The way we're funding schools is too high a price to pay

IN PHILADELPHIA, watching our schools scrounge for money is a yearly event. Our schools are without full-time nurses and counselors, without librarians, without extracurricular activities; some are so overcrowded they don't have enough desks. When the city is tapped out, and Harrisburg shrugs, Philadelphians are forced to explore other paths. Those paths, however, can be fraught with unexpected consequences.

Some parents have found unique ways to keep their neighborhood schools operating beyond life support. A coalition of Mount Airy/Chestnut Hill parents have lobbied local businesses to use the Educational Improvement Tax Credit in order to supplement core subjects, including science, at six local schools. Parents at two Center City schools have acceded to principals' written requests that they send a dedicated monthly payment. One of those schools has already raised more than $175,000, which will pay for a full-time teacher and four classroom aides. Anonymous donors have paid for full-time librarians at two of the district's special-admission schools.

Parents who are working to keep their children's schools and their own neighborhoods viable are to be lauded. But parents should not feel compelled to raise money for teachers and staff, or to bolster basic subjects. And while parents in middle-class neighborhoods are able to lobby businesses and write grants, most are not. All parents want the best for their children, but the stark reality is that many are struggling to survive. They have no disposable income for monthly de facto tuition payments. District leadership must guard against sliding into a two-tiered system, where the quality of students' education depends upon the ability of their parents to raise or spend money.

Unfortunately, while some parents are raising money and volunteering in schools across the city, all of them have been shut out of the boardrooms of private organizations that funnel millions each year from private donors to schools of their own choosing. Since July 2013, the School Reform Commission has accepted more than $4.5 million in grants for programs developed by the William Penn Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Philadelphia School Partnership. All three have denied requests from the community that they be admitted to their board meetings. PSP, for example, is pushing for adoption of a Universal Enrollment system, developed in private meetings, which will fundamentally change the way in which parents register their children in every school in the city, including charter and parochial schools.

Why look a gift horse in the mouth? Because members of these private organizations are neither elected by, nor accountable to, those affected most by their decisions. Money should be given to further the best interests of the students, not to buy a seat at the table.

We must be vigilant about the price we pay when we take whatever is given to us with no questions asked. We must guard against the normalization of city schools as charities and remember that schools are public institutions that deserve public support. We must continue to demand that Harrisburg pass a fair and permanent funding formula. Only then will we have an equitable system for all of our students.