I was under the impression that individual schools couldn't fundraise for things such as teachers' salaries, otherwise the "rich" schools would be able to offer more art/music/etc than the "poor" schools. I thought all such fundraising had to go into a district-wide pool to be shared among all the schools.

Foundations are allowed to fund teacher salaries if they kick-back 33% of funds raised to the Portland Schools Foundation which distributes that 33% as 'Equity Grants' to low income schools.

It depends on the district. For example, in Lake Oswego all funds by their foundation go into a single fund. The moneys are then distributed the the School Board and distributed based on the MOU in place between the Foundation and the District. http://www.losdfoundation.org/about/faq.htm

In PPS individual schools can and do fund raise. Almost all PPS schools' foundations are creatures of the Portland Public Schools Foundation. Since 1998 PPSF, currently branded as "All Hands Raised", sucks away 1/3 of all moneys raised by a those schools, after the first $10,000, to be redistributed to other schools through their Equity Fund grants based upon the PPSF's criteria.
https://www.thinkschools.org/local-school-foundations/faq/

Individual school foundations have no direct control over the use of the funds they raise, nor do they have any say in the distribution or use of the "Equity Fund" grants. Foundation monies are entirely controlled by the school principals and may be used as they see fit.

I thought Lincoln was finished anyways. Didn't CoP decide the real estate would be better utilized as condos for their developer cronies?

Drive by the crumbling Jefferson High some time then tell me that the teachers unions need more money.

Which is where your new property taxes will also go.

The schools have all the money they need. What they need is someone who knows how to manage it.

If they raise the money do they get to pick the teachers?

I mean that's how politics works...

It's not that we're not spending enough on public education. Since 1970, the number of public school employees has doubled, while the number of public school students has increased by less than 10%.

It's scary when an upscale public high school like Lincoln has to hit the fundraising trail. This last Sunday their band conducted a mattress sale at Lincoln. Maybe we'll start seeing what we see on the highways: clubs and rich philanthropists "adopting" a portion, or all, of a public school. Except they'd probably insist on naming rights. Dig it: Jeld-Wen High School Windowhangers!

Baloney.

http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2011/11/portland_public_schools_out_of.html

Bill Holmer, did you look for info on how many teachers then and now? I'm betting the increase is in administration, and re: Leaving now, NOT in maintenance and upkeep.

Whether it is teachers, administrators, or groundkeepers, the fact is the money is being misspent.

Here is one source for the stat describing the imbalance of teachers and students over the past 40 years.

Come on, Jack. "It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need...."

When do you figure THAT will ever be?

I submit they will NEVER have what they want. But that's different from what they NEED.

In June, The "O" tried to take on Don McIntire on this subject before they agreed PPS spend AT LEAST $ 14,000 per year/per student (maybe $ 15k counting ESD expenses). So the famous "overcrowded 30 student classroom" costs the taxpayers $ 450,000/year?

http://www.politifact.com/oregon/statements/2012/jul/03/don-mcintire/does-portland-public-schools-spend-12000-year-stud/

And it's not hard to figure out only a small portion of the PPS budget ever makes it INTO the classroom. Cascade Policy published the payroll expenses of PPS and you need to scroll WAY DOWN past pages of administrators & support personnel before you ever find a few actual TEACHERS.

http://cascadepolicy.org/govdocs/portland/portland-public-schools/

BUT IT'S NEVER "ENOUGH" !

Mike I don't know where Andrew Coulson got his numbers, as he did not choose to provide a source for his data. However, they are not even remotely close to the data reported in the The 2012 Statistical Abstract of the United States (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/education.html). Table 260, Public School Employment reports a total of 4.77 million public school employees in 2008, 2.54 million of which were classroom teachers, not the 6.4 million public school employees Coulson claims.

Public school teacher employment has, indeed, increased far more rapidly than public school enrollment (Table 254). The pupil-to-teacher ratio in 1970 was 22.3 (45.9 million pupils / 2.1 million teachers). In 2008 the ratio was 15.0 (49.3 million pupils / 3.2 million teachers).

That said, given the student-to-teacher ratios I see in my childrens' school I suspect that a large proportion of the increase in teachers has gone to special education, not general classroom staff, as the number of children who qualify for those services has increased 75% since 1976. (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_046.asp)

It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need, and City Hall has to hold a bake sale to buy streetcars.

Put that on a bumper sticker and sign me up for a few of them!

How about it will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need, and City Hall has to hold a bake sale for their urban renewal projects?

I noticed in one of the signs:
IN JEOPARDY
There is so much in our city that could go under that category.

K2:
Coulson's statistics come directly from the Digest of Education Statistics, as published by the National Center for Education Statistics. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d11/tables/dt11_085.asp