For a brief time I was a band geek.
Say it isn’t so, Mom101! Say it isn’t so!
I loved the performing (a chance to be up on stage! In front of people!) but I hated the practicing. If they had allowed me to do freestyle interpretive dance in front of the stage, while the band played the theme from Star Wars, I would have been just as happy as I was sitting there in the fourth flute seat with my ankles crossed.
But still, I was in the band. Which meant that once a year, I was asked to perform the humiliating act of selling jumbo chocolate bars to help pay for our annual band trip, so that we might have the very important educational experience of seeing a Broadway matinee of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat from the twofer seats in the balcony.
The entire charge was led by this creepy marketing guy – I still remember his lanky sillhouette, his pointy goatee and his enormous square glasses – who showed up at band practice once a year to give us a big rah rah speech about how exciting it is to sell chocolate bars! and how the students who sold the most would get…I don’t even know what. Something great. Something really really great that I would never have. Because that privilege was reserved for the Irish kids with a built-in network of buyers in their nine older siblings. Or for Michael Ochs who was a musical prodigy and had some sort of kidney problem that swelled his cheeks and made it impossible to say no to him.
Me? I didn’t stand a chance. Of course I wanted the prizes, but I just dreaded ringing my neighbors’ doorbells. I wasn’t cut out to stand on someone’s doorstep like a dork and give them a big spiel, then collect their money and organize the money and account for the money and turn in the money. Sales was not my forte.
So instead, I ate all the candy bars myself.
Of course the day of reckoning arrived when we had to turn in all our checks to the creepy goateed guy who I just imagined would announce each of our sales totals aloud for the entire band to hear.
Karen raises…one hundred and twenty dollars! Michael raises…three hundred and ninety-Seven dollars! Liz raises…um, is this right? Liz? Why, you’ve somehow managed to raise negative thirty-two dollars.
I would have to beg my father for the money to cover my indiscretion, which of course he would give me after an appropriately stern lecture about responsibility and accountability.
The whole traumatic episode flooded back to me when I read Badgermama’s amazing post yesterday about how now, school systems are using their children to sell–well, crap–not as a way to subsidize an extra-curricular trip, but to subsidize the school.
To subsidize the school!
Not having school-aged kids yet myself, I had not considered that the sweet neighbor kids who knock on my door each November asking me to buy ugly wrapping paper and a gift box of peanut butter meltaways, are doing so as a form of forced child labor by an economically stressed school district.
One of Badgermama’s assertions is that while her school gives no awards for academic achievement (another example of sensitivity gone wild that drives me batty – God forbid our children learn that yes, some children do better in school, or life, than others), they reward children for selling the most crap. As well the school has to.
They need the dough.
Argh.
She makes an excellent point about the socioeconomic inequities of such a scheme:
These fundraising sales schemes give the message that it’s okay to lean on people’s class privilege — because being able to sell a buttload of wrapping paper depends on class privilege — and that it’s okay to give prizes for that, and guilt the children into guilting their parents. You’ll get a prize if your mom takes you around your neighborhood to sell stuff, or if she takes your sales catalogue to work and gets her co-workers to buy the stuff out of their regard for her and desire to be nice to her.This kind of fundraising also further supports the class differences in our school district. How much money do you think the school in the hills will raise, vs. the school across the train tracks?
I immediately forwarded the post to my mother for a progressive educational consultant’s take on the matter and with minor edits, I’ve posted her response below:
As you probably could have guessed, I agree with her in principle. Personally, I was a horrible seller. I hated the fact that we were forced to sell stuff, to face rejection, to ask for money. I used to make [my mother] buy all of the seed packets I had to sell as a third grader so I wouldn’t have to go door to door. And we didn’t even have a garden. Fortunately, I was never a Brownie or a Girl Scout or would have weighed 200 pounds!
(Who knew! What’s that about the acorn and the tree?)
Our education system-hell, our whole social system- is predicated on the conservative’s belief that if you’re not rich you somehow did something or didn’t do something right to deserve it. If you only tried harder, sold more, had access to rich friends and neighbors, you could become more like us. Therefore, they wholeheartedly endorse the idea of rich schools getting richer any way they can (when California voted for Prop 13 and thereby ruined the California school system forever, Beverly Hills HS began marketing clothing with their logo as a way to make gobs of money).The richest side of the
mountains in Vermont, where the people are lucky enough to live in tax-rich ski country, care little for their poor neighbors in the eastern part of state who have nothing in their schools. When the Vermont courts mandated that the rich find an equitable way to make sure all schools got the same amount, the rich began litigation that is still pending. The prevailing belief about schools is that somehow poor districts deserve it; they brought it on themselves (“Not all poor people are criminals,” our president famously said several months ago)So….I think that as long as PTAs and ‘School Foundations’ have found the loophole that allows schools to disregard child labor laws by having kids sell products that support the companies’ profit margins, we will never have to face the real problem:We finance our public schools in a disgraceful and patently unfair way.
