Going Beyond the Bake Sale

The little schoolhouse on the beach always had the trappings of quality--good students, loyal teachers, dedicated volunteers, even a bell tower. This year, Newport Elementary School boasts a new distinction: its own private charity.

The Newport Elementary School Foundation has raised $300,000 since August and is aiming for $2 million by 2000--all for a school with 625 students. Leaders say that their goal is realistic for an exclusive Newport Beach neighborhood, where many homes face the ocean or a bay filled with yachts.

Although many people here can afford to send their children to private school, those behind the foundation say the Balboa Peninsula’s lone public school should be everyone’s concern.

“This is my backyard,” said Janine Schroth, an educational psychologist whose two children are not yet school age. “If your own community isn’t going to take care of the children, who is? Nobody else is going to take responsibility.”

Across California, hundreds of public schools tap private funds through nonprofit organizations called local education foundations. About $30 million each year flows into schools this way, a new study shows, helping rich areas more often than poor.

The fund-raising has galvanized support for public schools in many communities and in some cases has laid the groundwork for successful school bond and tax campaigns. But foundations are no substitute for a healthy public education budget, school advocates say. Some are concerned that the public could perceive them as a panacea.

Other observers worry about equity. Passions were inflamed in New York City this year when parents in an affluent area raised money to keep a favorite teacher whose job was threatened by budget cuts. But school foundations in California largely have avoided such controversy. Analysts say that any disparities are relatively insignificant because foundations overall can muster only about one dollar for every thousand spent by state and local governments.

“It’s such a small percentage of the school budget that it couldn’t possibly be a big equity issue,” said Michael Kirst, an education professor at Stanford University and former chairman of the State Board of Education. Still, he said, foundations have become ingrained in the California school system to a degree unmatched elsewhere.

“We are overwhelmingly the hotbed,” Kirst said. “We’re in a league by ourselves.”

Communities long have raised money for schools through booster clubs and parent-teacher associations. But clubs usually are dedicated to specific student activities, such as athletics, and most PTA leaders downplay fund-raising.

Foundations, by contrast, exist to create wealth for schools. Armed with glossy brochures, wide community contacts and professional fund-raising techniques, they reach beyond parents to businesses and others with deep pockets. Last month, a Beverly Hills couple who own a finance company gave a school foundation $1 million. That kind of money doesn’t come from a bake sale.

Largely unregulated, the donations support a broad range of programs large and small: a discount supply store for teachers in Visalia, computer literacy classes in Carpinteria, a remodeled school library in Menlo Park, Impressionist art workshops for fourth-grade teachers in Palo Alto.

Newport Elementary, thanks to its foundation, is hiring aides for each of its 26 classrooms and offering classical music instruction by professional musicians. A few of the most successful foundations also feed directly into district treasuries to help with general expenses such as teacher salaries.

Impact of Proposition 13

California voters touched off the foundation movement in 1978 by passing Proposition 13, the landmark state constitutional amendment that rolled back property taxes, curtailing a dependable source of local school revenue. Another key factor: State courts in the 1970s ordered a redistribution of tax dollars to schools in poorer areas.

In 1995, the most recent year for which statistics are available, California had 537 local education foundations, according to a report by economists Eric J. Brunner of San Diego State University and Jon Sonstelie of UC Santa Barbara. That was up from 204 in 1985 and 30 in 1979.

There are no reliable nationwide statistics on local education foundations, although California is widely considered to be the leader. A recent study counted 144 in Michigan. Texas and other states also have a number of them.

The movement has been propelled by concerns over school funding. Every year since 1980, California has spent less per pupil than most other states. In the 1996-97 school year, state officials say, it ranked 39th with $5,327 per pupil. Alaska and New Jersey, the top two states, each spend more than $10,000 per pupil.

For many California parents, outraged by textbook shortages, decaying campuses and dwindling curriculum offerings, those numbers are unacceptable. With fixed costs gobbling up most of a district’s budget, foundations have become one of the few sources of money for art and music classes, new computers and library materials.

