Comment Re:Two Problems (Score 1) 164
As an active member of my son's school's PTO, I find it infuriating how many of the really good programs are funded 100% through PTO fundraisers. Every field trip, First in Math, Accelerated Reader, the entire science lab, most of the computers, even a portion of the substitute teaching budget. And of course the money raised in the fundraisers come from primarily the parents and businesses in the area. If I were in a less affluent part of the school district, that would mean my child would probably not have access to these programs. In fact, in the district we are down to only two or three of the schools participating in First in Math, and all of the schools have dropped AR.
I don't know what the answer is. I suppose higher property tax would go a long way to leveling some of the disparity, but unfortunately a lot of the money would get wasted at the district level [citation needed]. At least with the PTO taking care of this stuff, we know where all the money goes. But it's not like our PTO is going to turn around and hand over 20% of our budget to some underperforming school where we don't know the principal or teachers.
It's a conundrum. If you don't give underperforming schools more money, how can they improve? If you do, how do you keep schools from gaming the system? How do you make sure the money goes to improving the education of the children?