On Saturday morning, I put together a folder of fliers and walked downtown. I joined the local education foundation last spring in a fit of civic spiritedness. Until this point, I had firmly avoided any dealings with the PTA and other parent organization groups. I was super busy and, as any good rational choicer knows, it is better to free ride, let others do the hard work, and reap the benefits of their labor. What the rational choicers don't realize is that, thanks to my mom, most of my actions are based on largely on guilt rather than rationality. So when my employment status changed, I started attending meetings.
Foundations are similar to PTAs, except they can raise more money from outside corporations and tend to be aimed at supplementing curricular needs.
It's been much more work than I could have expected. It's a new group and, as they plan their first big fund raiser, there's a big learning curve. It's also hard to find people who have the time to participate. A handful of people are putting in a tons of hours. But at the same time, this work is more important than ever. As school budgets are slashed, these groups have stepped in to cover basic expenses at schools.
On my Saturday morning rounds of the local businesses, I learned a lot of stuff. These local businesses are providing thousands of dollars to schools. They are hit up by the PTAs in the five schools in town, the regional Catholic schools, the band, the sports teams, the glee club. A few good guys keep giving, even though their own businesses are struggling.
The problem with raising money through volunteers and small businesses is that the cost of schools is concentrated in a few hands. With taxes, the whole community is hit up for cash. Now, we're hammering a small sector of the community to pay for schools.
PTA membership has dropped precipituously over the years. The biggest reason is that women have entered into the workforce. In the past, the PTAs provided a social outlet for moms and helped to foster social capital. Now, they are shouldering a bigger burden of financially propping up schools. Perhaps we need to reexamine the PTA in the communities. Perhaps someone can help me wrap up baskets of crap for Casino Night.
Apt. 11d 
My school has a dad as PTA president. They do most of the meetings at 8:00 a.m., so you can go right after you drop-off the kids (assuming you don’t need to be to work until 9:30 or so).
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I have also been more active in my school community lately. What I’ve discovered is that there’s a large amount of work that gets done in order to support what happens at the school (even in my affluent private school). When I was a free-rider (I was willing to be one, since I’m not particular swayed by guilt), I was really unaware of this work, and if you’d asked me, I would have said that much of it was there purely to provide a “social outlet” for moms.
Since getting more involved, I’ve realized how much things like organizing carpools for the sports teams, volunteering at lunch, coaching, etc. impact the environment at the school. More recently, we haven’t been able to find coaching volunteers for our little kids teams, and the school (which is still affluent) has hired young college graduates to coach. This is good, ’cause it makes the activity available. But, the environment is very different than when a member of the community takes on the responsibility and the effort. Volunteers help build the school community and paying for all the work of the school (what I would have said as the solution when I was a busy free rider — just pay the coaches and the get busses to transport people) just doesn’t work the same way.
I’ve noted the same for the girl scout troop I’m a leader of. I can do a lot of the work, but if others aren’t participating, their girls and they don’t get the same experiences. Just showing up to receive what’s been prepared isn’t the same as being a part of the community.
So, even though I’m not induced to by guilt, I’ve come around to thinking that free-riding is bad (just like it’s bad for a majority of people not to pay taxes at all).
(now, though I can think both those things, I don’t mean to try to induce guilt in people who have no money or no time and need to be free-riders in order to avoid not eating or sleeping).
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“The problem with raising money through volunteers and small businesses is that the cost of schools is concentrated in a few hands. With taxes, the whole community is hit up for cash. Now, we’re hammering a small sector of the community to pay for schools.”
Yes, I’m really concerned by this. “No tax increases” usually translates into “I take/took care of my own kids; I don’t care about other kids.” People will give give give to their churches, but not to the people in their towns.
Actually, re that church thing: I was raised an atheist and never was a church member. One of my sisters married someone to whom some church rituals are important (Catholic, fwiw), so they had their kids baptized at a church. Well, they got kicked out of the church because they haven’t donated any money to it. It amazes me that people accept this from churches, but not from their governments. If you want the church to run, you donate time and money. If you want your town to run, you pay taxes and volunteer.
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Well, they got kicked out of the church because they haven’t donated any money to it.
What? Please ask you sister or brother-in-law to report that parish to the bishop.
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People will give give give to their churches, but not to the people in their towns.
If my church were run as poorly as my town, I’d be giving the money to other charities.
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“Well, they got kicked out of the church because they haven’t donated any money to it.”
That’s not quite how things are supposed to work, so they should report it to the bishop. The only time when I’ve heard that it’s important to establish a record of giving is when you’re trying to get your child into a parochial school at in-parish tuition rates. Then it’s very important to have been using envelopes for offerings and be on the books as a parishioner in good standing. Otherwise, it really doesn’t matter. There can also be issues with whether one falls into the geographical parish or not (although there are also lots of personal parishes based on ethnicity, etc.). In general, Catholics come and go between parishes pretty freely and usually no one will even notice that you’re there.
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I think a lot of PTAs act like your foundation, too. Ours has just as many dads as moms who are involved, and we get very active in statewide school finance reform issues. We work closely with the superintendent and school board to push our own education issues (small class sizes, more ELL support for non-English speakers, etc.) We just started a program to bring local produce from the neighborhood farmers market to our school for daily snacks, funded through state and federal grants.
…and no Casino night in sight…
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I just volunteered to serve as secretary of our local Special Ed PTA Chapter. Our “real” PTA scares me. Huge and powerful and money-generating.
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