PTA fundraising gaps in NYC mirror racial disparities | Tomorrow's headlines tonight

There's a new investigation that was done by Joe Hong of the Gothamist that finds that some New York City PTAs are bringing in millions of dollars, but it all are not equal. This appears the data shows to be done along racial lines. Some are raising lots of money and some are barely raising a penny. And so the disparities are quite stark. I want to bring in Joe Hong. He is with the Gothamist and he is the one that. We're digging into this. Joe, thanks so much for joining us tonight. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. So this is such an interesting story. I'd love for you to kind of give us the thesis behind it, because I'm a parent, so I don't know a parent that doesn't have a kid in school where there isn't a PTA. And I think we all know that some are a little bit more active than others. But it seems from what I was reading through your article that just dropped today, that the differences are quite stark here in the city. Yeah. And, you know, we got interested in this topic because education inequality has been sort of in the headlines these days. A couple of months ago now, the New York Times journalist, Nicole Hannah-Jones, wrote a piece about. You know, her navigating sort of the consequences of her decisions around which school to put her own child in and sort of her reckoning with racial segregation in the city's public schools. So that's sort of the background for this. But we wanted to look at PTAs because there is quite a bit of public data in New York City surrounding just how much PTAs raise across the city. So we could see like how much each PTA at each school raises and, you know, each, every school is required to have a PTA and PTAs are supposed to report their financials every year. And what we found was that across the city in total, if you add it all up, PTAs raise about $70 million. Wow. That's a big number. High school year. Yeah, but the sort of interesting thing is that that $70 million, it's coming from just a handful of pockets across the city. Schools in Manhattan, on average, out-raise those in other boroughs, but you also have pockets in neighborhoods like Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill where schools are raising like millions of dollars and they're operating their PTAs sort of like these bigger sort sort of non-profits. Well, you know, when I had my first child, I was living in Battery Park City, which has a very good school system down there. And it's a closed district, as I understand it. So kids from outside don't come to the Battery Park schools, at least what I was told when I was living down there. And I specifically remember touring the elementary school, and that was one of the things that was talked about. They were, it was definitely a pro on the pro-con list. We were talking about, they were talking about how... The PTA was how many millions of dollars they have raised. Look at the greenhouse on top of the roof. Look at the iPads that every kid got. Look at all the different things. And I once asked somebody, why is this? Why is this needed here? Is the school itself not funded? And they said, oh, it is. It's just that given the demographic down there, we want to compete with the private schools. So this is how we're doing it. We're using the PTA to compete with the private schools. Is that what your data shows? Yeah, you know, you really do see sort of the span of what PTAs are able to afford, right? You have PTAs that are able to basically fund their own sort of after-school programs. Go on, you know, these bigger field trips and, you know, teach kids how to draw comic books or learn about the stock market and things like that. But, you know, I think you raise an interesting point. I think a lot of schools in the city, you know, even if they are in these affluent neighborhoods, will sort of say, like, you know, the city, the public. The city, state, and federal government don't fund our schools adequately, and so parents often have to fill the gap. So I mentioned that, yes, there are these sort of what you might consider luxuries. Like an after school program that teaches, you know, like musical theater or something like that. But sometimes these PTAs in in these wealthier communities, they're also paying for like air conditioning units. And so, you know, the education experts I talked to for this story, they sort of said, look, yes, some PTAs outrace others. And, you know, it is a sign of inequality. But let's be very clear. Public education is not adequately funded across the board. Is the funding formula for a lot of these schools, like how much of the funding is supposed to come from the city and state and how much of it is supposed to come from these separate PTAs? Yeah. So New York City has a very interesting way of funding its schools. Channels a lot more money to schools with higher populations of, you know, students from low income families, students with disabilities and students who are behind on grade level. And so, you know, I would talk to these some of these parents in wealthier neighborhoods and they would say, you know, these these schools in high poverty neighborhoods, they get this extra money. Right. And we and we don't. And sometimes if you break it down by what's called per pupil funding, right, if you take the money that a school gets every year and sort of divide it by the number of students it has, you'll see that some of these schools in higher poverty neighborhoods get. You know, up to three times what a school in a more affluent neighborhood gets. And some of the parents in this latter group will point to that and say, yeah, so we need the PTA to sort of make up for that and fill those gaps. But the education experts I talked to said you really have to be careful with that kind of comparison, you know, comparing PTA dollars that parents raise. You know, the... Extra money for these high need students, because that extra money for high need students, it's meant to be it's meant to sort of counteract the effects of poverty on student learning. Right. Like, imagine if you are in a low income household, you might not have a space to do homework every night. Like you might, you know, just. Your household might just not have that stability where you can focus on school. And so that public funding is trying to counteract that, whereas the PTA money that's being raised at these more affluent communities, it's extra, right? They go directly to benefit the student to enrichment programs and like art and, you know, computer classes and things like that. So I think you. It's a very complicated topic because these parents in wealthier communities are also just trying their best. They're sending their kids to public school and they're trying to, you know, pool all their resources and give them the best sort of enriching education they possibly can. And so, again, it's not about like shaming these parents who can do more for their kids necessarily. It's more about drawing attention to a system that allows for this kind of inequality, right? This system that kind of created these sort of pockets of wealth in the city and within its public schools. And I think, you know, that's sort of what we were hoping to do with this story is to just show another side of what. Of what? Yeah, I guess my takeaway when I was reading your report was, does more money buy you a better education, wherever the money is coming from, whether it's coming from the city and state or whether it's coming