People and the News

When Corona del Mar High parents pledged $450,000 in the first week of a fund-raiser, Times Correspondent Hope Hamashige was intrigued by the vast differnces in schools’ abilities to raise money. Her research produced an eye-opening story on the caste system produced by state budget cuts.

AWARD

Orange County Press Club

1st place: Education Story

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State Cuts Create School Inequalities

By HOPE HAMASHIGE

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

April 8, 1996

COSTA MESA--Every year, the Corona del Mar Parent-Teacher Assn. sponsors a public tour of glamour homes of Newport Beach, typically raising more than $50,000 for the high school’s students and teachers. Across Newport Bay, meanwhile, an annual 5K run--the Costa Mesa High School PTA’s primary fund-raiser--raises a fraction of that: $6,000.

The elementary schools in Corona del Mar all supplement the regular staff with additional teachers paid through parents’ fund-raisers for such subjects as art, science and music, which are no longer fully staffed by the district because of budget cuts.

Parents at Adams Elementary School in Costa Mesa also pay for an art teacher; she comes just six times a year and it costs the PTA $3,000, the maximum it can spare from its $15,000 annual budget. The rest of the proceeds from such fund-raisers as gift wrapping and candy sales pays for a few field trips and assemblies.

Although both the Newport Beach and Costa Mesa schools are governed by the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, they are hardly equal.

The dichotomy in this district illustrates what educators say is a caste system of sorts that has resulted statewide from shortfalls in state funding of public schools: Those in affluent neighborhoods do far better raising funds to offset budget cuts than those in lower income areas.