$170.00: the grand total of my required fees for the 2007-2008 school year.

That doesn't even include the cost of my AP European History textbook or the exam for that class. Nor does it include the books I had to purchase to complete summer assignments. Not to mention the yearbook I chose to buy. And it certainly doesn't include all the new school supplies needed for a successful year.

These days, school is expensive and the price of free education seems to go up each year.

Now, I'm not saying it's out of line for public schools to collect the fees they do. Actually, the fees paid at registration each year don't even come close to covering all the expenses the schools and individual teachers incur. Trust me, I know. My mom's a teacher.

More often than not, in this day and age, teachers are responsible for buying all the posters and decorations for their rooms, basic supplies (pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, folders, etc.), candy and other rewards for students, even items typically taken for granted, such as boxes of facial tissues and bandages.

Sure, teachers are granted a small amount of money each year to help compensate for the costs of their materials. I don't know how much money, exactly. Surely it varies from teacher to teacher and from school to school. But I do know that it's an insufficient amount. There are so many tools available for enhancing education that teachers would love to implement into their lesson plans but cannot afford to purchase.

Despite common belief among students, teachers genuinely care about students and want them to succeed. The vast majority goes beyond the general call of duty and spends hours upon hours outside of school preparing for students. During the school year, teachers never get a day off. Saturdays and Sundays are spent grading papers and formulating lesson plans and some teachers actually go work in their classrooms over the weekend. Teachers are overworked and underpaid as it is. They certainly shouldn't need to resort to their own pocketbooks to cover teaching expenses. But reality is, most teachers do.

So, here's my real dilemma. What's happening to all that tax money that's paid to the government each year? Some of it goes to the schools, but shouldn't more funds be devoted to financing America's supposedly free public education? With taxes as high as they are, surely great sums of money are being spent irresponsibly. Are taxes going towards causes less worthy than public education, such as the salaries of government employees, the war in Iraq and the effort to build a wall along the Mexican border?

The average American simply scrambles to file his or her taxes each April and has bigger nightmares about the IRS than about how the tax money is actually spent. Perhaps, though, taxpayers should take a greater interest, for the benefit of schools and other worthwhile institutions. Schools empower the future generations of this country and should be among the top priorities of all Americans. It's high time education is given a little more financial help.

Hannah Smith will be a sophomore at Bear Creek High School. She lives in Morrison.