Who Helps Public Schools? Public Education Support Organizations in 2010

Leon, Erwin de; Roeger, Katie L.; Vita, Carol J. De; Boris, Elizabeth T.

doi:10.1037/e722222011-001

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Although American parents have provided supplemental funding to public schools, research has documented a dramatic increase since 1995 in the money flowing into schools through schoolsupporting not-for-profit organizations (Brunner and Imazeki 2004;Christensen et al 2016, De Leon et al 2010, Haar 2002, Murray et al n.d. Nelson and Gazley 2014. Parents are a crucial source of these funds, and they also supply necessary economic and human resources for the formation and operation of school-supporting organizations.…”

Section: Parent Fundraising In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for Parent Money in a Public School

Voyer¹

2019

Preprint

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Since the 1990s, parent funding of American public schools has increased. Past research offers three explanations of this phenomenon: 1. the economic explanation maintaining that parents contribute in order to supplement lagging public investments in education; 2. the opportunity hoarding explanation arguing parents contribute to secure educational advantages for their children; and 3. the civic engagement and social capital explanation that sees parent fundraising as an element of parents’ democratic participation in schools. This article considers the efficacy of these explanations in the case of parent fundraising in a Manhattan elementary school I call PSX. Applied to data collected through ethnographic research among PSX parents, the existing explanations provide an incomplete understanding of parent fundraising because they focus on the intentions and motivations of parents. A normative-institutional perspective provides additional explanatory leverage. Educational policy and normative expectations link parental fundraising and school quality. The money supplied by parents is an easy-to-read measure of a good school, and, by association, good parents. Parents give and give more because that is what they are asked to do.

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Section: Parent Fundraising In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for Parent Money in a Public School

Voyer¹

2019

Preprint

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Elite Integration Through Volunteerism: The Case of a New York City Parent-Teacher Association

Voyer

2023

Palgrave Studies in Third Sector Research

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In this chapter, I examine the case of elite integration through parental involvement in a paradigmatic civil society organisation, namely the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of a New York City Public Elementary School. On the one hand, PTAs are seen as a classic example of US civic engagement and community-building. On the other hand, research suggests that volunteerism can be a source of social inequality. These two different views demonstrate the issues associated with the integration of civil society elites via PTAs. Through the case of a New York City PTA and its parent volunteers, I show that elite integration through the PTA is enabled by the increased influence of the organisation resulting from policy decisions and economic realities that make PTAs central to school funding and status. These developments centralise the power and influence of parents from the economic and cultural elite and supplant the PTAs’ stated democratic civic goals.

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Who Helps Public Schools? Public Education Support Organizations in 2010

Abstract: of the Public Education Network (PEN) for their careful review and thoughtful comments on previous drafts of this report. Finally, we are extremely grateful to the many public education organizations that participated in the survey. The project was commissioned by PEN in Washington, D.C.

Cited by 2 publications

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Accounting for Parent Money in a Public School

Accounting for Parent Money in a Public School

Elite Integration Through Volunteerism: The Case of a New York City Parent-Teacher Association

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