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This is a commonly held myth but the numbers don't bear it out. Poor areas tend to be in cities and cities tend to have lots of commercial buildings that pay t

by treis 4y ago

This is a commonly held myth but the numbers don't bear it out. Poor areas tend to be in cities and cities tend to have lots of commercial buildings that pay tax but do not send kids to school. Atlanta, where I live, spends 30%* more per pupil in APS than the surrounding suburban counties do. That's typical for American cities. *Or so. I'm going off memory.

PaulHoule 4y ago
But urban schools are more expensive to run for many reasons including social pathology (metal detectors became widespread in some cities in the 1980s) as well as generally high operating costs.
danans 4y ago
> Atlanta, where I live, spends 30%* more per pupil in APS than the surrounding suburban counties do. If you look a bit deeper at public school funding in more well-off areas and you will usually find a system of tax-deductible private donations to the school, organized by a PTA or similar organization. Much of the spending difference vanishes when you consider that. When you count the value of the PTA volunteer time by professional parents (which doesn't appear on the books), it tips the scales even further toward greater spend in well-off areas.
- treis 4y ago
  >If you look a bit deeper at public school funding in more well-off areas and you will usually find a system of tax-deductible private donations to the school, organized by a PTA or similar organization. Much of the spending difference vanishes when you consider that. Do you have a cite with those numbers?
  - danans 4y ago
    Here is an article that explicitly breaks down the phenomenon with LA public schools: https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-unified-parent-fundraising https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-unified-parent-... California is unique in that it intentionally gives less funding to higher-family-income public schools, expecting them to make up the gap with private fundraising. The result is that after adjusting for private donations, per pupil spending in CA is roughly equivalent across income-disparate schools, as can be seen in the charts in that article. Here is a visualization of the disparities in Georgia's school spending by county: https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-least-equitable-school-districts-in-georgia/77068 https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-least-equitable-school-dist... Pick one of the "High Income / Low Expenditure" counties - Forsyth - as an example. It has an average household income of $112,834. In that county, there is an entire parallel non-profit organization that raises private donations to fund programs in the school district. Here is an article describing their work: https://www.forsythnews.com/news/education/education-foundation-gives-out-115000-grants-more-20-forsyth-county-schools/ https://www.forsythnews.com/news/education/education-foundat... This is in addition to other private fundraising at the individual school PTA/PTO level, and via charities like the United Way (https://www.unitedwayforsyth.com/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=5 https://www.unitedwayforsyth.com/civicrm/contribute/transact...) Here is the same type of organization but in Michigan: https://www.bloomfield.org/support/about/bhs-foundation-faqs https://www.bloomfield.org/support/about/bhs-foundation-faqs What all of these have in common is that the capacity for private fundraising is a function of local household income. In places like California with progressive school funding, this private fundraising serves to "bridge the gap" in state funding between schools in richer (receive less public funding) and poorer (receive more public funding) areas. In other states where state/local per-pupil public school funding is flat or even regressive, it can exacerbate the disparities between districts.
    - treis 4y ago
      >Parents in these 34 most-affluent LAUSD elementaries donate an average of $876 per student, our analysis shows. That's like 1/5 of the gap between APS and the next highest school district. It looks like the wealthiest in LA are able to make up for the difference. But I am suspect of this article. The parental contribution is only 0.4% of the LAUSD budget but somehow it's making up a 20% funding gap between low and high income schools. Very suspicious that they're cherry picking but I don't have the time to dig in. >Pick one of the "High Income / Low Expenditure" counties - Forsyth - as an example. It has an average household income of $112,834. In that county, there is an entire parallel non-profit organization that raises private donations to fund programs in the school district. Here is an article describing their work: Google says APS spends 17k per pupil while Forsyth spends 10k. For 20 schools with 200 kids they'd need 28 million in contributions to equalize. Raising $115k by selling ducks is a drop in the bucket in comparison. Also, APS does their own fund raising. Brief googling reveals that they've raised 7.4 million through this one site alone: https://www.donorschoose.org/aps?active=true https://www.donorschoose.org/aps?active=true
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - danans 4y ago
        > The parental contribution is only 0.4% of the LAUSD budget > but somehow it's making up a 20% funding gap between low and high income schools. Where are you getting the 0.4% coming from? Parents don't generally donate directly to public school district budgets. They donate to school PTAs and school-affiliated non-profits. Perhaps you are referring to https://achieve.lausd.net/donorschoose https://achieve.lausd.net/donorschoose but that's totally unrelated to outside PTA fundraising via the parent community, and it's usually tiny amounts used to pay for things like classroom supplies. It's pretty straightforward. The article says $876 in private PTA donations are raised per year per pupil in the wealthier schools, and that is still $300 shy of what poorer schools spend overall per pupil. So the wealthier schools only make 3/4 of the spending gap. I know this from direct experience since I write a check annually to my kid's California public school PTA for roughly the same amount.

