How Expensive is Free Public Schools?

Most everything you read here is based on the opinion of lil’ ol’ me.  And often times, it’s based on the latest rant that I have going in my head.  And, rarely is it based on true research.  Homework is one of those topics that I speak about in detail and I’ve researched even more.  But, the rant in this post is going to be followed by me begging for information from you. 

And what is it that is on my mind right now?

The ridiculously expensive costs of the free public education that we are supposedly being offered is absolutely driving me nuts.  My husband has a great job.  He makes more than most.  But if you look up his income on sites that calculate cost of living, average incomes and what dollar value is placed on the words “poverty”, “middle class” and then I don’t even want to know what’s above that, then my family lives on what is considered very very low middle class spectrum.  And, when I look around me and I know in general what the folks that I communicate with on a daily basis make, I am stuck wondering how in the heck they are able to get by. 

For us, we scrape.  We both have a car and if you live somewhere that not owning a car is an option, then you probably don’t understand.  But, where we live, the only place you can go without a car is to granny’s house.  And, chances are you can’t buy groceries or pay bills or shop for clothes and/or school supplies at granny’s house.  A car is a necessity. 

Two cars?  Actually we only had one for a while and there have been other times when we have been one car family due to trading or whatever.  It is not easy to do.  Yes, my son could ride the school bus and technically I could stay at home without leaving while my husband is at work.  Which is not really a good idea to depend on because kids get sick at school, the other child needs to go places on occasion and I personally have to go places that don’t fit in with the hours that we would could function with one car. 

So, there’s that.  And, definitely we aren’t the greatest when it comes to managing the money we have so with that, I’m not saying that school is our biggest problem.  However, at this time, I am rather disgusted with the fact that every time I turn around there is an issue about money. 

I was selected by Office Max as a Max Mom and was able to get the teachers some supplies.  Last year I kept a log of every expense we incurred related to school other than clothing.  And, the way I look at it …my kids have to have clothing regardless of whether we homeschool or they go to public school or we choose to just not educate them at all (ha, give that one a try, these kids as more questions than one elephant could possibly remember the answers to).  So, I didn’t include clothing other than the fact that we had to have an extra pair of shoes for physical education. 

Moving on, I haven’t kept a log this year but my brain knows.  And, I’m about to re-start the log and back-up to the time when school supplies were purchased.  And, with that, I’m going to actually ask you to help me.  I am going to put a survey up here in the next few days and ask you to go through the process and backdate to the beginning of this school year. 

I will post a link to the survey in my next post (I have to go make it up – oops) and will put it in the sidebar as well.  I want to know costs whether you are a public school parent, home schooling parent or a private school parent.  And, because of that, if you would like to create a penname to use, I understand.  My goal is to leave this survey up for a few months and hopefully have you return to update the ongoing costs for a few months so I can make comparisons without just making generalization. 

I know that my statistics won’t be true researched data, but if you will participate, we can get some general ideas.

Stay tuned..