Back to the PTA Fundraising Sharing Discussion

We're revisiting this issue because it seems to be receiving more and more attention, both nationally and here in Seattle.  Again, this comes back to the question of equity which gets trickier because PTA is a private organization that encourages both kinds of parent engagement -  funding and volunteering in their child's public school.

I was reminded of this by a recent op-ed in the South Seattle Emerald.  Here's their headline which flips the idea of contributing money to your child's school on its ear:

Contributing to Inequity: White Parents Must Act to Change Seattle Public Schools’ Opportunity Gap
The piece was written by Hayden Bass and Vivian van Gelder who are parents of students in Seattle Public Schools.  Here's their basic premise:

White parents, then, are uniquely situated to challenge institutional racism in our education system – and conversely, to uphold the status quo by resisting the understanding that our system, as it is currently designed, does not distribute opportunity fairly.

So what to do?


A necessary first step is to educate ourselves about the historical and continuing factors driving our district’s shameful opportunity gap.
These factors include poverty, redlining (which segregated the city), the way our educational system values white middle-class knowledge, behavior and priorities and a white teaching force.

I will submit at this point that it is hard to get more teachers of color because of the demoralization of teachers, the low salaries and the piling on of work/expectations.  Heck, we will have fewer teachers at all because of what has happened to the lack of valuing of teachers.  Why would a young person want to choose teaching as a profession?  We DO need more teachers of color but it's going to be a heavy lift.

I had a problem with a couple of parts of the piece.  Bass and van Gelder are speaking of the Black Lives Matter day last October.

But many white parents – especially in the north end, where few students of color live – wrote angry emails in response.

It is true; there are far fewer students of color in the north end but that there are "few students" is just not true especially up to the far north near the city border.  I tutored in a north end school that was very diverse.

Our district has the worst opportunity gap between white and black students in the state, and the fifth worst in the nation. 

They also make this statement which I want to somewhat qualify because it is important to get clarity because the people who were first to state this fact did so.  One reason that gap is so huge is because SPS students who are white do better than most other white students in other districts in the state.   That doesn't make the gap less urgent or important but it does explain its rank.

Their suggestion for PTA is this:

One practice we believe needs immediate examination is PTA fundraising for school day programming. 

It's a little unclear what they mean by "programming" but I think they do mean PTA funding of staff.

While SPS attempts to engage in more equitable budgeting that aims to address this imbalance, the truth is that the gap is so large it cannot begin to do so.

This is true.  While schools with more poverty do get more funding via Title One and LAP, those are restricted funds and those schools are also unlikely to be able to fundraise as other schools can.

Our district’s track record shows  if we white parents were to collectively urge SPS to address race and equity on a sustained basis, we would be very likely to see results. If we’re brutally honest with ourselves, many of us hesitate to act out of fear that speaking out against inequity will require us to make what feel like unbearable sacrifices.  

I see two different calls here and both are valid.

One is saying that more parents should speak up on issues of race and equity.  I will caution that although I believe the overwhelming majority of parents believe in this cause, they may not all agree on the best way to get there.  That's a key issue that the district doesn't want to hear.  There are multiple ways to more equitable schools and I think the floor should be open to all of them.

Two, those "unbearable sacrifices" would mean shifting how PTA/PTO funds can be used and, possibly, asking that some percentage of funds raised somehow go to schools with higher student poverty levels.

Naturally, this is a personal issue that is also a schoolwide and district-wide issue.  Parents are supporting their child's school financially which is a good thing.  But that financial support is causing a widening resource gap for other schools and the entire district.  Not a good thing.

They do have a link to a very good study from the Center for American Progress called Hidden Money: The Outsized Role of Parent Contributions in School Finance from April 2017.

Throughout Washington, D.C., and around the country, parents are raising hundreds of thousands—even millions—of dollars to provide additional programs, services, and staff to some of their districts’ least needy schools.7 They are investing more money than ever before: A recent study showed that, nationally, PTAs’ revenues have almost tripled since the mid-1990s, reaching over $425 million in 2010.8 PTAs provide a small but growing slice of the funding for the nation’s public education system.

That last sentence is certainly true for SPS; PTA is the largest source of grants.

In the majority of states, per-pupil spending in high-poverty districts is about equal or more than per-pupil spending in affluent districts.

