School
Districts of the Rich and Famous
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Tammy
Hauser of the Orono Alliance for Education has helped raise $180,000 for
four teachers
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Image by RAOUL BENAVIDES
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With money tight, west metro schools
are accruing wealthy endowments and paying for teachers
by Brett Stursa
Last year Lorie Line headlined a show with her pop chamber
orchestra that included a family-style dinner for 1,000 people. It was a
typical affair for Line, a local new-agey jazz
pianist, but with a twist. The event was held whose daughter attends school
in the district, had raised $82,000. The concert set the tone for the
alliance's work, and fundraising for public schools suddenly took on a new
level of sophistication. Soon enough, other districts would be following
suit.
Started four years ago by parents who wanted to give their children
opportunities on a par with their private-school peers,
Orono's foundation has morphed into one of the most successful school funds
in Minnesota.
This summer, the group's grant giving hit the million-dollar mark. Just as
notably, the money isn't being used to build a swimming pool or a hockey
rink. The alliance has ventured into uncharted territory by directing
donations toward teachers' salaries.
The Orono group started a year before the tax reform that some public
education proponents argue is at the root of the current school-funding
crisis. In the old days, schools were funded largely by local property taxes.
Now, since 2001, the vast majority of public money for schools comes from the
state--a maneuver that was supposed to equalize resources between poor and
wealthy districts. Since the reform, however, the state has cut public school
funding and limited how much localities could raise taxes to make up the
difference. In the last couple of years, many districts have been forced to
slash millions of dollars from already tight budgets.
Parents in the suburbs, particularly the western suburbs of Minneapolis, have the
means to do something about it. What started as funding mechanisms for
supplemental programming have turned into well-oiled foundations with
nonprofit 501c3 status, executive directors, and endowments.
While wealthy parents are doing what is needed to maintain quality education
for their children, the changing role of foundations in Minnesota questions a longstanding
tradition that public education should be funded by public dollars--and
raises the specter of privatization. And there are concerns about equity. Not
every district can lean on Lorie Line for a favor.
Orono's executive director Tammy Hauser has no qualms about the work of
the foundation and the funding of operating expenses. "It might be
radical for Minnesota,
but in the broader picture, it really is not," says Hauser. She cites
work in California,
where the state's tax reform hit schools hard in the early 1980s, leading foundations to start funding teachers' salaries
several years ago.
But even Hauser admits that the foundation's unexpected funding to hire
four teachers could cause heads to turn. This summer, after parents learned
class sizes were larger than expected, a group of them approached school
administration seeking approval to pay out-of-pocket for additional teachers.
With the go-ahead from the school board, a few from the foundation began
calling parents of children who would be affected by larger class sizes. With
$45,000 needed to hire one teacher, the group raised $180,000 in two
weeks--enough to add four elementary teachers.
Hauser says it is only because the district's new superintendent, Karen
Orcutt, gave her support that the group could direct funds to add specific
teachers. Not all superintendents and school boards are buying into the idea
of using private donations for what used to be paid for by public dollars.
In Delano,
a district just west of Orono with 1,800 students on the cusp of the rural/urban
divide, Superintendent Howard Carlson supports the efforts of parents to
start a foundation of their own. But he hopes it will never need to raise
money for teachers' salaries. The leader of the Delano Area Educational
Foundation, Sarah Gallagher, says she doesn't think the foundation could
raise enough to support teachers' salaries, but she thinks foundations have
become a school necessity. "It's just kind of where we all have to
go," says Gallagher.
Anecdotal evidence shows Gallagher is right. Orono's Hauser also runs a
consortium of public school foundations in Minnesota. Four years ago, there were 10
foundation representatives on the list; now there are 54, representing
schools from Edina to Rochester.
David Else, the director of the National Center
for Public and Private School Foundations, estimates that there are over
5,000 foundations nationally, and he says most of them are staying out of the
business of buying teachers partly because it comes with too many risks.
"It becomes pretty easy for a state to give up their
responsibility," says Else. "It turns into an issue of public
policy."
Parents in Hopkins,
another district in the western suburbs, started the Hopkins Education
Foundation in 1995 and have since granted over $650,000 for things such as
software to publish the yearbook and Palm Pilots for students with specific
learning disabilities. Even without as much wealth as its neighbors in Orono,
Minnetonka,
and Wayzata, the foundation's fundraising is done in style. The annual Hopkins event, the
Royal Gala, recently moved to International
Market Square to accommodate a larger crowd.
KARE 11's Roxane Battle, a Hopkins parent, was on hand.
Last year, Hopkins
started the STAR Fund, a onetime campaign to save teachers. Led by Kris
Newcomer and Julie Woolfrey, they held small
get-togethers educating parents about the district's funding, the state's
role in it, and the anticipated cuts. Newcomer, a parent of children in the
district, says the parents weren't surprised to be asked for donations to pay
for teachers' salaries. "They were saddened it had to come to
this," says Newcomer.
The campaign brought $200,000 to the district, with almost $10,000 coming
from teachers themselves. Newcomer admits that raising money for teachers' salaries
could potentially allow the state to further abdicate its role of funding
public education. But she says there is little left to do for parents who
want to have the assurance of quality public education.
In Minneapolis,
the schools' foundation takes a slightly different role. Achieve!Minneapolis
brought in and managed $10 million in the last three years. For a district
with some 39,000 students, the per-student amount does not equal that of its
suburban counterparts. Instead of relying primarily on parent
donations, like the suburban foundations, Achieve!Minneapolis
seeks corporate help.
For Catherine Jordan, the foundation's CEO and president, it's important
that the donations stay away from supplementing core activities.
"Philosophically, it is important for tax money to fund operations.
There is no way to replace it," says Jordan. "There's been $100
million in cuts the last three years. I can't raise that."
The parents in Orono haven't yet raised the millions in cuts from their
district, either. But, as foundations funnel more money into districts,
public schools are drifting toward privatization. While the inequities
between urban and suburban schools are already great, Jordan
believes that foundations in some suburban districts are better able to cover
the cuts, while other schools are left with only a dwindling supply of state
tax dollars.
"There is no way to win on this with individuals paying for basic
services," says Jordan.
"State funds should be used. That's what we agreed to. It should not be
based on the address or zip code you live in."