You tell me where a kid lives, and I’ll tell you how well she’ll do on any test. And I’ll tell you what technology equipment she has, how big her classes are, how many books are in her library. Do I sound angry enough?
I love Badgermama’s passion and her commitment to a cause. She’ll have to be strong, though, because whenever we live our principles, we’re bound to be told that we’re boorish, or denying kids or Communist.
Believe me: I should know.
I keep telling my mom she needs her own blog.
All of this scares me because as Thalia gets closer to school-age, I’m going to have to make some serious decisions about where to send her to school.
I’m lucky. I’m a person of relative privilege and while it would require sacrifices, I could probably manage send Thalia to a private institution where she wouldn’t be forced to compensate for our government’s inattention to its schools. But then, I’m a big proponent of the public school system; I’m a product of it myself. And knowing that a school is often as good as the committment and involvement of the parents, I think it’s somewhat wrong for parents like me to cut and run, leaving the rest of the community to its own devices.
But then, I also don’t intend to choose idealism over what may be best for my daughter either.
This parenting stuff is hard.
72 shards of brilliance… read them below or add one
Sigh. This is a very interesting issue. In D.C., where schools are a laughing stock of the nation, you would hear about a few “good schools.” They were always schools in the well-off parts of town where PARENTS donated school supplies and money for text books etc.. It seemed so unfair. A system that doesn’t adequately fund public schools is ripe for corruption. In D.C., they cannot handle special education. Parents are incentivized to fight to get their kids labeled “special needs” so they can get sent to a private school at tax payer expense. Pretty hideous. Then lots of tax dollars go to paying private schools to do the job that public schools should do if they had enough resources. A vicious circle. I never thought about the candy sales being part of that, but you are right!Another interesting issue is PTA membership. Lots of schools are choosing to form PTO’s instead of PTA’s which has a state and national office. This is because some of the PTA membership dues goes toward state and national offices for lobbying purposes. Many parents want or feel the need to keep the funds close to home and give it all to the school. I think that’s another example of how the parents need to subsidize hurts public schools. Without a lobbying voice on school legislation, parents and teachers may suffer etc.. Sigh. Thanks for raising this issue, and pointing me to that other post. I really enjoyed your mom’s comments. I used to cover education issues and special edcuation for a national education newspaper. This post really resonated with me as a parent and as someone who cares about public schools from a public policy standpoint.Lisa
The huz and I talk about this stuff all the time. We didn’t lift a finger to sell the crappy wrapping paper, which was foisted upon my six year old, cheap dollar store rewards and all, on the second week of school. I’d rather just write the school a check than make my kid or my husband sell that stuff. It’s wrong and honestly, if we could afford an extra $8000 a year, I’d have my daughter in private school so fast it would make your head spin. I like our neighborhood school but I dislike the system intensely…
It’s funny. I’m a product of one of those snobbish elite NYC private schools and, right now, I’m determined to send my daughter to public school here in the city. Why? Because I think selling gift wrap builds character. Just kidding. Not really. It’s a complicated decision and most of it has do with living specifically in NYC. I’m a firm believer in the life lessons gained by true diversity. Will I back up my principles with my actions? Who knows? Like you said, this parenting stuff is hard.And by the way? Your mom totally needs her own blog. I love her!
I went to private grade school and we still had to do fundraisers. Tell me that isn’t a bunch of crap. My parents weren’t well off and they coughed up the tuition dollars, but it still wasn’t enough. Then, because it was a Catholic school and we attended the church every Sunday, my mother gave even more money when the collection baskets were sent around. They never seemed to stop putting their hands out. I thought that’s what the tuition was for! I hated slogging through my neighborhood with raffle tickets every year, hoping for a walkman or a gift certificate to the music store. But every year, some rich kid in my class would come in and ask for more raffle tickets because he sold all of his since his daddy was a hospital administrator who hit up all the doctors and nurses. My parents refused to take these things to work for us. They told us we could come to their work but WE had to do the selling. I never did know what the money specifically went to. I do know our Monsignor drove a Cadillac and had a golf membership to the country club.I laugh now with the recollection that my parents contributed $5 one year to the raffle fund, and my name was drawn out of the coffer for the grand prize, a piano. I got many years of piano lessons I never would have had if not for that raffle, so I guess I should count my blessings.