Foundations also confer intangible benefits, helping citizens reclaim a degree of sovereignty over schools in an era when Sacramento calls most of the shots.

Laguna Beach, with a foundation aptly named Schoolpower, is a prime example. Since 1981, it has raised nearly $6 million for an endowment and a variety of school programs. It also financed a new swimming complex and rebuilt a high school. Last year, Schoolpower pitched in to prevent budget cuts when a financial crisis stemming from lax fiscal management engulfed the district.

“Part of what’s happening is an attempt by local parents, and the local community, to gain some say in the education system,” said Michael Pinto, a Laguna Beach parent and foundation leader. “When they raise the money, then they have something to say about how it will be spent.”

Indeed, a factor in the success of many foundations is the number of students they serve: the fewer, the better. People tend to give more freely in small school systems such as the 2,500-student Laguna Beach Unified, where they can see their money working directly for the schools in their neighborhoods.

A sense of local control is not the only benefit from raising the profile of public education.

Susan Sweeney, executive director of the 300-member California Consortium of Education Foundations at Stanford, said some foundations are so strong that they have helped districts gain the two-thirds voter majority needed in California to pass a tax increase or school construction bond.

Achieving the super-majority is a formidable challenge, although a brighter economy helps. Many districts in the post-Proposition 13 era have tried and failed. Some have not even tried. But the experience of Beverly Hills is telling.

Formed in 1978, the Beverly Hills Education Foundation is known in state school circles as a powerhouse. Over the years, according to President Lili Bosse, a mother of two schoolchildren, the group has raised more than $6 million through such functions as walkathons and dinner dances sponsored by Merv Griffin. Jimmy Stewart once gave $100,000.

Much of that money has gone into the general fund of the 5,200-student Beverly Hills Unified School District. Some gifts helped to build an endowment now worth nearly $2 million. Others were in-kind contributions. Last year, Century City Hospital donated the services of two full-time nurses for the district’s elementary schools.

The breadth of the foundation’s community support was evident in 1993 when educators were seeking to remodel five campuses with computer wiring, seismic bracing and other improvements. Voters approved a $77-million school bond, the first in many years. Supt. Sol Levine credits the foundation with keeping the school cause “upfront, center stage.”

Scores of communities throughout the state have followed the example of Beverly Hills, although usually on a far smaller scale and without celebrity benefactors.

The influx of private dollars into the public school system is a bit troubling, though, even to some leaders of successful foundations.

“If you just think about it, the one great thing about America is our public schools,” said Kimberly Rothwell, a parent in Corona del Mar, where a foundation formed in 1996 has raised $1.4 million to renovate a high school. “Now, having to raise so much money privately, it brings into question what’s happening to our public schools. It’s no longer public.”

That goes back to the issue of equity. Although the fiscal impact of foundations is arguably small, the gaps between foundation haves and have-nots are real.

Fewer Foundations in Poor Districts

More than three-fourths of school districts with an average household income of $70,000 or more have at least one school foundation, Brunner and Sonstelie reported. But the odds of a district having such private support drop sharply in less affluent areas. Fewer than one in three districts where income averaged less than $50,000 had a school foundation.

In Santa Ana, a city whose motto is “Education 1st,” parents and educators launched a foundation four years ago to benefit Orange County’s largest school system and one of its poorest.

The Santa Ana Education Foundation recently had about $20,000 in its treasury, a board member said. That’s 40 cents for each of the district’s 52,000 students.

“It’s limping along,” said the board member, Robert W. Balen, who is also a trustee of the Santa Ana Unified School District. “It’s hard to get these things set up in the first place and even harder to get ongoing donations.”

Santa Ana officials had hoped to replenish the treasury with a mariachi benefit last spring, but it was delayed after a cigarette company’s proposal to contribute raised a public outcry.

Schools in many poor or urban areas do get some extra help. Districts with high numbers of students from impoverished families often obtain significant state and federal government aid. Public schools in Los Angeles and elsewhere in recent years have received major grants from corporations and national philanthropies for education reform.

