The basic issue we (Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board) are trying to grapple with is that we have a district with wide socio-economic disparities that lead to significant differences in the abilities of our schools to fund raise. We have one elementary school with slightly over 300 children that raises over $800,000 dollars./year while we have two elementary schools of over 500 and one have a middle school of over 1,300 that each raise only about $35,000/year. (We get approximately $6,400 per child from the state, so this is a meaninful difference in what services and amenities are offered in each school). Little of the disparity is due to difference in effort. It is primarily to do with the wealth of the parent population.
One proposal before those of us on the school board is that the schools contribute 15% of their fund-raising to an equity pool that is re-distributed on a weighted basis (weighted in favor of poverty, English as a second languate, low level of fund-raising). As you can imagine, this is creating an uproar at the wealthier schools. Another option is that we could use school district money to help equilibrate funding, but this is very difficult and problematic given the overall low level of funding and the fact that it supports basic programs such as lower class sizes (20, or 25 depending on grades and classes), and physical education and music instructors (who we nearly had to cut last year due to budget cuts). There are no frills or slush funds to move around.
This whole issue came to a head because given the prospect of large budget cuts last year, some schools financially would have been able to restore programs unilaterally, such as keeping teachers and music programs, while "poorer" schools would have had to go without. We do have an education foundation that raises money for all schools in the district, but the parents in the wealthiest city (Malibu) contribute almost nothing. Yet these Malibu folks are the parents that raise the greatest amount of money for their own schools and are complaining about the 15% levy.
Are there other solutions that might provide greater financial balance across schools and yet are politically more acceptable to all school communities? I think if we came up with a good solution that we would quickly become a model for other school districts struggling with this same issue. Our district is gaining a lot of attention for many of the innovations we've taken on over these last two years. It would be great to add resolving our funding inequities to the list.
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Let’s do the math.
In the school with 300 students there are say 12 classrooms (at 25 students per class) @ $6,700 / student from the state, that is $167,500 / classroom per year. This is over $2 Million dollars per year - $2.8 Million with the fund raising – making it $234,166 / year / classroom.
If a teacher’s salary was $50,000 you’d have about $180,000 / year / classroom for “services and amenities”. If your school is in service for the average 180 days per year then that is $1,000 / classroom / day – even a “poor” school with no fundraising would have $650 / classroom / day.
That amount would buy a decent computer, fund a nice field trip ($40/student), or bring in 7 “assistants” per classroom making $12/hour, making your student to adult ratio down to 3-1. And they could do this each day of the year.
I know this is a bit simplistic, and doesn’t account for administrative salaries, transportation, building the schools, etc. but having done some work with school boards you will have to admit that perhaps 80% of the budget is salaries. In short, I don’t know if the problem is a fund raising issue or a spending issue, but there seems to be quite enough money in the system to accomplish its goals.
I totally support your efforts, but the rich parents have got a point. They give the money for THEIR kids to get a better education. I doubt if you'll get them to share.
I haven't got a total solution, because you haven't listed all your sponsorship avenues. Have your poorer schools tried:-1. Industrial sponsorship2. Raffling their local Macdonalds sports box3. Sponsored district litter clean-upsand so on?
I'm a state school teacher and I've always found everybody very receptive to fund raising.Very best of good luck.
I suggest that less wealthy school change the way they fundraise vs. taking money from another school.
I would suggest that the school start a program that would raise funds from businesses instead of from the parents, etc. I would create a program where businesses would contribute X amount of dollars toward the school fund and the parents would ONLY (or do most of their) shopping at the participating businesses.
An example ... The school would allow only one business (grocery store, dry cleaner, drug store, etc.) to participate in the program. The parents would use the participating store for their purchases. The store gains more business and the parents do not have fork over money so many times during the year for things they do not want.
What if school districts (or regions, cities, counties...) had to pool their funds and then $$$ were distributed according to a schedule: e.g. 65% goes back to the school where the funds were raised, 5% goes to a general fund, 10% gets distributed evenly, 10% goes towards to a fund that rewards innovations or effective teaching, and 10% is discretionary according to school district?
I think it's like the "eating in class" rule -- if you didn't bring enough to share, you can't eat it, either. You can eat it at home. It's not "public" food if you can't share with everyone, it's "private" food.
Public education has to be defined as "what can be provided for everyone." Anything beyond that is private education -- and should be recognized as such. We don't expect a "public school" in the inner city to compete equally with a "private school" in a country-club setting, but call the second a "public school" and suddenly they are supposed to be in the same league.
The problems arise when what is actually private education gets passed off as public education, for tax, exclusivity, and real estate value reasons.
Rich people have more money for schools? Well, of course. They have more money for anything: that's what rich means! No problem there, but call it what it is. It's private education, passed off as public education. In what sense is it "public" if only the rich have it?
If you consider clean water to drink as a form of health care, then we in the U.S. pretty much have public health care. If you consider a heart transplant health care , then we don't have public health care.
So: your poorest school is "public", and anything beyond that is de facto "private." You are trying to find some way that the (actually) private schools will be forced to share with the public schools. Why would they?
The only thing the real "public" school has to offer in trade is the use of the word "public." How much is that worth? Must be worth something, since the operators/backers of the (actually) private schools are so anxious to keep using the word "public." Can you find out what that amounts to in dollars? Then you would know what you have to trade.
"If you don't have enough of the goodies to share, then don't say they are part of a public school! Admit they're PRIVATE goodies for your PRIVATE school."