These numbers, however, do not illustrate the full picture of funding discrepancies. Average district per-pupil spending does not always capture staffing and funding inequities. Many districts do not consider actual teacher salaries when budgeting for and reporting each school’s expenditures, and the highest-poverty schools are often staffed by less-experienced teachers who typically earn lower salaries. Because educator salaries are, by far, schools’ largest budget item, schools serving the poorest children end up spending much less on what matters most for their students’ learning.

Parent donations only further the current funding inequities at the district and school levels. What’s more, because districts and schools do not readily report the use of private contributions, the dollars are not included as part of national, state, district, and school funding comparisons. When private dollars are taken into account, it is evident that the education finance system benefits the affluent—it does not, in Horace Mann’s own words, serve as “the great equalizer.”

It is not helpful to any discussion about funding if ALL the funding sources are not clearly laid out.  Again, PTA and booster groups are private but it would seem if they are funding programs/staffing at  schools, then all the money should be included, in detail, in any budget. 

Because of this, parent donations can have a greater influence in states or districts with low per-pupil spending, with every $1 equal to a greater proportion of overall spending. In these regions, parents can supplement public spending to minimize the tough budgeting decisions that will affect student learning.

State leaders should promote greater transparency of private contributions, and district leaders should create systems to allocate all resources equitably.

This is true in Washington state and Seattle because of our state's long-term under-funding of schools.

What do they suggest? Overall:

Districts can take policy actions—such as pooling a portion of parent donations or regulating the use of those donations—to benefit higher-poverty schools without substantially reducing overall parent contributions.

• Support partnerships between schools across the socioeconomic spectrum
• Select and implement an approach to tackle the inequities of parent donations by conducting an analysis of the impact these donations have on districts, as well as an assessment of the political will to redistribute funding within the community. These approaches include: 

• Creating equity funds to redistribute donations to schools with the greatest need
• Imposing restrictions on districts’ usage of donations 
• Incorporating predicted parent donations into school budgets 
• Encouraging donations that promote district-wide benefits 

Also addressed in this article is the fundraising in Seattle schools versus Portland schools.

Since the beginning of the program, the Portland Public Schools Foundation, or PPSF, has enabled schools to start their own Local School Foundations to raise private dollars to pay for in-school staff positions. These foundations must give one-third of their total revenues—after the first $10,000—to the district foundation. In turn, the PPSF gives dollars to schools based on a formula that accounts for several factors: PTA funds, local school foundation funds, previous equity grants, federal Title I funds, and student demographics. The equity grant pool grew from $845,000 in 2012 to over $1 million in 2014.

They did a comparison of the two districts:

Over the three years studied, parent fundraising looked similar in both districts. Portland’s PTAs raised less each year than Seattle’s PTAs, but those differences are consistent with differences in average earnings within each city. During the same time period, Portland’s PTA revenues increased from approximately $130 to $140 per student, remaining around 0.18 percent of median household income for families with children. In 2014, parents raised over $3.2 million in total. Between 2012 and 2014, the revenues of Seattle’s PTAs increased from approximately $340 to $370 per student, remaining relatively steady at around 0.35 percent of median household income for families with children. Seattle’s PTAs outraised Portland’s PTAs yearly revenues by 2014, earning $7.3 million in revenues.

When comparing contributions to overall family income, parents in the Portland Public School District donated less to their schools. While there may be other factors at play, such as the strength of PTAs’ fundraising teams or a difference in the community’s culture around donations, this may show that Portland’s equity fund has depressed revenues slightly relative to where they would be in the absence of the policy. Relative to the amount that the Portland and Seattle school districts spend per student—approximately $11,000 and $12,000, respectively—the difference between the districts’ PTA contributions is quite small, less than 2 percent of per-student district expenditures in 2014. This minimal difference shows the equity policy does not drastically reduce contributions.
As I have previously reported, there is a struggle in California over this issue, both in Northern California (San Francisco) and Southern California (Malibu).  

Since the pre-recession year 2007, elementary school PTAs in San Francisco collectively managed to more than quadruple their spending on schools.

But school district finance data, PTA tax records and demographic profiles reveal an unintended byproduct of parents’ heroic efforts: The growing reliance on private dollars has widened inequities between the impoverished majority and the small number of schools where affluent parents cluster.

