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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

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]

As it should be. But why oppose people giving money to public schools?[/quote]

I don’t know that I oppose it — I give the suggested per kid PTA donation, though I recognize that it helps maintain inequalities in the city when my kids’ school can raise money other kids’ schools can’t.

But a lot of people here who have no problem with JKLM schools raising money privately then justify it by saying the schools don’t get enough from the city and that the spending at other schools reflects waste. Which does seem to suggest that the NYT isn’t totally wrong in its claim that people who raise private funds for their school would oppose higher taxes to spend more on poorer schools. [/quote]

Seems to suggest the claim?  Seems awfully wishy washy to me. Is there proof?

If you don’t oppose people donating money to public schools, are you one who is trying to justify it?

I just don’t get why people want to refuse money someone wants to give to a public school. [/quote]

No one is saying the schools should refuse the money. The point is that the money helps overall inequality persist -- even if it "makes up for" a funding disparity where the schools that serve the wealthiest families have less money per pupil than other schools do. The "extra" money that other schools have can't be spent on the stuff that JKLM schools spend their PTA money on, because it mostly goes for specialized services that are in higher need there.

So what would be most fair would be to raise taxes (especially at the top end of the income tables) and spend more money on all the stuff that the JKLM schools raise private funds for -- and make sure it's allocated equitably across the city. Then there'd be no need for private fundraising, and the schools that can't raise money privately would have the same opportunities that the schools that can do.

Would you vote for someone who proposed that? Or would you object to the tax increase and to the fact that more money would still, per pupil, be going to other schools?[/quote]

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