I see this from time to time(throwing out supplies/books) and this tends to be because of someone ordering books or supplies without talking to the teachers in the classroom and finding out exactly what they need to teach the material they are being asked to teach.
The reason for all the "extra" bureaucracy is a simple one, the states keep passing new laws, thanks George W Bush(NO Child Left Behind), and other more local laws in just about every state that requires all sorts of testing and monitoring and what have you without the funding to pay for it. So the schools have to pull a teachers out from the classroom to do these jobs and in doing so increase class sizes.
I see so many people compare education(k-12 public) to private business and they have to realize one thing, we are not building homes, we are educating students, some want to be there some not, some are extremely smart, some are not. Some have great homes, and some do not. Can you see where I am going with this?? No two kids and I mean no two kids have exactly the same life. You can have one student that is has a crappy home life doing good one day then lose it the next due to what happened at home between leaving school and getting back the next morning, but yet our schools are required by LAW to educate all students. what other private business has to do that kind of thing exactly. I am not talking about following EPA or DEQ or other state or federal laws, we have to follow all those as well. But we are given the same amount per student and we are limited on how many "special needs" funds we can get.
Oregon school districts has been cutting everything it can to stay within state or federal mandates/laws, least my district has(I believe). I will ask again, for anybody who is concerned about their local government, go to the school board meetings, go to your city council meetings, get involved, talk to the teachers, the custodians, the secretaries at the schools and listen to the story of how the current economy is hurting them right now. I know private business is struggling too but I wish for you to see it like this, please, Every business has to deal with inflation. How do you deal with inflation?? You increase of cost of your final product, lower operating cost, find more efficient model. You can not really do that with educating a human being. We are not robots guys, are you?
I know I could go even more into this, but will not.
THIS!!!! And the bolded part is a great example of how it isn't as effective as it might sound to force the business model on education. Theoretically possible but realistically impractical.