mikey, as our thread title is about pen provision I think you are missng the point when you say "I posted this to show how education budgets are failing to provide for the needs of our kids"
I am not sure it is the school's responsibility to provide basic equipment such as pens, just as it's not the school's responsibilty to provide uniform, shoes, break time drinks, etc.
But having worked in lots of schools I know that in some you could provide every child in the school with a new pen at the start of each day and maybe a quarter of them would have lost it by morning break. Pens mysteriously explode leaving pools of ink and smeared faces or mothfuls of ink, get snapped into little bits, get thrown at someone across the room, get pinched ("he's nicked mi pen sir", "No I haven't" or "well he broke mine sir" or just end up on the floor or behind a radiator along with a few broken protractors and rulers. Some kids enjoy destroying glue sticks too- it's good fun trying to get lumps of glue to stick to the ceiling.
I'm not talking about all schools or all classes of course but for too many pupils its a problem of attitude not a lack of resources