At my house it isn't until we see one of these dreaded commercials that we begin to think of the financial hit that we are about to take. As it probably was with most parents my age, getting ready to go back to school when I was a kid was easy. My parents would take one day out of the weekend (most of the time it was a Saturday) and we would hit the mall, grab six or seven outfits a piece and then on our way home (after eating at our local pizzeria) we would stop in at the drug store and get our pens, pencils, folders, notebooks and paper. Just like that - we were ready for school. Boy, have things changed...

Although it may be different for each state in this country, funding cuts where I live have impacted our schools and our parent's pocketbooks tremendously. Granted there are things that I don't mind contributing to my children's education, such as paying lab fees for my seventeen year old daughter's science class, or dishing out $150.00 for a calculator that is required for Algebra II, but when it comes to the required school supplies for my fifth grade son, that's when I begin to question the definition of "required". At our local Walmart, we can find a complete list of required school supplies before school even begins and it is always a page long. Granted there are common things listed on it such as paper, pencils, crayons, folders and notebooks but then from there it just gets crazy. Fifth graders at our local elementary school are required to bring a can of tennis balls (to place on the legs of the chairs, so that they don't scratch the floors), four boxes of Kleenex (I know that kids get the occasional cold but four boxes?), two tubs of baby wipes (why can't they use the Kleenex?), one bottle of hand sanitizer (has funding been cut so low that they don't have soap and water in the bathrooms?), a bag of assorted candy (23 students x 1 bag is 23 bags for one school year!), a roll of paper towels (with the Kleenex, the baby wipes and the hand sanitizer? what could they possibly need paper towels for?) plastic sandwich bags (?), and one box of thirteen gallon garbage bags (I'm guessing they need these to store all of the other stuff in).

By the time we leave Walmart, we have spent over two hundred dollars on school supplies that we can barely squeeze in the trunk. I, like many other parents in this country, see my children's education as the number one priority in our home and I am willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they have everything they need to succeed in school but if my son's school supply list is any indication of how the schools spend their money - its no wonder their funding gets cut! .

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