Blood money and wedding gifts

NEA Today, Oct 2003

IN EUGENE, OREGON, parents sold their blood plasma in an effort to avoid losing a teacher.

In Sonoma County, California, a group of children put together $100 in nickels, dimes, and quarters from their allowances and offered it to the governor to help close a $38 billion deficit.

And in San Francisco, a couple about to be married asked their wedding guests to skip the presents and give money to a school instead.

These are a few of the more unusual private efforts to compensate for the failure of elected officials to fund public schools this year.

In most places, parents relied on more traditional fund-raising strategies-bake sales, candy sales, auctions-but with a new urgency.

San Francisco parent Karen Roorda had mixed feelings about asking her wedding guests to help chip in for teacher salaries, and not because she wanted the gifts. "It's the second marriage for both of us and we don't really need more things," she explained, "but this is no way to fund education."

Roorda's 11-year-old son Anthony was about to enter the Hoover Middle School. Hoover parents had started a fund to make up for budget cuts, and Roorda's wedding guests were asked to contribute, which they did, to the tune of over $1,000.

"This is really the opposite of the right way," says Roorda. "We're in a middle class area. This school stands a much better chance of pulling in contributions than schools in many other areas. On the other hand, a school in a very wealthy community could raise ridiculously more than we did. Doing it this way just points up the disparity.

"But it was a way to buy some time. Public education is one of the fundamental components of democracy. You need an educated public. I don't want to see the unraveling of diverse, mixed schools for our kids. In an emergency situation, you just have to do something."