Nonprofits
Private Money for Public Schools
Should private money be given to schools?
Education policy is dominated today by conversations about vouchers, or public money going to private schools. But what I see all around me is the opposite phenomenon, private money being given to public schools. Large foundations (Gates, Broad, Carnegie, and so on), large corporations (Wells Fargo, Target), and individuals all give money in large amounts to public schools. The media celebrates this as an example of how the efforts of private actors are supporting public institutions, how parents are acting on behalf of their children in bolstering public schools in an era of fiscal crisis. This is all true. But I see the potential for a very large downside to this new phenomenon.
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COMMENTS
BY Mike Lanza
ON April 15, 2004 12:23 AM
I agree with the argument the potential downside. But I think it’s admirable that parents, regardless of which income bracket they belong to, care so much about education that they are willing to supplement funding privately. I don’t think we can curtail parents wanting to give their kids the best education they can give.
BY Gene Wilson
ON April 15, 2004 11:40 AM
Millions of dollars have been awarded by foundations and corporations to public schools with very little outcome, especially in urban core schools.
Bob Reich uses the word “support” for the grants to these schools, but most of those funds have been for “change.” There are a handful of instances where “change” in terms of improvement in student achievement is being realized
(eg: the First Things First initiative in Kansas City, Ks), but too many foundation resources have been squandered with no measureable outcomes contracted from the start by both parties.
This nation has had “charter” schools for decades, and they’re called Suburban Schools. If researchers dug deeply, they probably would confirm that, like Palo Alto, the schools in those up-scale neighborhoods are the ones receiving most of the private support from individuals.
Kansas is another example where state budget shortfalls have left ALL the schools in the state with a stable or declining per pupil state allocation. But the Shawnee Mission SD just passed a $140 million bond issue for its schools, while the Kansas City, KS (USD # 500) schools have no possibility of that kind of incremental financing.
Let’s be honest: It’s an inequitable situation that won’t go away anytime soon.
BY Catherine Austin Thiemann
ON April 15, 2004 12:27 PM
If parents who act locally are therefore less motivated to act for statewide changes, that’s not necessarily a downside. All schools would improve if their local constituencies took an active role. The downside is that this wonderful “local” voice may only be heard in affluent neighborhoods. Low-income parents are too busy trying to earn a living.
Ideally, local activists will press for changes not just within their children’s schools, but within their entire school districts. But it isn’t productive for them to try to spread their efforts statewide.
BY Mary A. England
ON April 15, 2004 06:23 PM
Ironically, and yes tragically, a project to support informed decision-making in educational choice nearly 35 years ago was underway between Stanford (Levin, et.al.) and University of Oregon students.
Having worked on the project and also graduated from both institutions, I think the comparison of student competencies over two generations of graduates of public education leave little doubt that the risk of “vouchers” would not and could not had degraded public education more than its own decline indicates.
BY Jason Deal
ON April 16, 2004 01:17 AM
Many of these efforts today are focused around “reinstating program reductions”.
I’m therefore curious to see if the increase in private funding for public schools will subside as state budgets cycle back into the black—which based on budget projections in many states won’t be for some time—or if this represents some new reality for public education in America.
BY Steven H Johnson
ON April 16, 2004 08:58 AM
Money is the visible flow into schools. Test scores are the most visible output. But there’s more to this than the visible money—> test scores linkage. A critical invisible input to schools is regulations. Laws and regs have been passed that have added numerous new responsibilities to schools. A lot more money per student goes to schools now, but very little gets directly into the classroom. Nor is talent equitably shared within school districts; capable high seniority teachers end up in the middle class schools; low seniority new hires end up in the poverty schools. Schools, especially high schools, are much too big; when students don’t feel a personal connection to the school, motivation drops, performance drops. And software systems keep school administrators in the dark; the human resource package, the budget package, the course scheduling package, the materials of instruction package (if any), the student results package - none of these talk to each other, and woe to the superintendent who tries to extract any strategic insight from systems designed only to deliver function by function tracking. There are best practices that make a difference for urban schools, but it’s a huge uphill battle. Too many rules. Wrong size schools. Teachers not assigned where need is greatest. Opaque software. Oh, and did I mention politicians? Accountability is one of several problems, but the only hammer the politicians want to wield is the accountability hammer. That’s the one nail that gets pounded - none of the others do. What’s needed next is more diagnostic clarity, a clearer sense of the thicket through which intelligent prescription must wade.
BY Laura Brady
ON May 12, 2004 12:08 PM
While parents of children in public schools may care deeply in principle that public education be adequately funded and improved for all American children, in the short run their problem is their own child’s experience - a problem which will not wait for decades of advocacy. Parents who focus their support efforts on their own school or district are moving to send their resources to a known performer - the principle or district that has established credibility with them as someone who will not fritter away or abscond with their donations. These people are also acting in concert with the principle that individual connection is better fostered with smaller organizations (the point about high school students being alienated by larger schools). Control over and connection to results drives local support and focus on education. Many parents with children in large urban districts want things to be better for all the kids in the district- some of these are the people who choose not to flee to the suburbs. But they understand the reality of huge entrenched bureaucracies. So they focus on supporting good teachers or principles in single schools, not particularly wanting to advocate for more funds in the State capitol which historically have simply filtered into untouchable, often nepotist, administrative structures whose best effort might be something like lashing teachers into teaching to the test or a succession of silly faddish software “teaching” programs.
BY Tina
ON June 11, 2004 02:19 PM
Recently I’ve read a definition of voucher somewhere that made me laugh… and contemplate a bit on the issue. “Voucher is a confirmation that you’ve been cheated”.
BY Steve Sadlov
ON August 18, 2004 12:38 PM
For the wealthy, choice can include bolstering the local public education sector, abandoning it property taxes notwithstanding (either via private school or home schooling) or lobbying at the state level for greater degrees of state socialism in this sector. The latter could range from working within the existing bourgeois confines, or, pushing for radical overturn of the bourgeois structures up to and including the drive toward pure communism.
As for those who are not wealthy, the options are realistically somewhat fewer. Namely, the options of local bolstering and private schooling are not relevant. The others do remain. For the proletariat, the choise, at its most refined level, boils down essentially to one of either pushing politically for a degree of state socialism, be it bourgeois or communist, or, home schooling. The Right will clearly tend toward the latter, whereas the Left will tend toward the former.
BY Angela Zehava
ON May 21, 2005 12:50 AM
Here in Portland, Oregon, parents raise money for their local schools, but a substantial portion of private money raised ( I think roughly a third) goes to fund all the schools in the system. This is, at least, a partial solution to the tension between the interests of wealthy parents of school age children panicking about the quality of their own school (now!), and the interests of neighborhood schools with fewer private resources. We feel that if we are helping our school now, we have sufficient peace of mind to diligently, over time, work politically to change the system.