Let the PTA decide how to use these funds

The Jan. 29 front-page article, “As parents raise cash, schools confront big gap” doesn’t tell the whole story until deep in the article when we are advised that the schools in wealthy areas, “rarely come close to offsetting the differences in the district’s weighted formula benefiting poor schools.”

So even with rich neighborhoods raising more money for their schools they are still underfunded compared with schools in poorer neighborhoods. The obvious solution to the equity issue is to block grant the schools in the poorer neighborhoods with no government strings attached.

Let the principals, teachers, staff and the PTAs determine how to best use these funds.

— Bob Dorse, Seattle

We need to make sure that all students have a basic education

Reading Brian Rosenthal’s column regarding local PTA’s having to raise funds to support their kids education really makes my blood boil. These wonderful parents are attempting to fill in the gap caused by inadequate funding by the Legislature.

We should encourage these parents to continue their efforts and to also encourage them to lobby the Legislature to increase funding for basic education so that all students can have a good education.

— Neal Porter, Seattle

Public education is left to parents

Seattle School Board Member Betty Patu, concerned about inequities in PTA fundraising, asks, “What message are you giving to your kids?”

The message is this: When your government and school board are negligent and ineffectual, when budgets have been slashed and education devalued, you don’t waste your child’s precious education years hand-wringing and feeling victimized.

You mobilize your talents and resources to tackle the problems presented. Individual citizens working tirelessly to effect change: the ultimate civics lesson. That is something successful PTAs do, solve problems created by our incompetent elected officials.

The district and school board should facilitate mentoring programs between successful and struggling PTAs, empowering parents and students to effect change for themselves, schools and communities, not crush successful stopgap measures that are keeping schools afloat and then offering no alternatives. PTAs should exchange strategies and share tools of survival.

Public schools should not have to fundraise in order to provide a decent education for students, but that is the current reality and few parents are willing to martyr their children’s education for an elusive ideal.

The sad truth: Public education is now do-it-yourself.

— Tonya Clegg, Seattle

We need more taxes to have a better education

The article on PTA funding in Sunday’s paper addresses an important problem but misunderstands its causes. The only equitable way to support education is through taxation. But the people of Washington have voted to limit or cut taxes rather than supporting public education in the midst of the recession.

The state has decided that anything beyond the bare minimum in schools is a private and not a public responsibility. Parents should not then be criticized for raising money to support arts education or counseling services for the schools attended by their children.

Seattle already has a high percentage of students in private schools. If affluent parents are not allowed to supplement the offerings at local schools, then many will simply move their children into the private system and the public schools will be further weakened.

The obvious solution is increased public investment in all schools.

— Michael Rosenthal and Janelle Taylor, Seattle