The Foreign Service Journal, December 2003

80 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 3 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT government for educational expenses. Suffice it to say that the State Department’s arcane financial rules are ill-equipped to deal with non-U.S. school billings. Overseas U.S. schools typically pro- vide a well-wrapped “tuition” bill covering every conceivable cost from teacher salaries to gym socks. Embassy Budget & Fiscal offices accept these without a murmur, even though the tab can exceed $30,000 annually. In frustrating contrast, the French ladle out bills like weak soup — for instructional expenses, gym fees, bus transport, research modules, etc. – and seemingly all the time. Yet costs usually total less than $10,000 a year, largely because French schools overseas provide no luxuries. Many classrooms are concrete barracks, with few of the basics provided by U.S. schools, and kids have to buy every- thing from pencils to wall clocks. (In one southeast Asian capital, the French in their bare-bones digs call the spacious, landscaped and well- appointed U.S. school “Versailles.”) Despite this relative bargain, State Department rules seem to require that every single item and expense from a non-U.S. school, of whatever size or value, be questioned and chal- lenged. We’ve spent countless hours writing memos to explain that French primary schools require horizontally and vertically-lined paper; that “gym- nastique” means freshman physical education, not competitive-level training; that the most popular brand of French staples is not Sweet & Low, as one B&F section we’ve worked with inexplicably surmised; that because lycees require fountain pens rather than ballpoints, we therefore have to buy ink cartridges, and the only kind of eraser that will remove fountain pen ink costs 29 cents each; and, more generally, that lycees often have both private and public govern- ing boards and that each levies its own, separate fees. We certainly sympathize with short-staffed financial officers caught Continued from page 78 Continued on page 82