PARENTS IN education-minded towns grow desperate as staff positions in their schools are threatened due to budget shortfalls. Such parents shouldn’t be faulted for their take-charge strategies, even if they push the traditional boundaries of private fund-raising for public education.
The unwritten code has been that private fund-raising is fair game for one-time expenses, scholarships, and school improvement projects, such as language labs, but not for ongoing operating expenses, such as teacher salaries. That’s still a wise standard, but what happens in practice is changing. In Arlington, parents have raised $425,000 since April to offset some of the more than 50 staff cuts required to balance the town’s school budget. Parents in other towns are ready to follow.
The main concern is equality. Could parents in a wealthy part of town save teachers at their neighborhood school while the classrooms go wanting on the other side of town? That should never happen if a community has a sentient school board. All gifts to a school district must be approved by the school committee, according to Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Elected officials, not parent-led foundations, decide how the money should be used. Gifts with strings attached should be rejected.
In a perfect world, voters in well-run but cash-strapped districts would rush to the polls to support overrides for schools each time state aid to cities and towns falls. But in real towns, people are pinching pennies while elderly residents on fixed incomes struggle to pay their property taxes. Parents who wish to donate shouldn’t be expected to sit on their hands at such a time.
In poor cities, a large percentage of the school budget comes from the state. Private foundations often prefer to fund favored charter schools over public schools in low-income communities. Such foundations — and the state government — must accept a special obligation to ensure that children in lower-income communities are not left behind.
But in middle-class communities, like Arlington, people with means have the luxury of being able to take matters into their own hands and, if necessary, dig into their own pockets. “If it’s my kid, I would write the check,’’ said Thomas Scott, director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. It’s imperfect policy. But it’s good parenting.
