Schools and districts around the D.C. area rely on millions of dollars each year from private donors to finance building renovations, field trips and scholarships, but as wealthy areas receive small fortunes, others see much less.
In Maryland, the Montgomery County Public Schools Educational Foundation — the conduit for many of the private donations — had $2.9 million in assets, according to the most recent tax records, compared with about $550,000 in neighboring Prince George’s County’s fund.
And while Montgomery has been active in accruing its wealth, collected from companies like Lockheed Martin, Citigroup and Fidelity Investments, Prince George’s foundation was essentially defunct until Superintendent John Deasy revived it July 1 after six months of legal manipulations.
“We don’t get enough money, that’s the reality of it,” Deasy said, adding he hopes to raise nearly $35 million for his beleaguered district, the bulk of which will be held in an endowment managed by the Greater Capital Regional Foundation.
Virginia districts’ shares ranged from $1,191,070 for Falls Church schools to $263,969 for the Prince William County Educational Foundation. Fairfax County, similar in size and makeup to Montgomery, has just over $800,000 in its fund.
“On the one hand, it’s great,” said Mary Tedrow, an English teacher in Virginia’s Winchester City schools who has written about the topic for education publications. “But on the other hand, why do we have to do that? Why can’t we get equitable resources for kids?”
At the local school level, the disparities grow. In well-heeled Bethesda and Potomac, Md., parents have started their own foundations for neighborhood schools. Nowhere else in the region do such a concentration of individual school foundations exist.
Potomac’s Carderock Springs Elementary will soon spend more than $180,000 of donated money on perks like an $80,000 outdoor amphitheater and $30,000 in terrazzo tiles for the lobby.
Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, long recognized for its success in getting nearly all of its students into high-level courses, spent $124,000 of foundation money in 2005 on tutoring and support for its at-risk population. Since 2001, it has collected more than half a million dollars.
“If we’re serious about educating everyone, then someone has to level the playing field,” Tedrow said. “In the mind of the public, charity is the way to do that, but it too has its imbalances.”