School district data show that in 2011 (the most recent year tax records were available), parents of children at just 10 elementary schools raised $2.77 million — more money than those at the other 61 combined.

 Some answers:

In an effort to address unequal parent fundraising head-on, some Bay Area school districts have pioneered novel solutions that might be instructive to San Francisco. One is aggregating private dollars, and directing them to the schools that need the most help. Other California districts prohibit PTAs from paying for teacher salaries or training, a common practice that can significantly widen inequities among schools.

In Malibu:

The Santa Monica-Malibu school district embraced both solutions in 2011, under Superintendent Sandra Lyon. Today the district’s education foundation is the only way parents can donate money to support teachers and staff.

However, it appears Malibu would like to be its own separate district since this policy has taken affect.

The key worry about such systems is that they will reduce the incentive for parents to support public schools beyond what they already pay in taxes.

Lyon has seen a culture change in a district heavily divided by social class. “Schools are collaborating in ways they had not done before,” she said. “The inequity in schools had bothered many for years, and so there has been support for the notion that we are working to create a better education for all students.”

So what other outcomes might come from this?

Many educators fear losing support from affluent parents, who have the option to quit the public schools altogether and enroll their children in private schools — or flee to suburban schools.

Lyon said her district struggled with the transition: “There are still some who believe parent money should stay at their children’s schools, and they are strongly against the change.” 

Another article, this one from San Francisco Public Press about Albany Unified School District, is called Albany School District Levels Parent Fundraising Playing Field.  It's a good case study.

Superintendent Marla Stephenson said the disparities had been immediately apparent when she began working for the district in 2008. Three years later she led the switch to a single annual campaign for all three schools — one that could provide an example for San Francisco and other districts struggling with inequities made worse by parent fundraising.

In the fall of 2010, Stephenson agitated many parents when she tried cutting back on some school-day programs, given the disparity among campuses. Parents and teachers attended standing-room-only school board meetings to advocate for their schools. Those at the two wealthier campuses were upset that their children would not get programs that were already planned and financed. And those at the school with fewer resources tried to provide insight into why the disparity existed and needed to be addressed.

After the meetings, Stephenson convened a task force of parents, teachers, administrators and principals. The group met for more than 20 hours over eight sessions to find a solution agreeable to everyone.

The task force agreed on a joint $75,000 annual giving campaign, which included seed funding from the district, individual PTAs and a citywide community fundraising group called SchoolCARE. Other donations came from individuals. The money was split equally on a per capita basis among the elementary schools.

The PTAs are still able to fundraise on their own, for projects such as site improvements, assemblies and teacher support. But school-day programming — art classes, field trips, chess clubs or sex education — is off limits for private funds.

“It’s led to more collaborative projects between the PTAs, and I think people just have a good feeling about making contributions that are split evenly among kids, which benefits the entire community,” Trutane said.

A professor at Stanford, Rob Reich, is the co-director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and he wrote an op-ed in the NY Times in 2013 on this topic.

The problem is not with America’s parents but with its policies. At a time of rising inequality, school foundations must shrink — not widen — the gap between rich and poor.

Should wealthy parents in well-to-do school districts stop giving to their own children’s schools? That’s not likely to happen, nor is it my recommendation. True, it would be more altruistic to donate to the schools of poorer children, but it is human instinct for parents to support the education of their children.

There is still a lot we can do to improve this upside-down system of charity. First, wealthy school foundations like Hillsborough’s should honor the equality-promoting standards released by the National Commission on Civic Investment in Public Education (on which I served). At a minimum, this would require private giving to be aggregated across schools and shared equally with the entire school district. More ambitiously, it would channel private giving to support poor districts.

Congress should differentiate or eliminate charitable status for local education foundations. If a foundation raises money for a district with a high percentage of children eligible for free lunch, it could offer a double deduction; for a district below the average in per-pupil spending, the standard deduction; for a district with few poor children and higher than average per-pupil spending, no deduction. If private giving to public schools exacerbates inequalities, then at the very least we should stop subsidizing such behavior with tax dollars.

Food for thought.  It might be worth considering contacting your PTA or the SCPTSA at the start of the school year and ask what might change.