More worrisome than equity issues, public school advocates contend, is the widely held view that private money can make up the difference in school spending when the government falls short.

“I firmly believe that our policymakers are not going to take the need for education money seriously as long as we have people who are trying to fill the gap,” said MaryAnn Memmer, a vice president of the state PTA. “No matter how many fund-raisers we have at individual schools, it’s not going to bring our spending up to New Jersey or other states. It just won’t do it.”

Overcoming Skepticism

The Los Angeles Unified School District does not have a major foundation, officials say, although it has a few smaller ones dedicated to specific areas such as health clinics and libraries. Deputy Supt. Ron Prescott said the district is studying whether to start its own foundation “because we believe there are a lot of people in the community who want to help the schools but don’t know how.”

That was exactly Janine Schroth’s situation when she and three friends--all mothers with children not yet in school and weighing their educational options--approached the principal of Newport Elementary in March with a plan to start a school foundation.

At first, Bill Knight was skeptical. In 28 years as a principal, he had learned to live within the limits of public funding. Every time it rained, he knew water would seep through the ceiling straight onto his desk; there simply was no money to fix the roof. Other maintenance problems cropped up regularly--one of the downsides of working in a school built in 1912 on a site looking out at the pounding Pacific surf.

The four parents were aware of the challenges.

“Newport Elementary’s proximity to the ocean is a perfect metaphor for how close to greatness this school is,” they wrote in a draft brochure for the foundation. “We are steps from immersing our children in oceans of educational wonder, but those steps must be taken through the heavy sand of budget cuts and scarce resources.”

Eventually, the group won Knight over with their persistence and the dollars they were able to tap--at last count, $171,000 in cash and pledges. A church pastor gave $150. An out-of-state friend put up $5,000. An anonymous donor sprang for the largest cash gift so far: $35,000.

Other gifts of goods and services, parents say, total about $129,000. Someone gave an electric organ. A contractor offered to fix up the school grounds. Someone else is donating a dozen palm trees. A badly outdated library collection is being restocked.

How are the funds being raised? The founders cite persistence, organization, word of mouth, letter writing and help from experts. Among its two dozen members, the foundation’s board counts a professional fund-raiser, a banker and an advertising executive. One innovative campaign capitalizes on the school’s volunteer base, asking businesses to pledge money for every hour parents spend in the classroom.

“The local community is really very passionate about education. We haven’t had a business say no yet,” said Kay Ridgeway, a mother of three, interviewed with a group of foundation leaders in a school hallway adorned with Depression-era murals of Alice in Wonderland and Mother Goose nursery rhymes.

Knight said the foundation has created a “synergism” between educators and the community, “which is nothing but good. They’re doing things together. There’s not a better way to run a school than that kind of integration.”

The parents behind the foundation say it was born of frustration with a public school system stuck in quicksand. They make no apologies for their activism.

“We’re not here to criticize or point fingers,” Schroth said. “It seems like a given that a community would pull together to help its children. It seems so natural that I find it surprising that people would even question that. We’re just doing what we can.

“Otherwise, we’d continue to wait and wait.”

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What Makes a Foundation Successful

* Organization: Include formal bylaws, tax-exempt status, an active board of directors seeking seed money.

* Clarity of purpose: A mission statement with long-term goals.

* Relationships: Collaboration with other groups, steering clear of politics.

* Creative fund-raising: Events tailored to the community--a dinner dance might work where a walkathon would not.

Source: Michael Pinto, a Laguna Beach parent and school activist, in 1996 dissertation on foundations

Foundation Facts

The number of private education foundations soared in Southern California and statewide from 1980 to 1995, the most recent year for which information is available:

Statewide

1980: 46

1995: 537

Southern California*

1980: 9

1995: 119

* Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties Sources: Eric J. Brunner, San Diego State University; Jon Sonstelie, UC Santa Barbara; and Michael Pinto