In what I suspect will be her last article on the Newton Beat, the Globe’s Evan Allen reports on the “wide disparities in fund-raising abilities between schools, and major gaps in technology spending between elementary schools.”
The top fund-raiser was the PTO at Cabot Elementary School, which has 419 students enrolled this year; the group reported spending $167,077 on technology during those three school years. During the same period, the PTO at Countryside Elementary School, which serves 457 students, reported spending nothing on technology.
I would like to add that it isn’t the Newton Taxpayers Association that is bottling up the naming rights proposal. According to the Newton Schools Foundation, that would have yielded $2.1 Million annually to fund digital education. Naming rights was probably the one thing I agreed on with former SC Chair Claire Sokoloff.
http://newton.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/making-hard-choices-on-technology-spending-is-making-hard-choices-on-all-spending
Unfortunately Lisle Baker and his former Ward 7 aldermanic Brooke Lipsitt and Verne Vance came out against it in 2012 and it has been bottled up ever since.
If naming rights had gone through, we’d have the money to fund technology for everyone.
Of course the Taxpayers Association didn’t “bottle up this proposal,” the Newton Taxpayers Association is entirely ineffectual.
@Joshua – if naming rights had gone through there would have been a plan that may have had the potential to raise enough money to fund technology. It was by no means a sure thing that naming rights would have raised that kind of money …. but possible, yes.
BTW Countryside’s PTO did raise $70,000 last year for technology.
Greg, I disagree. With the exception of one race, the NTA played an important part in helping reformers get elected to aldermen and legislative seats this year by beating candidates backed by Newton’s Political Insider Group.
In addition, there is no group in Newton that knows more about Newton’s structural spending problem and wobbly financial condition than us. I insists upon REAL facts, REAL outcomes, and REAL debate regarding Newton civic issues and Newton’s elected officials and activists. I ask my group to rally around defined facts that have logical conclusions and which show up in numbers when we need to advance reform, and I think it is rubbing off on everyone.
Furthermore, we have begun making Newton taxpayers aware of Newton’s BILLION DOLLAR BORROWING BINGE, which is the product of fiscal incompetence on the part of David Cohen and Setti Warren.
You wrote that article lamenting where the next generation of Newton’s leaders were last year, yet when you ran the TAB, the TAB played a major role in besmirching the 2003 NTA challengers slate.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/opinion/x1125505161
Well then you must just be smarter than I am! Have a great night.
I think I’m more concerned that PTO fundraising might be causing inequities between communities than I am within Newton. Isn’t there any mechanism to prevent a wealthy town from supplying a classroom with more funds than the likes of Lawrence, Springfield and New Bedford? If not, this needs to be fixed at a state level, not just here.
Joshua – It’s good that you’re reminding us what happened in 2003. Keeps us on our toes.
I’m pleased to hear that Countryside raised $70K last year for technology. Traditionally it’s been a difficult community for fundraising.
This article addressed an ongoing issue in the schools. Many of us remember when the School Committee turned down Mike Striar’s $50K donation to Mason Rice to pay for the salary of a teacher who was going to be laid off. Equity was cited as the reason: It wasn’t fair because not all schools had parents who could afford to pay for teachers in order to reduce class size.
It seems to me that if parents can help fund technology purchases at their child’s school, all the power to them. It doesn’t just help that school, it reduces the load for the rest of the schools. I’ve never bought the equity argument. We shouldn’t hold back one school because “it’s not fair.” We should do everything we can to help each school take advantage of its opportunities to thrive. The administration’s job is to fill in the gaps.
Shouldn’t it be the administration’s job to provide funds for core educational needs (like technology), and the parents’ job to fill in the gaps?
You’re right, Tricia. On a big picture level it should be the administration’s job to provide funds for core educational needs. But I’m talking about instances when parents offer to help, leaving equity gaps between schools.
All,
Anytime people lament the state of technology fund and digital education in Newton Public Schools, I can’t but help to be reminded that Newton turned down $2.1 Million/year from the naming rights proposal.
I can sum up the whole digital education question right here in this blogpost:
This is where Newton Public Schools is: Newton Public Schools has a woefully underfunded digital education program with funding inequalities across the different school districts
This is where we want Newton Public Schools to be: Newton Public Schools boasting a cutting edge digital education program for its students:
This is how we get the Newton Public Schools there: Promoting progressive fiscal reforms such as naming rights, increased reimbursement for out-of-district students, implementing the SPED review and other applicable revenue/expense management reforms.
Where the city constantly drops the ball in raising revenue is fundraising. I’m not talking about fundraising by PTO’s but by the NSF. Had I been elected, I could have helped the city out in so many ways in this area, but we are who we are. There are people dying to pay more, all we need to do is tap into it.
@Hoss, there is a funding formula for school districts – Chapter 70. It ensures that state funding to communities like Holyoke and Lawrence is higher than in communities like Hingham and Longmeadow. However, it only establishes a floor, called foundation funding. Local communities usually fund above foundation, except in poor communities where it is hard to accomplish that.
Margaret Albright — If you’re saying outside funding like PTO contributions are part of the formula, that is good to hear Thank you
@Hoss, the amount of money the district can afford to put toward its schools (what the city/town budgets for education based on tax revenues) is part of the formula. Outside money like competitive grants and individual contributions are not part of the formula calculations.
And the money we get from the state is computed for the entire school district not for individual schools. There is quite a bit of information about how state aid is computed on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s website – http://www.doe.mass.edu/finance/chapter70/