In my career as a freelance writer, I have had the opportunity to cover some of the top-performing schools in my part of the country, and one of the thing that always impresses me about those schools is the number of ways the school officials, teachers and parents are able to come up with funding for education.
I wrote a story on the PTA at a local elementary school that was trying to raise money for new computers in classrooms. They decided to have what they called a walk-a-thon, where students at the school asked people to donate a certain amount of money for however far they walked. By the time that all was said and done, the school had raised enough money to buy six new computers.
Another story that I wrote was about a group called the Education Foundation, which worked to raise funding for education throughout the entire district. This organization was made up almost entirely of parents who were also business owners or other professionals and devoted a portion of their time each week to raising funds for various needs within the school district.
This group would write grants and hold charity events or auctions, and do whatever it could to raise funding for education that, according to a number of teachers, was something they had come to rely upon a great deal. Many of the teachers told me that if it was not for the Education Foundation, they would not be able to expose their students to the same kind of educational experiences they currently enjoy.
I soon began to realize that the reason that these schools were so highly regarded and performing at such a high level was because of the hard work of parents and teachers to provide funding for education so that the best resources were made available to their children.
One of the Education Foundation members actually thanked me and said that the local newspapers were one of the greatest tools for the foundation. I asked her what she meant, and she explained to me that having stories written in the newspaper gives fund-raising events a lot more publicity, and they get a lot more money as a result. That made me feel really proud.
I had never really given a whole lot of thought as to why some schools and districts perform better than others. I figured that the wealthier districts simply had better facilities and access to more resources.
What I was not aware of, however, was exactly how that all came about and all of the hard work that goes into raising funding for education. Now that I have had the opportunity to see it first-hand, I will always have more respect for volunteer groups that make that their mission.