Before I go into detail here, I must confess that this is a topic that is very close to my heart right now. With that said, be prepared for some emotion here.

My son started kindergarten this year and within the first week it was very evident how troubled the California school system is right now. While California is in pretty deep financial turmoil, my guess is that other states are having similar pains too. The first day of school, the teacher had an orientation with the parents before class started and mentioned that they have no supplies and would appreciate donations. She gave all of us a “wish list” of items that she would like for the class. These were basic things like crayons, pencils and other arts and crafts supplies. By the expression on her face, it was evident that she was troubled and that it was hard for her to ask us parents for this. But what’s great about the people in our community (and this country, for that matter) is that we pulled together and were able to provide the classroom with the supplies it needed.

Now, over a month later, my son’s teacher called another parent meeting. This time around she expressed her concern that she is the only teacher for a class of 29 four to five year old kids. Now imagine for a minute trying to educate 29 four to five year olds by yourself. I have 1 in my house and I can barely get him to focus for even a few minutes. My son’s teacher had two choices: 1) Lower her standards as a teacher and provide our kids a lower quality education or 2) look for alternatives. Thankfully, she chose the latter. She proposed a plan to the parents in which she asked that we allow her to split up the class into two sessions. One in the morning and one starting midday. This will allow her to have two classes with 15 kids in each class, and require her to work 2 additional hours per day with no extra pay. But this is what she proposed because she refuses to lower her standards; she knows that smaller groups means more attention for the children and a better overall education. All I can say is “WOW!”. Many would probably just lower their standards.

What is the main problem here?

There is no money for our schools, so our entire school system is understaffed. This results in fewer teachers and more students to a class, which results in a poorer education, which results in harming our kid’s future and the future of our country.

So, of course, this got me thinking. How can schools and classrooms save money to put towards hiring more teachers? Being the techie that I am, I tend to always look at technology for ways to streamline things.

Reduce the sheets of paper and folders our kids take home. It’s not free to print up multiple sheets of paper each day. Most of what is sent home is announcements and printed homework. My son brings at least 3 sheets home per day. Now multiply that by 29, add the cost of the paper, ink and staff time involved in printing. There is definitely an unnecessary cost that can be avoided.

So I asked myself, “How can we reduce this paper waste and cost?”

• Each class should have its own private web portal where the teacher can login and post notes, announcements, upload homework assignments, etc. Many colleges are already doing this, so why not elementary schools?
• Each parent will also have a login where they can access the daily notes and homework. It should be the responsibility of the parent to print out the homework and send it back the next day with the child.
• Parents should be able to leave private messages through the portal for the teacher and vice versa.

So how much would this save? First let’s look at the current costs.

• Cost of paper = 2 cents per sheet. Multiply that times 87 (29 kids * 3 sheets per day) and you get a cost of $35 per month.
• Cost of ink = 3 to 7 cents per sheet depending on what type of printer (ink or laser). That would cost the class $53 to $120 per month in ink.
• Cost of labor = $240 per month. I am calculating this at an hour per day at a $12 hourly rate. I am assuming that an assistant does this and it takes them at least an hour to prepare, print and distribute the printed material in each child’s folder.
  Total Cost: $395 per month

Now let’s look at the cost of a web portal.

• Using a free open source solutions such as http://moodle.org/ = $0
• Maximum of $30 per month in hosting

That would give the class a total savings of $365 per month by using technology as an alternative.

I like the idea of doing a split class (after noon and morning) but it is not fair to have the teacher work these additional hours for no additional pay. So how about this – let’s pay the amazing teachers who are willing to make these types of sacrifices that additional $365 per month.

BTW – teachers don’t get paid enough.

I am a big proponent on targeting long tail keywords.  Sure, a single long tail phrase may bring in less traffic than a single short phrase, but long tail keywords are so much easier to convert.  The screenshot below shows just how powerful long tail SEO is.  This is long tail “organic search” traffic that came into one of our sites for a campaign we did for a client.  As you can see from this screenshot, this campaign drew in 8,424 visits from 8,186 different search phrases in 1 month.  Yes you read that right – 8,186 different search phrases all from long tail.

Following are a few reasons why I am such a big fan of long tail

• Specific multi-word search phrases are much easier to rank in search engines than generic single keyword or short keyword phrases.
• Long tail, from our experience, has higher sales conversions because the visitors find exactly what they are looking for.
• Google loves content.  Creating lots of different pages targeting many different long tail keywords gives Google and other search engines more pages to index.
• Easier to rank + higher conversion + lots of indexed pages = increased bottom line.

Note: make sure your targeted pages are not duplicate content and are very specific to the long tail you are targeting.  Your targeted pages should be useful to the visitors that land on them and give them exactly what they are looking.

We are always looking for ways to give our members more exposure, which is why we developed a rental search directory on our service RentShout.com.  The RentShout rental directory will showcase our members’ available houses, apartment units and other rentals in featured placement positions.  The directory also pulls in other available rentals from various sources around the web.  There is a built in search feature that allows renters to easily narrow down their results, allowing them to customize their search for what they are looking for.  The region (city) pages also showcase Google maps and local area information.