Private Fund-Raising for Schools Runs Gamut

Forget the bake sale. In upscale La Canada Flintridge, the latest school fund-raiser was a ballroom affair packed with more than 600 donors hobnobbing in tuxedos and formal gowns.

The local congressman, Democrat Adam Schiff of Burbank, was there. So was Assemblywoman Carol Liu (D-La Canada Flintridge), the town’s former mayor. After dinner, dancing, three auctions and the raffle of a new car, the La Canada Flintridge Educational Foundation had about $200,000 for local public schools.

In neighboring Pasadena, a similar nonprofit group raised more than $1 million and helped win grants that generated $6 million more last year for Pasadena’s public schools. The money buys extras such as Saturday music lessons for middle-schoolers, playground equipment, computers, a literacy specialist, teacher training and parenting programs.

For all the success of such fund-raising machines, they also raise issues of fairness.

If “through these foundations, they’re able to generate so much money that there’s an appreciably better-funded core program for kids in one district over another, then clearly there is an equity issue,” said Peter Roos, a San Francisco-based attorney who has worked on many cases involving educational parity.

In some instances, the disparities are stark: The richest education foundation in Los Angeles County raises the equivalent of almost $400 per student districtwide, while other school districts take in nothing at all, according to a Times survey.

But backers see the foundations, which raise more than $55 million statewide annually, as effective tools for financing public education and attracting community involvement.

In Los Angeles County, small school districts in wealthy areas benefit most from such contributions, a Times study shows.

“It comes down to giving people some local control,” said Susan Sweeney, executive director of the California Consortium of Education Foundations, a nonprofit group that works to strengthen local foundations.

“For a lot of these education foundations, the amount of money they’re raising is not vast,” Sweeney said. “But it’s discretionary money. . . . That’s very powerful. That was one of the things taken away by Proposition 13: the sense of ownership by a community of their schools, their students.”

Many local school districts have no education foundations, not even fledgling ones.

In Inglewood, an urban district filled with low-income students, a foundation launched a few years ago has been largely inactive. The local PTA groups raised about $60,000 last year, and various booster clubs brought in a bit more selling fireworks, T-shirts and other small-ticket items. But $1 million?

“Nobody raises that kind of money in the Inglewood Unified School District,” said Barbara Jones, past president of the local PTA Council. “There’s no way we would ask a parent to give a check for a hundred dollars. . . . It would be a tremendous hardship.”

Thirty years ago--before a series of statewide overhauls aimed at equalizing the school finance system--there were only a handful of education foundations funneling private cash into public schools.

But in a pair of landmark rulings in the 1970s, the California Supreme Court held that unequal public spending on education was unconstitutional. Then came Proposition 13 in 1978, shifting much of the responsibility for funding schools from local taxes to the state.

The resulting statewide system doled out dollars more evenly, but led to reduced spending. Between 1970 and 1997, per-pupil spending in California fell more than 15% compared with other states, according to a recent study.

Last year, California ranked 36th in the nation for government spending per student in public schools, according to the National Education Assn., the nation’s largest teachers union. California spent about $5,531 per student, well below the $6,356 national average.

The revenue limits prompted many California parents to whip open their checkbooks and band together, often with school district leaders, to solicit donations. Today there are more than 400 education foundations statewide drumming up dollars for public schools.

Nationally, education foundations tend to flourish in suburban or rural areas “where people feel more in control of their local schools,” said Mike Griffith, of the nonpartisan Education Commission of the States, an education policy organization. “When you’re in a larger district . . . they may feel that their $100 donation isn’t going to make a difference.”

Parents are often quick to jump in--through foundations, PTA groups or other efforts--when funding is threatened for extracurricular programs such as sports teams or classes such as art, music or foreign languages, Griffith said.

California, however, seems to be ahead of the pack when it comes to districtwide education foundations.

The Times review of more than 20 education foundations in Los Angeles County reveals wide fund-raising disparities.

In well-heeled Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach, where relatively small districts serve between 5,000 and 6,000 students, each local foundation raised more than $800,000 for its public schools in 1998, the most recent year for which statewide data are available. But in Culver City--where district enrollment neared 6,000--the education foundation pulled in about $90,000, according to federal tax forms.

