Here’s a blurb about school
fundraising that just came into my email. I would extend the argument made
in the article below about equitable funding within a district to equity across the state. Tax
dollars, allocated equally on a per student basis across the state, should fund
an equitable public education for all. Local bonds, parcel taxes, and foundations
create a 2 tiered system that provides higher income areas with more resources to
backfilled decreased government funding while at the same time continues to let
the public off the hook (i.e. more tax cuts) for funding public schools – which
then hurts low income areas even more. It’s a negative reinforcing cycle that
allows for more and more tax cut driven decreased public school funding. The
people with the time and money to focus on education should be focused on
education for all children, not on bake sale fundraisers for just their kids in
their schools or even just their district. Every check we write to our local
foundation takes tax money away from a school somewhere else in the state
because it lets the public off the hook for funding all our schools. Isn’t
there an innate and obvious hypocrisy in allowing “Private” foundations to fund
“Public” schools? Should they even be allowed? Doesn’t funding your child’s
school through a foundation go against the private inurement limitations on
Public Benefit Nonprofits?
Tax-based school funding is like
funding highways and police; it creates a system of common wealth to fund
common services. Education lays the foundation for an informed citizenry; civic
engagement & volunteerism; caring thoughtful neighbors that support and
help one another; healthy life choices that decrease the cost of public services;
and economic strength. The Return on Investment (ROI) is huge! Underinvesting is
short sighted and will have disastrous consequences such as further expanding
the wealth divide, between the 1% and the 99%, and increasing the demand for
other kinds of expensive last resort, “safety net” public services (like jails
and emergency rooms).
From the Nonprofit Newswire . . .
November
29, 2011; Santa Monica Daily Press | School
districts find themselves less and less able to cover their budgets just with
tax dollars but if parents fundraise for individual schools, kids in schools
with higher income parents will get more resources. In Santa Monica/Malibu the
school district has put its foot down and all fundraising for staff will go
into a central pool.
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ReplyDeleteIt’s truly difficult to find knowledgeable people on this topic(public school system), but it seems like you really know what you’re talking about here. school funding
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