I thought it was a typo on the school supply list.
Did my child really need 60 Ticonderoga pencils for fifth grade? But it wasn't a mistake: The list did specify three packs of 20 No. 2 pencils, in that brand. I look forward to the "War and Peace"-length manuscript he must be bringing home after burning through nearly two pencils a week for nine months.
But five dozen pencils don't seem as excessive as the 24 glue sticks required per kindergartner in several districts across the country.
In a class of 20 students, that's 480 glue sticks. For historical perspective: It took children raised in the '80s a few squiggly lines of Elmer's glue to paste our construction paper projects together. And several children had leftovers to snack on.
So why are parents now expected to supply a metric ton of glue and an acre of forest's worth of pencils for elementary schools?
Lisa Goodgame, a communications associate with the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, Texas, posed the sticky question about glue sticks on her Facebook page while researching the rising cost of school supplies and extracurricular fees in public schools. The response she heard most frequently was that children rarely replaced the caps after using a glue stick, which meant many dried out very quickly.
It runs counter to our mass-consumption, throw-away culture, but perhaps the better lesson to teach young children is to replace the cap.
The same can be said for pencils. By fifth grade, one should learn to get by on fewer than 60 pencils in a year.
Part of the explanation may also be the shift to communal supplies in younger grades. The excess by some families helps cover those unable to buy most of the items on the list.
The price of supplies is not insignificant. The costs of a "free" public education have risen every year since 2007. Huntington Bank's annual "Backpack Index" tracks the cost of school supplies and extracurricular activities in the six states it serves (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky). Since the bank began tracking these numbers eight years ago, elementary school costs have increased by 85 percent.
According to this year's Backpack Index, parents of an elementary student will pay an average of $649 this year. For high schoolers, the cost rose 9 percent from last year to $1,402.
School supply lists, and the reactions to them, speak to the rising income inequality and financial pressure on middle-class families in America. There is some parental resentment that crops up as costs continue to rise, along with the number of economically disadvantaged children in public schools.
Meanwhile, the amount that many states spend per pupil has either stayed steady or decreased since the 2008 recession. At least 35 states provided less funding per student for the 2013-14 school year than they did before the recession hit, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is despite the fact that many states have had modest increases in tax revenues.
So, the lists have gotten longer, more brand-specific and include more high-end items, such as flash drives and earbuds, even for grade schoolers.
Goodgame said she priced out all the items on the fourth-grade supply list in the Austin Independent School District. When a brand wasn't specified, she chose the cheapest option.
The total was $175.
"I was appalled," she said. "If you have two children, you're spending upwards of $300, and that doesn't include all the other school-related expenses, like uniforms for sports and music instrument rentals."
A study by Deloitte released last month found that 39 percent of responders plan to reuse some of last year's school items rather than purchasing everything new. That's a significant increase from 26 percent in 2011.
Other parents vented their supply list angst online.
"My kids' lists are front AND back of a paper!" one parent wrote. She says they are asked to bring three reams of white computer paper, three reams of colored paper, two boxes of Ziploc bags, paint shirts, hand sanitizer, baby wipes and hand soap for the classrooms.
Another supply list asked for 100 sharpened pencils from each student. I'm not sure if they were planning on having the students build a raft or fashion survival tools with all those writing utensils.
The stockpiles of glue sparked the most fury.
"Don't even get me started," one parent posted. "The kindergarten list called for 28, yes TWENTY-EIGHT, Elmer's glue sticks AND four large bottles of Elmer's school glue, white only." There's a mathematical proof of this paste burden: With approximately 20 children per kindergarten class, with six classes at their school, that's 3,360 glue sticks and 480 bottles of glue.
Someone pass the 200-count hypoallergenic Scotties, please.