What is with the public school system?

Why is it that every election seems to have ballot measures to increase tax so that schools can have more money, but no matter what gets voted in, schools never have enough money? I think it is because of the wasteful spending by schools and their administrators. Administrators are the highest paid and the least needed, at least at the local level. I think that money could be better spent on another teacher or two.

In recent years, I have seen my kids school days cut, but as soon as a measure passes, they put days back on the calendar. This does not make sense to me because if they are short money and project that they will lack even more funds the following year, then save the money from the days cut and roll it into the next year. That seems to be common sense, but not to the school systems.

There is a school system where I live that has such a confusing budget, that most accountants don't understand it. Well, they might, but they do not want to lose money with clients to figure it out. There is no reason that a school budget should be complicated. A budget can be simple and should be simple, unless something is trying to be hidden. In this case it is administrator salaries and "consulting" costs. I will not go into detail as to not be sued by this school district.

Regardless of the general opinion of myself, the easy to spot problem is that our kids are coming out of these schools with very little education. While I do want the level of education to increase, I do not think that throwing money at it will work. At least not based on the way that money is getting spent. Is technology and infrastructure really so hard to implement into schools? Why do we need to buy over priced books for each student when a book can be put into a digital format for a fraction of the cost?

I think the number of schools is also too much. Recently I lived in a part of town that had 4 elementary schools within 2 square miles. Two of these schools also were middle schools, but the high school in the area is the smallest of the 5 high schools in the city. This seems excessive for the area and being that I am from a much larger area than the one I currently reside, I have seen this congestion not be necessary. If you think about it in regards to maintenance alone, it would seem that larger schools, while they would have more overall students, would allow that a more consolidated maintenance staff and resources needed to provide better facilities to students.

Another issue for me is that while we have an obesity problem in this country, we seem to have to problem cutting out PE. My kids only have PE once per week, which is not nearly enough. While we try to have the kids be active after school, it is very difficult during winter months to get them outside when it is already dark out.

I could go on and on about the public school system, but I won't.