Jennifer Hall Lee is a parent activist in Pasadena, California. She wrote this article about the different amounts of money available to different types of schools in Pasadena. Remember that one of the goals of American public education is “equality of educational opportunity.” How is this possible when children in public schools do not have access to the resources as children in other kinds of schools in the same community?
Here is an excerpt:
Let’s look at a few of the current annual fund goals for schools in the Pasadena area.
- $75,000 is the annual fund goal for Eliot Arts Magnet Academy (a PUSD school).
- $500,000 is the annual fund goal for an Altadena charter school.
- $4.3 million is the annual fund goal for a Pasadena private school.
These annual fund numbers reflect the income levels of parents because when you set a goal for an annual fund you must reasonably expect that the goal can be reached. Annual funds in public schools derive monies primarily through parents and alumni.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Abandoning our democratic institutions weakens them; without participation, those institutions eventually will be dismantled.”
Privatization is enabling school districts to divide the community and sort students by income. The local charter school selects more affluent students than those that attend the public schools. Students are provided unequal access to schools and programs. This defeats one of the unifying goals of public education in which students from different backgrounds can learn and interact with each other on a daily basis. With only 55% of the students in the PUSD, the district does not qualify for increased funding to meet the needs of its students. Also, the PUSD must pay for the fixed stranded costs of building maintenance, utilities and insurance. The result is an inequitable tiered set of private and public schools with diminished services for those attending the PUSD. Choice undermines equity and opportunity for public school students when a large percentage of affluent students attend private schools.
The NY Times editors – in their ongoing attempt to undermine public schools – would look at Jennifer Hall Lee’s article this way:
Eliot Arts Magnet Academy raises $75,000/year and the nearby public high school only raises $4,000. So we editors at the NY Times demand that Eliot Arts Magnet Academy parents start giving part of that $75,000/year to the nearby public high school that raises much less.
(The NY Times would completely ignore that a charter school raised $500,000 or a private school over 4 million dollars because the NY Times does not care about those parents sharing. NYT editorials are about targeting and attacking and severely punishing parents who won’t abandon their public schools and the charter PR folks have jumped on this new bandwagon to attack those middle class parents for not “sharing” their fundraising with poorer schools. Of course, the NY Times in their outrageous hypocrisy does not want rich charters to share a penny of their fundraising with poor charters. And that makes sense when you understand that the NY Times editors take their marching orders from pro-charter anti-public school billionaires and it’s all about attacking middle class parents for not sending their kids to charters when billionaires have been donating so much money to desperately try to recruit them.)
If the Eliot Arts Magnet Academy was an elementary school and their PTA decided to help parents by running an after school program that was that was lower cost than the expensive private after school programs, the NY Times would simply look at only the “income” line and say “aha, look at how there are hundreds of thousands of dollars being raised by Eliot Arts Magnet Academy that need to be shared with the poorest public schools because rich people don’t want to fund those schools so middle class parents should be sharing their donations with the poor school’s PTA.” The NY Times editors have been told over and over again that the majority of the income they are including are fees for an after school program that are spent on running that program, but the NYT editors prefer to mislead the public to attack the parents they hate — those that won’t abandon their kids’ public school for the charters that the NY Times editors keep insisting are far superior. How DARE they, say the NY Times editors.
The NY Times editors are OBSESSED with forcing middle class parents – but only those who send their kids to public schools – to subsidize poor schools with donations. The NY Times believes that if you are a parent who sends their kid to a charter school or a private school that you should not share your wealth. Low taxes for the wealthy and let the middle class parents in public schools (but not charters) subsidize the education of the poor.
This is one thing on which we agree. Well done!
The NYT has never been pro-public education and it still plays the school choice-reform tune just be not publishing articles extolling the virtues of a public education system. It turned against teachers soon after Bloomberg was mayor and dangled his and his friend’s money, warning the Times to watch its stance on education or else those ads would be pulled from the Times.
This is why they got rid of a major education writer some 9 years ago, who did not want to jump on the privatization bandwagon. I can’t remember his name, and it’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s also why they retain driveling idiots who drool stupidly and phlegm with their pro-GOP babbling, such as David Brooks. Can there BE a bigger idiot than him, other than Frank Bruni (who is not GOP)?
Anyway, education has never leveled the splaying field. Rich suburb = rich budget and more per pupil spending, more PTA fundraising; poorer municipality = less per pupil spending and less PTA fundraising, not to mention low school performance that is a direct correlation of poverty, the very problem caused by our hyper capitalist system.
Go to France, got to Finland, and there you will find the field very and appropriately leveled.
And BTW, the private donors who are able to give thousands and hundreds of thousand of dollars to rich charter schools are the same donors who don’t pay their fair care of taxes, which should be used to even out public schools and their funding.
Robbing the middle class and poor to give to the already bloated and obscenely wealthy fat cats is the status quo.
It’s disgusting and loathsome, and we the people have permitted it over 4 decades.
The pro-public education columnist at The NY Times was Michael Winerip. After a run of superb articles debunking toxic reforms, he was reassigned to cover “Boomers,” then offered a buyout.
zero PUBLIC spirit
Sorry for typos . . .
I do not say this often, but I agree with NYCPP on this.