Reply to Mann and Janney PTAs called out in NYTs op-ed for perpetuating segregation in cities

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Mann and Janney PTAs called out in NYTs op-ed for perpetuating segregation in cities"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Harshburger!

[quote][i]
Even in cities where the rich and poor continue to live under the same local government, economic segregation saps political support for common, egalitarian infrastructure. Rich New Yorkers donate generously to beautify Central Park while resisting the taxation necessary to maintain parks in neighborhoods they never visit. [b]In Washington, D.C., parents in wealthier neighborhoods contribute lavishly to parent-teacher organizations that provide extra money to public schools in their neighborhoods, but they do not vote for a similar level of funding for all city schools. [url=https://udcedu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=8c14b2842199454bb57543e62f6eb5e1]Two schools in northwest Washington each raised more than half a million dollars in 2017[/url], while several schools in southeast Washington don’t even have parent-teacher organizations. [/b]Last year, for the third time since 1970, the residents of Gwinnett County, Ga., which sits on the edge of Atlanta, refused to fund an expansion of the regional transit system into their suburban county.[/i][/quote]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/opinion/coronavirus-us-cities-inequality.html[/quote]

We've paid our taxes. It's up to the government to figure out how to spend it, equitably (however you define it) or otherwise. If you don't like it, vote them out. Stop shaming people for not voting for an extra special assessment. It's just a way for politicians to divide and conquer.[/quote]

I'll stop thinking that these inequitable PTA budgets are shameful if you promise not to object if the D.C. Council proposes raising your taxes to add $500,000 in funds to every elementary school in the city besides Janney and Mann. That way, everybody wins![/quote]

If this annoys you, then you should copy what is done and get a group of parents to organize a school auction, sell Christmas trees in the winter, get local businesses to support you.  The money is raised with a lot of free hours logged by parents.  This model is available to everyone to emulate.[/quote]

Easier said than done. Who do you think buys the items at the auction? Parents who can afford it. How do you think HSAs pay for those Christmas trees to sell?  With money raised from parents. Who do think does all that work getting businesses to donate?  Parents with the time because that aren’t working two jobs. This is why extra funds should and do go to schools that need them. What I don’t get is why anyone would oppose anyone giving money to public schools. [/quote]

Yeah I hear you and I know what you say is true.....but you could still organize and do what you can.  I grew up in a working class town.  We raised money in high school for field trips by parents and students picking up trash at the town festivals, washing cars in our school parking lot, selling Xmas trees, and can recycling drives.  We funded two school trips from the east coast to see the Everglades in Florida and to the Grand Canyon in Arizona.  There are moms I know who have organized auctions in ward 3 that are dual full time workers too.[/quote]

I'm a member of one of most active PTAs EOTP and we still raise less than 100K at the end of all that. The idea that elementary school PTAs are able to raise half a million dollars every year blows my mind.[/quote]

Please name your school. We can then compare the total dollars spent per student (DCPS funding plus PTA funds) between your school versus Mann and Janney.

Also, at 750 students, Janney is over twice the size of the average EOTP elementary school. So consider that when comparing PTA budgets.[/quote]

When you look at the actual funding data provided by DCPS, the spending gap per student between a school like Janney and EOTP schools is remarkable. Janney's PTA budget is a drop in the bucket. Below I compare Janney's 2020 budget allocation per student to that of the elementary schools that feed the Cordoza Education Campus. I picked Cordoza just as an example and the story remains the same regardless of the particular neighborhood HS. All of the data are pulled from https://www.dcpsdatacenter.com/fy20_submitted.html#Janney%20ES.			 DCPS allocates about $10,400 per student to Janney versus $14,500 to $17,100 per student at the elementary schools that feed Cardoza. In other words, the per student funding at these schools $4,000 to $6,000 higher than Janney. For the Janney PTA to equalize the student funding received by other schools, it would have to raise $3.1 to $5.0 million per year. It of course does not raise funds anywhere near these amounts. This is why those of us in the know are so angry with the NYTimes.

[b]That said, ironically the Times is right when they say that D.C. "parents in wealthier neighborhoods... do not vote for a similar level of funding for all city schools." However, they get the story totally backwards! We vote to fund schools in other neighborhoods at 50% higher spending than the schools in our own neighborhoods!! 
[/b]

[b][School]       [# of Students]      [Budget $ Millions]	[Per Student Funding]	[Per Student Funding Above Janney]  [Janney PTA Funds Needed to Equalize Spending Per Student][/b]

Janney	           743	         $7.7 	                   $10,363

Cleveland	           300	         $5.0 	                   $16,667 	                      $6,303                                        $4.7 million

Seaton	           403	         $6.9 	                   $17,122 	                      $6,758 	                                $5.0 million

Ross	                   181	         $2.9 	                   $16,022 	                      $5,659 	                                $4.2 million

Garrison	           284	         $4.8 	                   $16,901 	                      $6,538 	                                $4.9 million

SWW @ FS	   495	         $7.2 	                   $14,545 	                      $4,182 	                                $3.1 million[/quote]

This is not to say that Janney doesn't get less per student, but my understanding is that Janney refuses to take the number of students that DCPS feels that they should and they get penalized because of that. Also this does not consider the number of special ed, FARM, non-native English speaking, and other students that students that require more resources.[/quote]

It's definitely more to do with the additional services required at Title I schools -- Janney gets less money per student because it needs less money per student. (I say that as a current Janney parent whose kid used to go to an EOTP Title I charter school.) The additional spending at other schools is not evidence of "waste" or "corruption," as people have said -- it's evidence that the schools have to spend enormous amounts of money to try to deal with the effects of structural inequalities.[/quote]

+1. While Title 1 schools get more money than schools like Janney, those dollars are not spread across every student like at Janney. That money goes to things like extra psychologists, behavioral supports, etc, that cannot be accessed by every student. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics