<p>Yes, I am very familiar with Title IX, however, it’s a known commodity. If some kid came to my door selling something for XYZ School, I would expect the money to go to XYZ School, not ABC school across town. If I buy a football ticket to watch the local college team play, I know part of that supports other athletic programs, as does everyone else. When this kind of Robin Hood tactic is going on in public schools that are already supported by my property taxes, a school that my kids don’t attend, then we are asked, on top of what we already give for those schools our kids don’t attend to give part of the extra money we had to raise because some of our property taxes are NOT going to our schools, it would be a bit upset.</p>
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<p>This case in Florida is a prime example of Title IX gone wrong along the same lines as what we’re discussing here. In this case the baseball booster club raised money to upgrade their facilities. The softball team members’ parents sued the school rather than raise the money themselves to upgrade their own facilities…</p>
<p>[Gender</a> Equity - Title IX Cases Warn Administrators to Address Facilities Disparities](<a href=“http://athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=2065&zoneid=3]Gender”>http://athleticbusiness.com/articles/article.aspx?articleid=2065&zoneid=3)</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of Parent’s association savings paying for teachers. And the state of OH has already been found guilty in court of not conforming to equitable standards.</p>
<p>At our school we have an athletic booster club, not separate ones for any particular sport. If that was the case in your example, the softball parents had a point since the money would have come from an all-sports pool. Hard to tell from the article.</p>
<p>Even if a booster club raised money only for the boys, paying for those facilities meant the school didn’t have to.</p>
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<p>The school I went to has one booster club now, but it used to not. It used to have separate groups. This article I linked to was just the first one to come up; in the video I’ve seen about that particular case they were separate groups and the baseball parents were the ones who did the work…</p>
<p>My response to those softball parents would have been, under Title IX you have the exact same rights as the baseball boosters to raise the funds to upgrade your stadium in the same fashion…</p>
<p>We have separate booster clubs for each sport. The booster club for the hockey team brings in 10 times what the golf team does…but, we don’t have to pay for ice time, nor do we do a million fundraisers each year. We do one, and bring in enough money to do what we need to do.</p>
<p>There are always those who will only be happy if the better/wealthier school districts are drug down to the lowest level. Only then, will it be fair, and the only thing that really counts is fair. Not bringing the poor performers up to, or closer to the level of the high performers, but closing the gap even if it means pulling the top down.</p>
<p>The badly performing schools in the Seattle already get more money than the good ones, but that’s not enough. Maybe they can force the wealthier districts parents to volunteer at schools other than their children’s school, that would only be fair. Or parent those kids, that is the only way it could be fair. They are already financing them.</p>
<p>What really struck me was the stupidity of the comment by the president of Franklin High’s parent group, which garners about $3,000 per year. “A parent’s job is not just to make sure that his or her own child has every educational advantage. Parents should work to make sure that all students have a chance.” Gee, I think that might be what our large amounts of tax dollars might be going to. But a parent’s job is not to take care of their own child? Ya know, maybe if some of those kiddos in the poorly performing school districts were actually being taken care of by their own parents…volunteering, stressing the importance of education at home, making sure the kids are in a productive environment…those schools might not be poorly performing anymore!</p>
<p>NCLB is responsible for much of what busdriver11 is describing.</p>
<p>However, not everyone who is living in a wealthy school district minds helping out the less fortunate.</p>
<p>The wealthier district helping out the less needy is a common mindset where I live.</p>
<p>NCLB dragged our schools down BIG TIME.</p>
<p>There is an excellent post in the closed 1% Education Thread #82 all should read.</p>
<p>It is even worse than financial contribution inequity. In Montgomery County, Maryland some parents read to their own kids at night, but don’t read to everyone elses kids. There were even accusations that some parents in affluent Potomac, MD were taking their own kids into Washinton, D.C. to the Smithsonian museums on weekends, but thousands of other kids were forced to stay home and play video games . . . the horror.</p>
<p>Well, in our district PTSAs at each school do their own fundraising and generous parents from across the district give to the Schools Foundation. The Foundation, in turn, accepts teacher written grants for all those “extras” like classroom school supplies, science kits, jazz band clinicians, and the like. We have found that people in our area are pretty generous not only with money but with time.
I don’t read to other people’s kids at night, but H and I have put in untold hours coaching other people’s kids (rich and poor) on the soccer, football and baseball fields - for free or maybe a nice gift card at the end of the season. For a community to work, people pitch in where they are able. In fact, many sports league and even the local Catholic school have 2 fee scales, the one for those who volunteer and the one for those who would just rather write a check.</p>
<p>saintfan, I applaud your generosity of time and talent. But it sounds like you volunteered to coach at the locale of your choosing. I don’t think that your coaching in your locale was conditional on you also coaching somewhere else not of your choosing.</p>
<p>This discussion seems to be partially around the idea of what is local. To take the point above - our Little League addressed this issue a number of years ago. For some parents, local was one elementary. Kids and parents, quite naturally wanted to play with other kids from their school. However, it always left several really strong teams and one or two mongrel teams. When your league is 5-6 teams playing each other it’s less fun with that imbalance. One team would always clean up. The league left it completely school based at the youngest grades, but instituted evaluations and a draft at around 3rd grade to mix teams and coaches up from year to year. You are still coaching your own kid and are free to choose other kids from their school but in most cases, yes, you are “forced” to coach kids who don’t live next door to you. As it turns out, by the time they get to middle school and high school and a good chunk drop off and move on to other things its a good thing that there’s a solid base kids from all areas to make up teams. Our current HS quarter back, shortstop, basketball star is one of those “mongrel team” kids who we were always giving rides to and loaning socks and old baseball pants.
Since our kids have aged out of the league, parents are also now “forced” to umpire games where their kid isn’t playing. Each team has to contribute a certain number of umpire hours to the pool. In this case, the idea of what is local has been expanded beyond one neighborhood or elementary school catchment area. The whole league wins more city tournaments and sends more teams to district and state since the policies were changed. The local Catholic elementary within the league boundaries had been a sticking point because they wanted to stay together through all levels. It became almost an extortion point where they threatened to leave the league as a group if they weren’t allowed an exception. It was a tough decision, but the league board held their ground and most of the families stayed anyway.</p>
<p>"money alone can not solve education issues </p>
<p>That’s true. But you’re not going to solve them without money, either. Money does matter, a lot. "</p>
<p>-Yes, some money have to be removed from education, then maybe the focus will be on real issues, since money is not the one, way too much of it per each student already. Money do not end up where it should be used, it just make some people bolder and greedy for more, money definitely do not make them better.</p>
<p>"My response to those softball parents would have been, under Title IX you have the exact same rights as the baseball boosters to raise the funds to upgrade your stadium in the same fashion…</p>
<p>We have separate booster clubs for each sport. The booster club for the hockey team brings in 10 times what the golf team does…but, we don’t have to pay for ice time, nor do we do a million fundraisers each year. We do one, and bring in enough money to do what we need to do. "</p>
<p>-Very good example of the “real” issue in k-12 education today. That is where the money focus leads us. I suppose we send kids to school to become proffesional baseball players. Good luck to all of us.</p>
<p>to get back to the money issue…Some parent groups are more effective/ able to raise money. And all low income schools get extra money for being Title I or FARM schools. It would be interesting to see what the difference is in the amount of money a “wealthy” school brings in through parent groups above and beyond the budget, and how much a school of equal size that is majority Title I/ FARMs is given through those programs that is above the regular budget. </p>
<p>My guess, the schools that are really at a disadvantage (as far as $$ infusion) are the middle class schools and students.</p>
<p>I can see both sides of this–people who donate money want it to go to the local school. On the other hand, if that money is used for essentials, then it creates a huge disparity. The idea that a poor community can raise as much money as a rich one if they just try really hard is a fantasy, though.</p>
<p>Hunt, I agree that a parent group in a low income school has difficulty raising funds from their own parents. However, those same schools are the first ones that can get corporate money, computers, books and a myriad of other things that help financially. Think Gates Foundation, Dell programs, even Coke/Pepsi have programs for low income schools. </p>
<p>So even if the parent groups can not raise money directly through their own parent resources, there are resources out there that will infuse money/ equipment into the low income schools.</p>
<p>saintfan, your community’s approach to Little League makes sense for baseball and other activities where a kid cannot develop fully unless he/she is stretched by playing directly with worthy opponents. </p>
<p>But I would argue that the Little League analogy is not applicable to the classroom. My kid’s science performance may be enhanced by the introduction of TechGadgetX in the classroom provided by the parent’s fundraising. My kid’s science performance will not be enhanced by the introduction of TechGadgetX in the classroom of some other school.</p>
<p>“Your school will only have x if the PTA gets together and raises money to pay for it.”</p>
<p>I think it matters a lot whether “x” is professional lighting for the drama productions or a math teacher.</p>
<p>that is true too, hunt. I know that here, parent groups are not allowed to pay the salary of any school employee.</p>