REGIONAL REPORT : Private Funds in Public Schools : Education: Nonprofit groups, often established by parents, are raising money to help local schools and districts cope with budget crunches.

In a classroom at Newport Heights Elementary School in Newport Beach, fifth-graders stared at a laser-disc program and bopped to the beat of “Map Rap,” a costly, computerized audiovisual lesson that uses a rap song to show the growth of the United States.

Meanwhile, in La Canada Flintridge, classrooms that might otherwise be empty are filled with eager students and teachers who might otherwise be looking for work.

With education budgets taut these days due largely to the statewide budget crunch, a $750 outlay for two laser discs and funds to hire extra teachers would normally be beyond the means of many public school districts--including the relatively well-heeled Newport-Mesa Unified and La Canada Unified.

But many school districts in the state are continuing to enjoy the latest in high-tech developments and other “extras” thanks to the efforts of nonprofit education foundations--private fund-raising groups, often established by parents to provide an infusion of funds to cash-strapped school districts.

Education foundations, some formed to serve individual schools, others entire districts, for the most part were born during previous fiscal crunches, including the severe education cutbacks in the 1980s that grew out of the 1978 voter-backed Proposition 13.

But as education moves into the even more austere 1990s, school districts find they are having to rely more and more on these education angels. With Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed 1991-92 budget calling for a $500-million cut to school systems in the current budget year and a $2-billion reduction over the next 18 months, the role of the foundations in keeping programs afloat will become even more vital, education experts say.

“Our purpose is to enhance the quality of education, (but) with recent budget cuts, we have to now look for more than providing icing on the cake,” said Marge Schneider, executive director of the Fountain Valley Education Foundation in Central Orange County. “We may have to start providing the cake.”

Even as education foundations are increasing in importance, some questions--present from their inception--remain.

From the beginning, concerns have been raised that private education foundations might violate the spirit of a 1978 state Supreme Court decision--Serrano vs. Priest--which held that inequitable funding of school districts is unconstitutional.

For the most part, school funding comes from the state and is based on attendance rather than the relative wealth of the school district.

“If an individual district can go out and, not through the (state) but . . . through separate fund-raising tilt the dollars significantly in that district, then what the state was hoping to accomplish is being thwarted,” said Caroline Boitano, board president for the California Consortium of Education Foundations.

However, Boitano and other foundation executives throughout the state discounted the notion that foundations in wealthy communities are widening the gap in quality of education, since no foundation raises enough money to significantly influence a district’s budget, even in the more affluent districts.

Foundations raise, on average, from $25,000 to $200,000 annually, consortium officials said. But the haul can be much higher--for example, $1 million was raised last school year for the Beverly Hills school district.

The fact that foundation funds skew budgets at all--effectively circumventing Serrano vs. Priest--presents a moral dilemma, said Lewis Solmon, dean of the Graduate School of Education at UCLA.

“This is a way of getting around equal funding across districts,” Solmon said. “But should everybody be able to have only what the lowest-budgeted district could have? I think that’s a value judgment.”

Donna Rhodes, executive director of the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education, a fund-raising arm of the National Education Assn, noted that foundation funding can benefit districts, rich and poor, in some less obvious ways.

She said that if the money is used to purchase technical equipment--or release time for teachers to learn how to operate that equipment--then the school is that much further enriched. And students in poorer schools have more need for that kind of individual support, she said.

Naomi Rainey, a spokeswoman for the Compton Unified School District, which is gathering data to form a foundation, said that any organization that can raise funds to improve education should be encouraged, whether in affluent or poor areas.

“Beverly Hills took the initiative, and that’s good for them, and hopefully other districts like them will share their resources on how they got started,” Rainey said. “There are additional services you can provide with a foundation, but additional doesn’t always mean (better).”

Statewide, there are about 150 foundations, including 41 in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties, according to the consortium. Foundations operate throughout the state, in rural and urban areas, although urban districts tend to have more corporate support and more fund-raising expertise, consortium officials said.

As welcome as the foundation support is, school districts and foundation executives say they don’t see private donations as a way to balance budgets. The amount raised by foundations is significant, but it’s hardly enough to make a dent in $100-million budgets.

“It’s a drop in the bucket, but it helps,” said Diana Long, president of the Newport-Mesa Schools Foundation, which raised about $40,000 for the current school year.

Said Russ Frandsen, president of the La Canada Flintridge Educational Foundation, one of the most successful education foundations in the region: “I think it’s fair to say that the amount (of donations) we can raise on a volunteer basis will not meet the needs of the district--we’ll need to come up with additional revenue.”

But Frandsen’s foundation, which gave a $335,000 boost to that district’s general fund in the 1989-90 school year, was at least partially responsible for the district’s ability to hire eight to 10 teachers who might otherwise have been dropped from the payroll due to that district’s budget crunch.

Providing some breathing room for financially squeezed districts is where foundations are increasingly making their mark, education experts said. More and more, foundation funds are being used to keep afloat educational programs that were once standard fare but are now often seen as extras.

“When many of these foundations got started, they were designed to offer something above and beyond what the state offered,” said Dick Van DerLaan, a spokesman for the Long Beach Unified School District, which expects to have a foundation up and running in about two years.

Added Boitano, of the consortium: “I think what people are seeing is that the budget crisis is going to hit everybody. Even in some districts where there had been some cushion in budgeting, they’re really hitting the wall. Suburban districts are deciding whether music is in or out, rural districts are going to have to make a decision on whether to bus or buy books for the library. We’re down to the nitty-gritty here.”

The Beverly Hills Education Foundation was organized in 1976 by a group of parents who wanted to help fund programs at the city’s Hawthorn Elementary School, said foundation president Bob Perlberg. Donations to this foundation have been used for a variety of purposes, from sustaining arts, music and computer programs to hiring teachers. In one case, a $100,000 donation was used to rehire two teachers specializing in English as a Second Language, Perlberg said.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula Education Foundation got its start in 1980 when volunteers raised money to bring back library aides laid off after budget cuts, said Sandy Thornton, Southern California coordinator for the consortium.

And in Newport Heights, that foundation’s largess led to “Map Rap,” one of 120 lessons about history and geography contained on two laser discs.

Perlberg says the success or failure of foundations is primarily dependent on the commitment of the school district, parents and the community to its goals.

Added Thornton: “I think people give what they can. I think you can raise money anywhere. It’s just getting the administration to get excited about it and then have parents that are willing to do it.”