Combating Stealth Inequities in Public Schools: Redistributing Fundraising Parent-Teacher Association Resources Within a District

• In Event: (Re)Producing or Disrupting Inequality: Exploring the Utility of Opportunity Hoarding in Educational Research

Abstract

Decades of policy efforts have aimed to distribute public school resources more equitably, but inequities in government funds remain (Shores & Lee, 2021). Concurrently, there has been a growth in the size and number of fundraising Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), Parent Teacher Organizations (PTOs), and “Friends Of” nonprofit groups funneling private resources to public schools (Nelson & Gazley, 2014). Cross-disciplinary scholarship documents that these fundraising PTAs support economically-advantaged students (Arsneault et al., 2013; Brown et al., 2017; B. C. Murray, 2019; Nelson & Gazley, 2014) and can facilitate opportunity hoarding which reinforces economic and racialized hierarchies (Cucchiara & Horvat, 2009; McGrath & Kuriloff, 1999; B. Murray et al., 2020; Posey-Maddox, 2013, 2016). School-level PTAs can raise dramatically different amounts of supplemental funds even within the same district (Author, 2022), and rare settings have enacted policies to lessen the impact of these organizations on resource disparities. However, research focuses on official policy responses (Nisbet & Schaller, 2020; Schaller & Nisbet, 2020), leaving relatively unexplored how parents and caregivers understand redistributed supplemental resources.

I study a unique setting–a grassroots, parent-led movement, distinct from official policy, explicit in its equity aims that pools and redistributes school-level PTA funds across a district. I consider fundraising PTAs–and the redistribution group–as racialized organizations, rooted in a framework grounded in stratification economics (Chelwa et al., 2022; Darity et al., 2015) and Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations. I draw on critical sensemaking (Aromaa et al., 2019; Helms Mills et al., 2010) to consider: How do parents and caregivers understand (inequities in) resources at public schools? How do they make sense of role(s) challenging (or not) inequities in supplemental resources at public schools?

I conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with parents and caregivers during the first year implementing the pool-and-redistribute model, representing round one of an ongoing study to document trajectories of their understandings of resource equity over time. Interviewees spanned individuals deeply embedded since the project’s conception to those newly involved in school PTAs with little engagement in the equity-oriented initiative.

Preliminary findings suggest sensemaking around resource distribution and equity was influenced by sociopolitical contexts–a consequential vote occurred Fall 2020–and community social pressures–respondents described pride in progressive reputations. Further, conceptions of equity remain somewhat oriented around self-interest–for example, all respondents explained that it “makes sense” to pool elementary and middle school PTA funds because all students ultimately attend the same high school. However, across racialized identities and economic situations, individuals differed in their consideration of resource redistribution outside the district. They also differed in conceptions of equity “success” in terms of community orientations versus dollar-specific metrics.

This study surfaces how and why individuals who have the means to amass differentially more resources for their child’s school sometimes spearhead, or at least support, efforts to challenge fundraising PTA inequities. To my knowledge, this represents the first study concurrent to a grassroots effort to combat hierarchy-reinforcing fundraising PTAs. It has the potential to add nuance to paradigms centered solely on self-interest, and uncover pathways to combat inequities entrenched through hidden avenues of opportunity–and resource–hoarding.

Author

• Claire Mackevicius, Northwestern University
  Presenting Author