Transfer Equity, Pt. 1
A few months ago, I got an email from my daughter’s school about an Equity Summit being sponsored by the district’s education foundation, the non-profit fundraising arm of the school district. As someone interested in educational equity and as a former member of the district’s equity committee, I decided to attend. As I learned at the summit, the foundation had made the decision a few years ago to shift its financial resources from all the schools in the district to the three schools with the highest proportion of low-income students. This decision was made in part because these three schools do not have PTAs, and therefore, do not have local fundraising capacities. While the presentation did not delve into the foundation’s operating budget, I did later find out that their fundraising goal is $200,000 per school, per year, and their financial resources are used in the following ways: 56% goes to mental health support; 25% goes to reading support; 11% goes to math support; 3% goes to essential needs; and 5% goes to enrichment.
The decision by the foundation to shift their finances to these three schools is the epitome of educational equity. I am not a board member, so I am not sure what their discussions looked like, but I am sure it had a great deal to do with the schools’ lack of PTAs, organizations that take a great deal of parents’ time and resources to manage, and I assume that the schools’ families do not have the luxuries of time and resources (if a large proportion of the students are low-income, it is safe to say that their families are working hard providing basic needs). But as I listened to the presenters, I couldn’t help feeling troubled - mental health and math and reading support should be covered by the district, not the foundation. I was also troubled that only 5% of the funds went to “enrichment,” which is code for music, art, drama, and athletics.
To demonstrate how an equitable policy by the foundation still promotes educational inequities, I want to compare the work of the foundation to the work of the PTA at my daughter’s school, which is located in a fairly wealthy part of the same town (as compared to the three lower-income schools). First and foremost, the annual budget for my daughter’s PTA is $617,129, three times as much as each of the lower-income schools. Here are some of the highlights from their budget:
$25,000 goes to hospitality, recognition, and community, which includes things like family events/dances and spirit items
$50,000 goes to an elementary school PE teacher
$35,000 is used for grants and field trip transportation
$72,000 is used on a STEAM teacher
$8,000 is use for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
$45,000 is used for the middle school language program
Other expenses include an art program ($34,800), equipment and technology ($30,229), library needs ($32,600), a campus garden program ($31,000), music ($18,000), a school drama program ($25,000), and a program called Science from Scientists ($20,000). Less than 20% of my daughter’s PTA allocations are used in mental health, social and emotional learning, and math and reading support, initiatives that utilize 95% of the foundation’s allocations to the three lower-income schools. Furthermore, at my daughter’s schools, 80% of the PTA budget goes to enrichment programs, like art, music, gardening, and drama (which the foundation only allocates 5%, or $10,000, to).
Let me be clear on one thing, this is not a critique of my daughter’s PTA; they are using the funds as they are needed at my daughter’s school. Instead, this is a critique on how the district and even the state of California has underfunded education, especially K-12 education, and how California taxpayers have left our state’s children out to dry, a la Proposition 13 (see note below).
I’d like to quickly focus on the “enrichment gap” and the focus of the blog post. The foundation’s decision to shift their financial resources to the three lowest-income schools in the district was the right thing to do. This is the definition of educational equity. And in the pursuit of educational equity, they, along with the three schools, decided to spend the money primarily on mental health, reading, and math, which is what the schools decided they needed it for. This is also equity, as it provides resources for the students to excel in math and reading and to take care of their mental health. These resources are likely meant to help the students enter middle school and high school on equal footing with students in wealthier schools.
However, the enrichment gap exists, creating educational inequities between the students at my daughter’s school and the students at the three lower-income schools. Let’s fast forward and imagine these students entering their freshmen year in high school. All the students will hopefully be equally talented in math and reading, but my daughter and her classmates will enter high school with solid foundations in science and technology, and they will have entered high school with opportunities in music, art, and drama. On the other hand, the students from the three lower-income schools will have not had these same enrichment opportunities and experiences. What impact does this have on their success in high school? Yes, they may (hopefully) have the same opportunities to participate in the arts and STEM in high school, but will they get frustrated as they pick up an instrument for the first time, perhaps struggling as their wealthier classmates excel? Will they struggle to learn coding because it wasn’t taught in tandem with their math and science lessons in elementary school? Does starting these enrichment activities years later than my daughter and her classmates impact their opportunities for higher education? In other words, how many of them can master a piano or a computer program in four years in a way that would open doors to elite colleges and universities? Of course, any of them could, but the point is that they will have so many more barriers to doing so.
This is an educational inequity that has the potential for sustaining racialized socio-economic hierarchies (my daughter’s school is located in a neighborhood that is 76% white, 9% Asian American, 6% Latinx, and 1% Black while the neighborhood where the three schools are located is 71% Latinx, 17.9% white, 7.4% Asian American, and 2.4% Black). True equity would include not only funding for mental health, math, and reading, but also for enrichment that is on par with my daughter’s school. This is what I call “Transfer Equity.” Transfer Equity, which is a form of educational wealth building, is about giving students not only the basic skills help they need in the moment (like math and reading support), but also giving them the opportunities and experiences they will need for future academic success. Math and reading are important fundamental skills, but they are not the only skills students need. They also need enrichment opportunities that will help them to become more well-rounded people and to enter high school on a truly equal footing with my daughter and her classmates. Basic Needs + Enrichment = Transfer Equity. In my next blog post, I will discuss how Transfer Equity applies to community colleges.
P.S. Sorry for the long post :)
Note: Proposition 13 was passed by California voters in 1978, and the law essentially freezes the property taxes that homeowners must pay while living in their home. Property taxes are determined by a home’s value, and Prop. 13 dictates a maximum 1% property tax rate and prohibits cities/county’s from increasing the assessment of a home over 2% annually. In other words, if I buy a house for $1M, my annual property taxes would be $10,000, and if the city/county raised the assessment on my house by 2%, my home would be valued at $1,020,000, and my new property tax bill would be $10,200. Proposition 13 has kept property tax revenues artificially low and prevented cities and counties from keeping pace with inflation, which has averaged around 3.8% in the last 60 years. Unsurprisingly, this has wreaked havoc on school districts’ budgets and led to cuts in arts, music, drama, and other enrichment activities and extracurriculars. As a result, PTAs were forced to fill in the gaps through fundraising activities and direct donations, but the amount of money that a PTA raises has a direct correlation with the wealth and connections of the school’s parents. This is why my daughter’s PTA has $617k per year while the lower-income schools have to rely on the foundation to provide $200k per year. The neighborhood where my daughter’s school is located has a median home value of $3.4M (73% owner-occupied) and the residents have median incomes of $203k. Meanwhile, the median home values near the lower-income schools are $1.2M (50% owner occupied) and the residents’ median household income is $108k (with a per capita income of $41,752). This is the great con that is Prop. 13.