from parents' pockets? Does it ultimately produce a more qualified, more prepared student? Yeah, that's a great question. And there's a lot of people sort of trying to answer that, I think. Thank You know, In a lot of ways, money does matter for a student like a high need student who sort of lives in a low income household. They need all the support they can get. But sort of those conditions outside of school and in the home, like you. they can be very expensive to sort of to counteract and and and remedy. And it. The experts I spoke to for this story said the way PTA spend their money, it really shows that how you spend your money is just as important as just how much money you get, right? So if a PTA, imagine like a PTA that has its own afterschool program that is designed Based on the interests of the students at the school, right? A lot of PTA leaders I talked to said, you know, periodically they will gather the parents and get a sense of what the students are interested in. And so, you know, imagine like a STEM-based after-school program or maybe a very expensive field trip to a science museum or something like that. That can be really inspiring for a kid and really... Build that sort of motivation, and that can really pay off in the long run in terms of, you know, how that student does academically and in high school and beyond. And so that kind of investment, you know, experts told me are very effective. I'm And there are kinds of investments that PTAs are especially equipped going to make, but research shows that it's the PTAs in wealthier areas, to go wealthier and wider areas that are more likely ahead to make those kinds of investments. and get Yeah, and I do wonder if a lot of that just has to do with the economic. realities of living in an area that is underserved. started. I mean, whether it's a single parent household or parents are having two jobs, I mean, it is a real-time commitment for a parent to be able to devote time into enriching a school, but also the resources, the money. And we've been doing stories all night long here about the midterm elections tomorrow, but affordability is the number one issue that everybody's talking about. And if those who are Decidedly, middle class have a problem with affordability. Imagine how it is for others in other tax brackets. You know, you mentioned that this was something that you were really interested in. But I've got to imagine that this kind of story coming your way had to happen by somebody walking through your newsroom or saying to you, hey, Joe. Have you ever looked into the, how did it actually come about? Are you a parent that happened to look at your kid's PTA and say, man, you guys are raising a lot of money, or how does something, because it's so important, but truly, Joe, when I was reading your article, I thought, this is so nuanced, you would have to know about a PTA in order to fully grasp what this means. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I'm not a parent, but, you know, certainly when we when sort of this conversation around. School segregation and inequality was picking up. You know, parent engagement comes up a lot, right? And I have colleagues in my newsroom who were talking about this and how, like you said, in your own experience, you know, when some of my colleagues were looking for schools for their kids, an active PTA is a huge green flag because it shows you just how connected the parents are. And, you know, You know, one important point that unfortunately didn't make it into this story, but something that education experts and parents brought up a lot is it's not just money that PTAs are able to pool, right? It's these other resources like. Like, um... You know, professional connections, like if there's a kid who wants to be a scientist or doctor when they grow up and there's a parent at the school who is a scientist or doctor, like all of a sudden you have this role model within your sort of tight knit community that's made possible by the PTA. Right. So there are all these other forms of, I guess you would say, like social capital that come to the surface when when PTAs become very active and. In a lot of ways, those are just as valuable as sort of the money that PTAs are able to raise. Yeah, for sure. Joe, before I let you go, can you just tell me a little bit about yourself and your reporting? I was looking at your bio and some of your other headlines. It seems like you spent a good portion of your career reporting on education and education inequality. Yeah, yeah. So before I came to Gothamist and WNYC last year, I was an education reporter in California for about seven, eight years. And, you know, it's sort of a very similar story in California. You know, there are the haves and the have nots when it comes to public education. But across the board, there's a lot of scarcity. City and, um, I've come to this role now where I focus on data and investigations, and so this was a really interesting opportunity to sort of step back into education, and it's a complex topic. And I just encourage everyone to go to gothams.com and read the full story. And let's not sell you short. You didn't just report in California for a while. You actually changed policy, as I understand it, while you were there. Your previous reporting in California led to a statewide screening policy as well in your education reporting. Isn't that right? Yeah, yeah. So I was covering, so California at the time, It was one of the few states in the country that didn't test all students for dyslexia. And that was very sort of ironic because the governor, Gavin Newsom, is famously dyslexic. And he was very outspoken about how that was an obstacle that he overcame. And so I. Wrote a lot about how the teachers union at the time was sort of blocking this universal testing law for a variety of reasons and Ultimately, the governor in his budget in 2023, I believe, included a universal screening law. So as of last year, all students, I believe, before first grade are being tested for dyslexia. It's that kind of reporting that moves the conversation forward. Is there anything else coming up that you want to share with us? I know this was probably a big lift. So you put this baby out into the world today. Everybody will be reading it today, tomorrow, in the coming days. What's up next for you? Are you going to take a breather before you dig into more data, or do you have something already in the pipeline? Well, as you know, tomorrow's election day, so I'll be pretty busy covering election results. But But, you know, I we're going to continue covering education and segregation and inequality. I work with a great colleague, Jessica Gould, who's an education reporter, and we're both very interested in this topic. And I think there's a lot of momentum politically around it right now. So, yeah, we'll continue covering sort of. If, you know, the Mamdani administration proposes a plan for tackling segregation, we'll definitely be on top of that. But yeah, that's basically it for now. All right. When that headline drops, you come and see us, okay? All right. Joe Hong at the Gothamist. Again, we could put up his article one more time if you don't mind, please. NYC schools PTA fundraising gap is growing, mirroring broader racial disparities. Go on to the Gothamist dot com right now. You can read that article, dig in, and then you can watch this interview again. And it gives you more perspective on some of Joe's great reporting. We appreciate you. Thanks. Have a great night. Good luck tomorrow. Thank you.