‘Harper’s’: Raising Money for Schools

PRESS CLIPPINGS

The growth of private fund-raising groups that raise money for public schools is leading to growing inequality between schools in wealthy areas and those in poor neighborhoods, charges Ellen Zimmerman, a freelance writer, in Harper’s magazine (October).

The fund-raising groups, often called local education funds, got their start in California and then spread nationwide, the magazine says.

California funds now raise more than $50-million for local public schools, while education funds in Florida last year raised between $22-million and $25-million.

“It may be logical and practical for concerned parents to step in and fund what governments won’t or can’t provide for the public schools, but local education funds give rise to the same inequities that varying property taxes caused in the 1960s,” the magazine writes. “LEFs in wealthier neighborhoods are able to donate large amounts of money…whereas LEFs in poorer districts must scramble for grant money, since most parents there can’t afford big-dollar donations.”

The result, says Ms. Zimmerman, is “a contravention of the nation’s commitment to educational equality. By using their money as they see fit, parents are making an unfair and frequently broken system increasingly less fair.”

Ms. Zimmerman says she is most concerned about “how these foundations threaten to sap the political will for systemic change.”

Politically minded parents end up raising money, rather than lobbying state and federal policy makers to improve education for all students, she says.

Ms. Zimmerman adds:”Any motivation they once might have had to fight for educational equality, to ensure that all schools are adequately funded, has been replaced by a much less exhausting and more self-supporting act: sending a personal check to their local school’s foundation.”