Parents raise massive amounts of money at some public schools. Should they share it?
“In contrast to this wealth of funding and involvement, the PTOs of some public schools in Washington have annual budgets that don’t exceed $100 — and some schools lack enough parent volunteers to even form an organization to raise money. These vast discrepancies in PTO fortunes, which are reflected nationwide, have drawn the attention of the Center for American Progress, a liberal D.C.-based think tank. In 2017, it released a report about parental contributions to school finances that noted that PTO revenue had reached more than $425 million in 2010 but was concentrated in affluent schools. This resulted in ‘considerable advantages for a small portion of already advantaged students,’ the report said.”