by treis 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago

But urban schools are more expensive to run for many reasons including social pathology (metal detectors became widespread in some cities in the 1980s) as well as generally high operating costs.

danans 4y ago

> Atlanta, where I live, spends 30%* more per pupil in APS than the surrounding suburban counties do. If you look a bit deeper at public school funding in more well-off areas and you will usually find a system of tax-deductible private donations to the school, organized by a PTA or similar organization. Much of the spending difference vanishes when you consider that. When you count the value of the PTA volunteer time by professional parents (which doesn't appear on the books), it tips the scales even further toward greater spend in well-off areas.

treis 4y ago
>If you look a bit deeper at public school funding in more well-off areas and you will usually find a system of tax-deductible private donations to the school, organized by a PTA or similar organization. Much of the spending difference vanishes when you consider that. Do you have a cite with those numbers?
- danans 4y ago
  Here is an article that explicitly breaks down the phenomenon with LA public schools: https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-unified-parent-fundraising https://laist.com/news/education/los-angeles-unified-parent-... California is unique in that it intentionally gives less funding to higher-family-income public schools, expecting them to make up the gap with private fundraising. The result is that after adjusting for private donations, per pupil spending in CA is roughly equivalent across income-disparate schools, as can be seen in the charts in that article. Here is a visualization of the disparities in Georgia's school spending by county: https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-least-equitable-school-districts-in-georgia/77068 https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-least-equitable-school-dist... Pick one of the "High Income / Low Expenditure" counties - Forsyth - as an example. It has an average household income of $112,834. In that county, there is an entire parallel non-profit organization that raises private donations to fund programs in the school district. Here is an article describing their work: https://www.forsythnews.com/news/education/education-foundation-gives-out-115000-grants-more-20-forsyth-county-schools/ https://www.forsythnews.com/news/education/education-foundat... This is in addition to other private fundraising at the individual school PTA/PTO level, and via charities like the United Way (https://www.unitedwayforsyth.com/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=5 https://www.unitedwayforsyth.com/civicrm/contribute/transact...) Here is the same type of organization but in Michigan: https://www.bloomfield.org/support/about/bhs-foundation-faqs https://www.bloomfield.org/support/about/bhs-foundation-faqs What all of these have in common is that the capacity for private fundraising is a function of local household income. In places like California with progressive school funding, this private fundraising serves to "bridge the gap" in state funding between schools in richer (receive less public funding) and poorer (receive more public funding) areas. In other states where state/local per-pupil public school funding is flat or even regressive, it can exacerbate the disparities between districts.
  - treis 4y ago
    >Parents in these 34 most-affluent LAUSD elementaries donate an average of $876 per student, our analysis shows. That's like 1/5 of the gap between APS and the next highest school district. It looks like the wealthiest in LA are able to make up for the difference. But I am suspect of this article. The parental contribution is only 0.4% of the LAUSD budget but somehow it's making up a 20% funding gap between low and high income schools. Very suspicious that they're cherry picking but I don't have the time to dig in. >Pick one of the "High Income / Low Expenditure" counties - Forsyth - as an example. It has an average household income of $112,834. In that county, there is an entire parallel non-profit organization that raises private donations to fund programs in the school district. Here is an article describing their work: Google says APS spends 17k per pupil while Forsyth spends 10k. For 20 schools with 200 kids they'd need 28 million in contributions to equalize. Raising $115k by selling ducks is a drop in the bucket in comparison. Also, APS does their own fund raising. Brief googling reveals that they've raised 7.4 million through this one site alone: https://www.donorschoose.org/aps?active=true https://www.donorschoose.org/aps?active=true
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - danans 4y ago
      > The parental contribution is only 0.4% of the LAUSD budget > but somehow it's making up a 20% funding gap between low and high income schools. Where are you getting the 0.4% coming from? Parents don't generally donate directly to public school district budgets. They donate to school PTAs and school-affiliated non-profits. Perhaps you are referring to https://achieve.lausd.net/donorschoose https://achieve.lausd.net/donorschoose but that's totally unrelated to outside PTA fundraising via the parent community, and it's usually tiny amounts used to pay for things like classroom supplies. It's pretty straightforward. The article says $876 in private PTA donations are raised per year per pupil in the wealthier schools, and that is still $300 shy of what poorer schools spend overall per pupil. So the wealthier schools only make 3/4 of the spending gap. I know this from direct experience since I write a check annually to my kid's California public school PTA for roughly the same amount.