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Newsroom
Poor schools raise money just to catch up By JOE RODRIGUEZ,
Mercury News IF ever there were an education event that had to be stopped before it became trendy, it's this one: In the tiny, hillside town of Los Gatos, parents don't take bad news lying down. When they heard state budget cuts could cost their local schools $800,000 and 13 teachers, they raised $1 million the traditional way -- they wrote personal checks. ``There was lots of cheering,'' said one of the elated school parents. ``There was tears and joy and kids hugging their teachers.'' Several $10,000 checks rolled in. The average donation was $700. Although some local businesses chipped in, parents raised two-thirds of the money -- in only 10 weeks. And last we heard, they were still counting checks in Los Gatos. The only response to this awesome display of fundraising power is, so what? Poor, urban, minority schools can raise that kind of money, too. Only different. Cross a couple of freeways from Los Gatos and you're in East San Jose, where lots of households are actually two or three households and almost every other garage has become a converted bedroom. Seventy-six percent of the children in the predominantly Latino and Asian Franklin-McKinley school district are so poor they qualify for free meals. But the good news is they are being fed and somebody is raising extra dollars on their behalf. That somebody is the non-profit Silicon Valley Education Foundation and local school boosters like Martin Renteria. They've actually raised a bit more than the Los Gatos parents -- about $1.2 million -- but the lion's share came from government and philanthropy, a few spaghetti dinners, and very little from personal checking accounts. Renteria felt no resentment when he heard how much money Los Gatos parents ponied up to save their schools. ``I was more disappointed,'' he said. ``We can't get that kind of money here. It just tells you how hard it is for the schools here to catch up.'' But if they could also raise a million bucks, what's to complain about? Plenty. When poor schools raise a million dollars, it's to catch up. When privileged schools raise a million dollars, it's to stay ahead. We'll never have equal education this way. Muhammed Chaudhry, director of The Silicon Valley Education Foundation, explained where the donations go in poor districts. ``The challenge is that kids are not paying attention,'' he said. ``All of the programs we fund are aimed at helping the child be ready to learn in the classroom.'' When Chaudhry asked what kind of programs the foundation should fund, the superintendent requested school visits by dentists and hygienists. Dental care? Yes, dental care, something poverty-wage jobs don't provide, something rich schools don't have to worry about. ``It's not that the kid is different or stupid,'' Chaudhry said, ``it's because he has a toothache!'' Throw in a school readiness program for infants to five-year-olds, before- and after-school sports, mental health counseling for troubled youths and other social programs, and $1 million goes awfully fast in a poor, inner-city school district with 10,000 children and discouraging test scores. ``Unfortunately,'' Chaudhry said, ``none of our money would be used to save teaching positions.'' And so when the state budget cuts fall, it will be harder if not impossible to avoid overcrowded classrooms, harder to pay for field trips to the museum, harder to buy art supplies and microscopes, harder to catch up to affluent schools that can fundraise themselves out of a mess. Forced by the courts three decades ago to equalize school spending, California has nearly done so, but the gap between poor, minority, urban schools and affluent, mostly white suburban schools remains huge. Still, there are those who continue to argue that education is equal, that minorities are receiving their fair share. If that were true, we would have written the check a long time ago. HOW TO HELP: For more information about The Silicon Valley Education Foundation, contact Mil Doan at (408)
283-6153 or go to www.SVEFoundation.org on the Web. |
