To the editor:
Mr. Finn's observation about the growing role of private foundations in public education policy (“Still troubling bed partners,” May 6, 2010) is correct, but his interpretation misses the mark. It is indeed troubling that private foundations are uncomfortable bedfellows, not just with Uncle Sam, but with all sources of public funding. I am sure this investment role—giving school districts their yearly allowance—is one that they would gladly relinquish to policymakers and local boards of education, if these entities could consistently budget and govern effectively and produce positive results.
The relationship of foundations with Uncle Sam's wallet is just a one-night stand compared to their lengthy tryst with state and local budgets. Uncle Sam only pays about a dime of every dollar spent at the local level on public education. So the real issue is the increasing dependence of local districts on private sources of funding (not just foundations, but the checkbooks of parents and individual citizens also). Too many of us stand by and watch, complicit in the erosion of a larger sense of public responsibility for preserving, protecting, and defending public goods that accrue a public, not private, benefit.
The true malignancy is not the role of foundations or their money. It is the low public priority placed upon education excellence by America's voters and elected and appointed officialswho pay lip service to America's future.
Howie Schaffer
Takoma Park, MD