The sooner society accepts that public school is the free to play version of education, complete with the constant push for microtransactions, the sooner it'll understand why I both distrust the system and have a decent tolerance for free to play games.

under 18 is the ftp version of being alive (and not even then in most cases points at lunch programs)

lunch programs, book sales, those little catalogs to get you to buy books and random knickknacks

Candy boxes are events to get you some sweet premium currency

I mean, it's not even free, and higher ed did used to be free or at least very manageable to afford, but Reagan and white flight fucked up everything regarding public education and funding

the candy boxes and shit are the school desperately trying to get funding for extra curriculars, because the state budget for ed keeps getting slashed and people expect teachers to perform all their duties and baby sit with hot air and paperclips

amazing timing you mention this as my state is basically giving 41 mil in private school vouchers in "exchange" for giving teachers a raise

fuck them, private schools in the US are only a thing because racist white people didn't want to share space with poc folks

well no surprise our state is basically a psychotic racist corpro-theocracy