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drpvn t1_iws6ho1 wrote

Reply to comment by princessnegrita in Public Schools Are NYC’s Main Youth Mental Health System. Where Kids Land Often Depends on What Their Parents Can Pay. by LittleWind_

> Public schools full of wealthy kids end up better funded not because the state gives them more money, but because of fundraising.

You’re correct that the state doesn’t give those schools more money than schools with less affluent parents, but you’re wrong to think that fundraising makes up the difference. It doesn’t.

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princessnegrita t1_iws8hle wrote

Except that it is a widely known fact that parent fundraising does make a difference.

In under a minute, I read your response, googled “discrepancies in education parent fundraising” and saw the 5th article that popped up literally discusses Coney Island schools.

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drpvn t1_iws8y5g wrote

It doesn’t. Look at the amount that PTAs raise at the wealthiest public schools. Add that to their total state, federal, and city funding. Compare that total to any Title I school in NYC. It will be lower on a per pupil basis.

And that article does not say what you think it says. It just says that some school PTAs raise more money than others. Specifically, it says that Mark Twain’s PTA raises approximately $250 per student. If you think that is enough to erase the gap in total funding with much less affluent schools, you are very wrong.

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princessnegrita t1_iwsgjan wrote

That article actually does say what I think it says though.

Did you click the link provided when they were talking about Title I funding to read the Chalkbeat article about it? Because the organization that collects education funding data specifically stated that they found that schools with the smallest share of low income students are able to raise and spend more. The information for parent fundraising and government funding are in separate places and because of that most education funding analyses (likely including wherever you got your data from) don’t include the parent fundraising money.

For a little bonus, I looked up the funding for the elementary and middle schools I went to (I’m poor, black and an immigrant and the demographics of those schools remain the same). I compared them to the funding info on the elementary and middle school that I picked kids up from when I was a babysitter.

They all get identical amounts of money per pupil from the government which is cool and expected. The PTAs for my schools raised no money in 2019. The other elementary raised over $400k, an extra $756 per kid and the middle school raised $97k, an extra $90 per kid.

What’s funny about the difference between those two schools is that despite being literal blocks away from each other, the middle school gets a lot more kids from outside the neighborhood. So while the elementary school had 9% economic need index, the middle school had a 35% economic need index. My elementary and middle school rates were 84% and 74%. I’d bet money that pattern holds up with an analysis of all the school because the people who collect this data already said it did.

And that funding info doesn’t include in kind donations like a wealthy parent donating a bunch of laptops to a school or a well connected parent setting up an internship program in their field or even a parent donating time to teach an extracurricular.

(And none of this at all even addresses the bigger issue which is ensuring every parent has the ability to be involved and present for their kid’s education.)

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drpvn t1_iwsh72g wrote

Just give me a concrete example of a school with wealthy parents that raises so much money that it outstrips the funding gap between it and a much less wealthy title I school. I don’t think you’ll find one. There are only a handful of schools with PTAs that could possibly raise enough money to make the exercise of comparing worthwhile to even attempt. Generally speaking the wealthiest schools get the least amount of money, even when private fundraising is included. Happy to be proved wrong.

(Also, note that the spreadsheets of data from 2019 that came out of Treyger’s law are known to be inaccurate. I’m not aware of any good data on PTA fundraising, but maybe the data got better after 2019.)

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princessnegrita t1_iwve2tc wrote

Alright this is an exercise in foolishness because there are so many variables that effect costs but you issued a challenge and I’m a nerd so here we go:

William Sherman (PS 87) took in $20.3k per kid and raised an additional $2.3k per kid. The Title 1 school, Irving Gladstone (PS 186) took in $21.3k per kid and got an additional $681 per kid for Title 1. So that leaves our total at $22,600 vs $21,981 for the Title 1.

That’s a small monetary difference per kid but it’s a difference nonetheless. All without any necessary context.

The necessary context is that education and behavioral needs vary which means costs vary:

  • 37% of the kids at Gladstone are learning English vs 3% of the kids at Sherman
  • 71% of the kids at Gladstone come from a low income background vs 8% at Sherman
  • Gladstone has a below average number of teachers with 3+ years of experience and Sherman has an above average number of teachers with experience (a 10% difference)
  • They have a similar amount of special needs students but Gladstone spends a below average amount on their education ($25k per kid) while Irving spends a slightly above average amount ($34k). This could be Irving being bad with money OR it could be that Irving’s special needs kids just have more needs than Sherman’s.

So now that tiny monetary difference on paper is less tiny because of course the school with a ton more ESOL and low income kids need to spend more. They literally have more kids with more needs.

But yeah all of that culminates in what I was already saying was the issue: if you put all the wealthy and well supported kids in one school and all the low income latchkey kids in another, they aren’t going to be able to provide the same education. If you mixed up all the kids from both schools, divided them equally and sent each half to each one of the schools, they’re more likely to be able to cover each kid’s needs. You’d also have a good balance of parents who can’t get involved in school activities and parents who can.

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drpvn t1_iwve6v9 wrote

Appreciate the engagement. I will try to dig into this later. But what is your source for the amount raised by the PTAs? Can you link it?

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princessnegrita t1_iwvpvqx wrote

The only source there is: the 2019 Treyger collection. I wish they committed to collecting this info but it looks like the effort died after that first try.

BUT I picked Sherman because their number seems high but not clearly wrong like the ones that were $10k+ raised per kid. The fact that they have at least 3 professional fundraisers in their Parents Association as well as multiple named yearly fundraising events, lends credence to the accuracy (in my opinion).

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ITEACHSPECIALED t1_iwswf39 wrote

I have taught in an affluent neighborhood in NYC and the poorest neighborhood in Queens.

Fundraising absolutely makes a massive difference.

The school I am currently at cannot even get parents to cover $10 admission fees to an honor society while the other school I was at had parents sponsoring trips to Europe for entire classes.

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drpvn t1_iwsx9p1 wrote

It does make a difference. The question here was whether it covers the gap between the funding for schools with affluent parents and non-affluent parents in NYC public schools.

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