Rather than pour more and more money into the education system, we need to start thinking about out-of-the-box solutions. I do not know many people that enjoy tax season, but it is not because they think roads, schools and the military are not important. It is mainly due in part to the incredibly wasteful and misdirected spending that runs rampant. Most federal dollars do not go toward paying teacher salaries; in the 2012-13 school year, 7.7 percent of school personnel were paid from federal funds. Most of the funds went to Child Nutrition (36 percent), IDEA handicapped (24 percent) and Title 1 funding (29 percent). The issue is not that these funds were allocated to these programs, although it does explain how the state is responsible for a significant portion of teacher pay, but that much of the funding does not go where it is needed.

In June 2016, a report by U.S. News and World Report stated that 20 percent of Title I funding intended for poor students, which equates to a whopping sum of $2.6 billion, goes to school districts with a higher proportion of wealthy families. The billion-dollar system supposed to fight inequality in our school system actually does the opposite: Poor schools are struggling and losing teachers by the year, while wealthy districts churn out higher and higher test scores. These districts technically do qualify for Title I funding based on their small school size. Due to its small size, Delaware receives more Title I funding per student than other states with higher rates of child poverty. There are many other inequalities with the law, and while its intent remains a nice idea, we all know intent does not equal impact.

If there were an easy fix for all the problems in our education system, I would not be writing this column. There remains, however, a lack of ingenuity from higher-ups and more of the same spending from both political parties. One solution to the wasteful spending on energy in public schools is solar panels. According to Solar Energies Industries Association, schools that have invested in solar panels have reaped the benefits, meaning more should make the switch sooner rather than later. The report finds that 450 individual school districts could each save more than $1 million over 30 years by installing a solar PV system and of the 125,000 schools in the country, between 40,000 and 72,000 can “go solar” cost effectively.

Another issue to discuss in spending is the way teacher pay is currently distributed. The education system may be the only industry that hires individuals with varying skill levels at the same salary. The only way to make more is to obtain a graduate degree or become a principal or superintendent. What this means is that unless you have a strong desire and personal conviction to teach the next generation of leaders, you would rather enter the profession of the subject you learn in college than teach it to high schoolers, or worse, the ruling eighth graders of that terrible place we would never return. What if a chemist were incentivized to teach chemistry because they would receive a higher salary than a P.E. teacher? There are negatives of this suggestion and I realize it may sound offensive to teachers who are also important in a child’s education, but logically, a chemistry teacher is in higher demand than a P.E. teacher and has a more difficult subject to teach. Take the same example for a real corporation. An engineer would be paid more than a construction worker by a construction company. A lawyer would be paid more than a paralegal at a law firm.

Our schools should also consider operating on a different schedule than the 7:30 a.m.–3 p.m. day, or whatever version of that you may have had. People are constantly complaining about class sizes. Why not have a second shift for the school day instead of building another entire school building because the school has become overcrowded? If this were done, parents might actually be able to pick up their children from school after work and if not, they can ride the bus system that they might use anyway. Teachers could teach later in the day after their professional jobs they work during the day, and we would actually be aligning with research that shows starting the school day at 7:30 a.m. for high schoolers is ludicrous. These same principles are applied to college campuses like NC State and would be easier to implement at high schools before other levels. Instead of misusing the funds that are desperately needed by the school system, the bureaucrats and public officials should take an old piece of advice and think outside the box.