Ah, a new school year. Crisp backpacks, gleaming sneakers, pressed uniforms and, of course, the collective rage of parents and teachers over school supply lists. How long they are. What’s on them. And who should foot the bill for pencils and paper, but also Clorox wipes and Kleenex.
This year, though, those conversations, which typically clog up social media feeds as summer rolls to a close, have a new dimension. At a time when prices are creeping back up and public education is witnessing some of the steepest funding cuts in American history, the school supplies debate is a window into how families and workers are faring.
“It’s not our job to supply all other students’ school supplies,” one mom said in a video on TikTok. “We pay taxes for that. The school should be funded to supply pencils and erasers and construction paper.” The video was then stitched together by another creator who added flashing headlines over the mom’s words: “Trump signs executive order to begin dismantling Education Department, raising questions for students and parents.”
“I don’t have money to help Sally, John, Lucy,” another mom chimed in on TikTok. “Baby, my money, what I spend on for my kids is just for my kids. We don’t have the money to be trying to help other households…I feel like people who are in a position to help, I’m pretty sure they don’t mind helping, but it’s a lot of us that can only do for our kids.”
Teachers have spent the past couple of weeks countering. A middle school teacher in Memphis has gone viral for her response to frustrated parents: “Just so we’re clear, I’m expected to take a bullet for little Johnny and his classmates, but little Johnny’s mother does not see it fit to provide for the community with some Clorox wipes, some tissues, maybe an extra pack of pencils — that’s what we’re going with right now? I have to make the ultimate sacrifice for the community — the school — but little Johnny’s mother does not think that she has to make any sacrifices for the community.”
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the debate is “exhibit A of the defunding of public schools and as a result the creation of a divisiveness that shouldn’t be there.”
Of course parents are upset, she said. “They pay taxes, they’re like, ‘Why doesn’t the funding cover it?’” Meanwhile for teachers, the pressure is on them to fill in the gaps. “What other employee is told to basically fund their own job?” Weingarten said.
President Donald Trump has made it a priority to dismantle the Department of Education, a move Republicans as far back as Ronald Reagan have been calling for as part of an effort to remove the federal government from education, leaving curriculum and funding decisions to states and local school districts.
Already, the Education Department’s role isn’t to dictate what is taught in schools but to dole out financial aid to college students, conduct research on education, enforce anti-discrimination laws and fund Title I K-12 schools in communities with the most need. Cutting the department will have direct consequences on discretionary funding at those Title I schools. How much schools spend on school supplies varies by district, but some don’t cover them at all.
Since the start of the year, the Trump administration has cut about half of the staff at the Education Department. Then in June, it announced it would withhold $6 billion in funding for the upcoming school year, money that had already been allocated by Congress to go out July 1 for summer and after-school programs, as well as reading and math support and other assistance for migrant students. Then, at the end of July, following significant pressure from numerous groups, the administration reversed its decision and released the funds.
The political ping-pong forced school districts to take money from their discretionary spending budgets to ensure summer school stayed open. That meant dipping into funding for supplies, Weingarten said.
Meanwhile, teachers, particularly at Title I schools, are going into the year with less support, facing potentially larger class sizes, limited counseling support for students and other challenges. About 90 percent of teachers already use their own money to cover school supplies and other classroom needs — and those expenses are only going up.
“Think about those educators who are taking money out of their own pockets, trying to stretch their own family’s budget, and at the same time how they’re feeling about the reality that their students are coming back to school and the schools have fewer resources,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union.
It’s an “affordability crisis,” Weingarten added — and that’s what’s playing out on social media.
Inflation has started to pick back up and Trump’s tariffs of 10 percent or more on nearly all countries went into effect on August 1, raising the cost of everyday goods, particularly electronics and clothing. In July, a key measure that looks at inflation without volatile food and energy costs accelerated, indicating companies are starting to pass tariff increases on to consumers. Big-box retailers such as Walmart have indicated they will start to raise prices, and economists are warning that larger increases are on the horizon.
All of it is affecting how parents approach back-to-school shopping this year.
Data from the National Retail Federation found that families planned to shrink their back-to-school budgets to an average of about $858 from $874 last year. About half of shoppers were starting their shopping earlier this year, specifically to avoid markups from tariffs. During Amazon’s Prime Day event July 8 to 11, sales of school supplies (backpacks, lunchboxes, binders, calculators and kids’ apparel) were up 175 percent over last year, according to Adobe Analytics. One U.S. News survey from late July found 85 percent of parents are concerned about rising back-to-school prices due to tariffs.
“A lot of these more or less low-cost, mass-produced items are just simply not made in the U.S. so there are necessarily going to be price hikes on things like pencils and crayons and backpacks and things we just don’t make here anymore,” said Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a left-leaning think tank. “We are not going to move pencil factories back to the United States.”
The debate over school supplies is not all happening in a vacuum, either. Recent cuts to food assistance and Medicaid passed by Congress will reshape family budgets and require families to put more money into health care and groceries — and away from things like school supplies.
“When all of us are feeling squeezed at the grocery store, at the bank, at day care — it’s no wonder that frustrations are boiling over,” said Sondra Goldschein, the executive director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, in a statement to The 19th. “With school starting in the fall, can you blame teachers and parents — neither of whom should be on the hook for such expensive school supplies — for looking at each other and wondering who can possibly afford another hit to their family’s budget?”
Low-income families, predominantly families of color, will feel the squeeze the most both in their own budgets and cuts to school budgets. Wage growth has slowed for the poorest families and Black workers, who have faced the brunt of cuts to government jobs, including many diversity, equity and inclusion positions, have seen unemployment rates rise sharply in the past four months.
Ailen Arreaza, the executive director of ParentsTogether, a national nonprofit that works to engage parents politically, said all of it is leading to a sense of uncertainty and instability among parents as the school year begins.
This, Arreaza said, is what shouldn’t get lost in the discourse: “What we hear from parents time and time again is that they love their teachers. The issue here is not teachers versus parents. The real problem is the slashing of education budgets and the rising costs.”
This year, many parents are also recognizing that. Now, alongside the angry videos are dozens others like this one that a mother posted on TikTok at the end of July:
“As a parent of an upcoming third grader, nothing has pissed me off more recently than watching all of these parents have to make videos about these mile-long school lists: five boxes of Kleenex, three bottles of hand sanitizers, two the three-bottle Clorox wipes. Y’all want loose leaf paper, pens, pencils, markers, crayons, construction paper, and then have the nerve to say, ‘Don’t put your kid’s name on none of the supplies,’” the mom begins.
“But what really takes my anger over the edge is the fact that you did not ask for nothing for yourself, baby. What do you want? As a teacher that is about to have my children from August to May for seven, eight hours a day you can have whatever you like. I’m [the rapper] T.I. You can have whatever you like.”
Great Job Chabeli Carrazana & the Team @ The 19th Source link for sharing this story.
