In 2006, the State Supreme Court ruled that New York State was allocating about $2 billion less to New York City schools than was needed to provide the “sound basic education” required by the state’s Constitution. Despite an increase in funding since then, the settlement, in a case brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, has never been fully funded. City officials and education experts say the state now owes the city more than $1.1 billion in this fiscal year alone.
The city allocated an additional $125 million to those high-poverty schools annually, beginning this year, but hundreds of the schools remain underfunded. At the same time, many city schools with wealthier students receive more than their share under the Fair Student Funding formula the city adopted in the 2007-8 school year, while nearly 300 high-poverty schools had shortfalls of more than $500,000 each, according to the budget office.
The mayor and the governor, the City Council and the Legislature could address these inequities if they had the courage to do so. But P.T.A. funding also provides an opportunity to do so in a smaller way.
One idea is to take a portion of P.T.A. funding above a certain amount from each New York City school and direct it toward a common, citywide fund that helps high-need schools. Though that might sound radical, it’s already in action elsewhere.
In Portland, Ore., one-third of funds above $10,000 raised by parents in a P.T.A.-like system are distributed to high-need schools through a fair-funding formula. Over $1.2 million was distributed in the last school year, according to Jonathan García, the president of the Fund for Portland Public Schools, a nonprofit organization that now oversees the program.
“People are bought in,” Mr. García said. “Nobody bats an eye.”
Things unfolded differently in California in recent years, where the sharing of P.T.A. funds between Malibu and more economically diverse Santa Monica helped fuel a kind of secession movement among Malibu parents.
David Bloomfield, a professor of education law at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, said that in New York, a city with vast wealth but also grinding poverty, P.T.A.s could make a difference. “There should be a wealth tax,” he said of such a plan.
