PTA is mobilizing for $10 billion fundraiser: Our Children, Our Future
In towns and cities throughout California, something quite remarkable is happening. Parents and family members are organizing for the largest PTA fundraiser ever.
They are not selling gift wrap or candy or washing cars. They are organizing to support the Our Children, Our Future education initiative for the November ballot. This measure will raise $10 billion to $11 billion each year to restore education programs and services their children desperately need now. Critical funding would be provided on a per-student basis to every school site in the state. That’s every student, every school.
In the coming weeks, if your neighbor or friend or a parent from your local school comes up to you and asks “Will you sign our petition to support funding for our schools?” it is likely to be a PTA volunteer speaking up for children.
The stakes are high. According to State Superintendent of Schools Tom Torlakson: “The deep cuts made to school funding – and looming uncertainties about the future – are driving school districts to the brink of insolvency. Plain and simple, our schools need new revenues to get back on solid financial ground.”
During the past several weeks, the PTA has helped train parents to get beyond mad and get organized. From San Diego to Orange County to the Bay Area to Sacramento and many points in between, PTA volunteers now have petitions in hand and are seeking signatures to support the Our Children, Our Future education initiative.
Why? Because parents have been seeing something really scary happening in California.
Per-pupil funding in California is 47th in the nation, lagging behind the national average by $2,580 – more than at any time in the past 40 years. Our state ranks dead last in class sizes – 50th out of 50 states – with the largest class sizes in the nation.
An entire generation of children is being denied the education they need to succeed in the workforce and succeed in life. On behalf of all these children, California State PTA decided we couldn’t wait any longer for the political experts in Sacramento to come up with a plan that truly puts children first.
Instead, we decided to help write the plan – the Our Children, Our Future education initiative – to make sure California is serving its most important constituency: our children and youth.
Working with the nonprofit Advancement Project, the PTA is supporting this initiative because it will start to restore – right now – the programs and services that have been cut out of our local schools.
As I travel the state, I see parents and the public embracing this initiative. The more they learn about it, the more they like the approach because they’re tired of fighting just to prevent deeper budget cuts. They want to take positive action to raise additional funding that will transform their local schools.
The initiative proposes to generate this new funding through a progressive, sliding-scale income tax increase that asks the wealthiest citizens to contribute the most. But Our Children, Our Future is not merely a “tax initiative” in the way that other proposals are. It is a bolder effort to begin reversing years of chronic underfunding and to truly transform our public schools.
Parents want their children to have a complete education – not shorter instructional time and larger classes, not the elimination of the arts and librarians, not schools that fail to provide counselors and physical education.
The PTA plan is pretty simple and easy to understand:
- Raise $10 billion to $11 billion dollars each year and put it in a trust fund;
- Target money for early childhood education and educational programs and services for K-12 schools;
- Send the money to every local school on a per-pupil basis;
- Give parents and the school community input on how the money is spent;
- Provide a clear list of what the money can be used for;
- Give the voters a chance to see how it works, and let them decide if they would like it to continue after 12 years.
This approach is significantly different from any other ballot option.
It is the only initiative that targets money exclusively for early childhood education and K-12 schools. In each of the first four years, it also pays education bond debt-service costs for pre-kindergarten through university school facilities. (Payment of the bond debt-service costs starting in its first full fiscal year will provide the state General Fund savings of approximately $3 billion per year.)
If I were writing a movie script the plot might be:
“Can PTA moms and dads out-hustle professional organizers and politicians in a campaign about the future of their children?”
We are committed to making this a story of triumph because that’s what this is all about – our children and our future.
Carol Kocivar of San Francisco is president of the California State PTA. The California State PTA has nearly 1 million members volunteering on behalf of public schools, children, and families. The PTA also advocates at national, state, and local levels for education and family issues. For information: www.capta.org. You can find more information about the Our Children, Our Future initiative at www.ourchildrenourfuture2012.com
First, this article, like all the others, never lists what was removed from the schoolhouse agenda that was so important, why was it removed and how will it be inserted back in?
Legislation has authorized an exceeding amount of authority to educators to enter into the private family arena and direct many services, health clinics, mental health counseling, after-school social programs, nutrition programs, art classes, etc, etc, character-building programs, to these so-called at-risk identified students and families that it is more like welfare programs than they are educational programs.
Schools should not be allowed to be the center for the total management of each individual life such as managed care (Medical homes) it should not be managed and pre-planned education/training care. The whole-child concept is ruining education.
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The PTA co-written Our Children Our Future is the only initiative that funnels money directly to schools without passing through Sacramento. It is also the only one that mandates parent, teacher and community input re how the money should be spent. It also raises the most money for the longest period of time. PTA has been in the trenches lobbying for kids for free for 115 years. My vote goes with them.
http://www.ourchildrenourfuture2012.com/
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The text of this initiative is solid:
* Strict maintenance of effort: Existing levels of local, state and federal funding must be maintained before these funds can be tapped.
* Emphasis on student contact: 90% of an employee’s time must be spent at school, with students, if the position is to be paid for with these funds.
* Allowance for routine salary increases: Salaries for positions paid for with these funds may rise at the same rate as salaries for similar positions paid for with other funds. (A different initiative forbids use of the funds for any salary increases beyond 2012 levels — an unrealistic proposition, given that some teachers have not received cost-of-living increases in several years, that some certificated and classified employees have seen their salaries reduced through furlough days, and that paraprofessionals’ wages are barely above minimum wage.)
Two minor problems probably stem from the “folkloric” orientation of a group like the PTA:
* The initiative calls for community input on spending priorities, but defines “community” very narrowly. Non-parent voters and taxpayers are omitted, as are employers. (Thankfully, school boards still have final decision-making authority, and can consult with these constituencies in the ordinary course of business.)
* Projects mentioned include extending the school day and school year. More is not necessarily better.
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Our company is dedicated to helping with the budget cuts of recent years. We have a no-cost, Earth friendly fundraising program that not only raises much needed funds but also get the kids involved and raises environmental awareness. Please contact us today!
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I think as Californian we already pay more taxes than anywhere else, they should start managing our money better rather than hike taxes. If they take this money for education, we’ll see that in a few years they will redirect it toward something else and we will just end up paying more taxes for something we didn’t vote for.
I’m completely against this rate increase, I think the desire is valuable but the trust is misplaced. If we want more money for school we should have this done by county where we reside and this this be voted on, on a year to year basis and not as a new tax.
We are paying too much taxes already, where is our money going??
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@Francis: while it may feel like Californians pay a lot of tax, it is not true that we pay higher state and local taxes than anywhere else.
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/01/06/californias-tax-burden-somewhat-above-average/71814/
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To respond to the “whole child” approach criticism: one in two students in California is from a low income family ($40,793 for family of 4). Source: LAO 2011 Cal Facts report.
A child that is hungry, can’t learn. A child that is sick or has a toothache, can’t learn. You can have the best teachers, curriculum, and programs but they won’t reach a hungry or sick child.
When children drop out of school, they enter a direct pipeline to prisons. 1/2 of prison inmates are high school drop-outs. A prison inmate costs us around $50,000 a year compared to the approximately $7800 we spend per student. Plus all the other costs surrounding the crimes committed.
A child that is well nourished, and healthy, has a much better chance of graduating from our schools, and becoming a productive, income tax paying member of our communities, rather than a burden on our unemployment, welfare and prison systems.
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