Opinion: Giving by Rich to Local Schools an Education Boon

Reuters economics columnist Felix Salmon defends donations by well-to-do parents to local public schools in a riposte to a New York Times piece that said such giving widens educational inequality.

Mr. Salmon favorably compares giving in affluent communities that supports local school districts to wealthy parents sending their children to private schools.

In the former case, “the quality of education in aggregate is improved, and while inequality might be exacerbated between communities, it isn’t exacerbated within communities, which is what results when the richest members of society decide to take their kids out of the public school system entirely,” Mr. Salmon writes.