The extra cash breaks down to $153 per student in Beverly Hills and $145 in Manhattan Beach. In Culver City, by contrast, it amounts to just $15 per student.

Many of the most successful foundations operate in tiny school districts. All the local groups that raised more than $100 per student served districts with fewer than 6,000 children.

Significant differences also exist between districts in per-student government spending, despite state attempts to equalize funding. Some districts qualify for extra government money for low-income students or collect state funds to help desegregate schools. Other funding discrepancies reflect outdated tax rates.

In Los Angeles County in the 1998-99 school year, spending ranged from more than $6,650 per student in the Los Angeles Unified School District to $4,979 in the Downey Unified School District, according to the county Office of Education.

Many parents and educators praise education foundations for helping to close the gap.

“We don’t get the categorical moneys that larger districts receive” for low-income students, said Jack Rose, superintendent of the 3,100-student San Marino Unified School District. “We have to make it up on our own.”

To that end, the San Marino Schools Foundation hauled in nearly $1.2 million in 1998--the equivalent of $381 per pupil.

Among other things, the foundation bankrolls about 10 teacher salaries each year, enabling the highly regarded district to reduce class sizes.

“If we didn’t have that money, we’d have to lay off teachers,” Rose said.

It is difficult to tell just how much private money streams into public schools, because many districts attract dollars through PTA groups and booster clubs at individual schools that may not report their fund-raising to the district or state.

The gargantuan Los Angeles district taps corporate support through the nonprofit Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a variation on the foundations popular in smaller districts. The partnership raises millions annually to promote school reform and teacher development, and some individual schools also collect money through parent groups.

Fund-raising success varies widely among district campuses. Under a court consent decree, Los Angeles Unified has substantially reduced financial advantages once held by schools in rich areas.

It tries to limit spending differences between schools to no more than $200 per student. But a 1999 Times computer analysis of $6.8 million donated to city schools showed that many Westside and San Fernando Valley campuses were pulling in enough cash to essentially bust the formula.

La Canada’s foundation pays for three extra teachers, an array of music, drama and art specialists, and a professional mentoring program for high-schoolers.

“Without the educational foundation, we wouldn’t have any fine arts programs at all,” said Rachael Doudrick, a music specialist who teaches at La Canada elementary schools. “They’ve put the heart back into elementary school.”

The most successful foundations draw support from the entire community, not just dedicated moms and dads. Among the black-tie crowd at La Canada’s recent fund-raiser were executives from Browning-Ferris Industries, the garbage giant that runs the Sunshine Canyon Landfill near Granada Hills. The company contributed about $5,000 to the event, said Craig Bockman, president of the La Canada Flintridge Educational Foundation.

“They realize that if they want to be a visible part of the community, we like to see school support,” Bockman said.

Despite the tangible benefits that foundations provide, some experts downplay any fund-raising disparities among them, noting that even the most muscular foundations add only a small fraction to overall district budgets.

“It’s pretty small potatoes,” said Jon Sonstelie, a UC Santa Barbara economics professor. “Even at the upper end, [foundation giving] is less than 10% of total school revenue.”

Sweeney, head of the statewide consortium, cautions that financial comparisons among foundations don’t tell the whole story. Foundations also spur volunteer involvement and in-kind contributions that are harder to measure.

But her organization is nonetheless concerned about unequal foundation fund-raising.

“I thought this might be a way of helping low-income school districts,” said Ronald Vera, a consortium board member and attorney. “It hasn’t worked out that way.”

Low parental involvement and nonsupportive school leaders sometimes keep foundations from taking root, Vera said.

Some foundation leaders whose groups attract far less money than others say they do not begrudge their counterparts a single penny.

The Torrance Education Foundation, for example, raised less than one-seventh the money collected by the Pasadena foundation in 1998, though they serve similar-sized districts.

“‘If they can mobilize their parents, more power to them,” said Earl Plummer, president of the Torrance group. “I mean, you can’t depend on the state.”

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Uneven Funding

Education foundations raise cash to help pay for extras such as art instruction and computers in public school districts. A Times review of several foundations operating in Los Angeles County shows that their bounty is unevenly distributed, with smaller school districts in wealthy areas often benefiting most.

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Source:Internal Revenue Service and California Department of Education

Researched by SUE FOX / Los Angeles Times