Parochial schools sell crap, too. I’m fortunate enough to just write a check and tell the powers that be to bug off.Cheers.
jeebus,i love how much you and HBM are forcing me to confront my beliefs right now. and there was me thinking i was disturbingly amoral and empty. maybe not…i’ve posted on this myself–the school fundraiser part, not the political part. i too now look down the barrell of school fundraising stuff, and my kid is in DAYCARE. and believe me, i am eating a whole lot of little cesear’s cheesy bread and cookie dough by the 10lb carton. i buy it all, and the i eat it, because i can’t stand to pimp it.coming from a country with a welfare state, this whole thing is really alien to me. and I have to agree with your mother. in principle, this is all so horribly wrong, and of course class weights into it. on the other hand, when it’s your child, and your school, and the decision over whether if you sell a few tons of refined carbs, you can get that climber for the playground (or worse, buy books–for some schools). then you find your principles compromised. and of course, she is right in that whether the kids sell more stuff has little to do with success of school–it’s one economic factor among a whole slew. i am going through this now. the local public elementary is pretty poor. and yes, this is about class. so we’re considering a local magnet instead. we are putting our tax dollars outside the community. 2 years ago, i would have sworn i would not do this…and then you get to your own sitation…aaaand. i hate it…right now mummy and daddy are the ones forcing people into corners and asking if they want to buy [insert name of crap here] to help “the children.” when it comes time for my kid to go door-to-door–i am thinking NOT. a donation (and again, there comes the class issue–because we will be able to afford to pay not to have to participate with no guilt) and a “please leave us alone now…” unless he is gagging to go door-to-door. then his daddy can accompany him;-)
Bravo. Next year I will be sending Savannah to Kindergarten and I need to decide this year if I’m enrolling her in private school so I can put her on the wait list. I wondered if I was the only one that felt like this is a disservice to the public school system. A brain drain of sorts.And as for the candy selling – THANKS for taking me waaaay back. To the nice neighbor who invited my friend and I inside for some “games”. Yeah, no. You were better off eating the chocolate yourself.
I was a band geek and a blue bird and definitely sold crap. But for me, it was for a band trip, or whatnot. NOW? My son is in a public school. The educational foundation for the district sends me monthly notices of how I’m doing in my “dollar a day.” We’re expected (read guilted) to give $365 per child to the foundation. I don’t have it. Once of the downfalls of NOT being rich in a very rich area. The foundation’s slogan? “Because a GREAT education isn’t FREE” – which I just read as continuing, “…You freeloader you.”
My kids are at private school and we still sell giftwrap… there is never enough money, especially in private schools where every dime comes from the parents (and the $3.50 the Vatican sends…) and more fundraising that you can shake a stick (or checkbook) at…
Is it wrong that after reading your entire post I’ve come away with the feeling that I MUST HAVE CANDY NOW. What is the matter with me?
Hear hear.I thoroughly appreciated your mother’s perspective. I live in Utah where charter schools are proliferating at an astonishing rate and many upper-middle class parents are yanking their kids out of functional schools (I say functional, but don’t have time to discuss Utah’s terrible per-pupil-funding record)to send them to state subsidized “private” schools that cater to the extremely conservative. (Core Knowledge based on ED Hirsch’s ideas is very popular.) These schools have very low minority representation (even considering Utah’s racial profile) and tend to be made up of the most privileged kids in the state. Even the schools’ locations tends to be in upper-middle class neighborhoods. The thing that frustrates me is that these parents leave without a backward glance, without even considering what their absence will do to the neighborhood school. Public education can be the great equalizer, but only if it is administered equally. Parents at the lower end of the socio-econmic scale cannot commit to the driving and volunteer hours required by these charter schools, so they are shut out. And often they are not savvy enough or free enough with their time to sit on the boards, save a spot for their kids, and hand-pick the curriculum and school model. And the help, both financial and otherwise, that could be given by the more “financially fortunate” parents to the neighborhood schools is gone. It makes me crazy and sad. We have an obligation to ALL children in this society, not just the ones who live under our roof.
I’m a big proponent of public education. I was a teacher for 5.5 years before having my kids. I myself have pimped out kids to sell crap so that our organizations could have things that no one was willing to give us money for. <>Principal: <>Amy, would you be interested in taking on the yearbook next year?<>Amy:<> Sure, that sounds like fun. <>(The next year.)<><>Amy:<> Um, Principal Guy, I can’t find the yearbook camera?<>Principal:<> There isn’t one.<>Amy: <>Well, um, how are we supposed to take pictures?<>Principal:<> The previous yearbook sponsor figured something out. Maybe you should talk to her…The school systems are seriously lacking. They are incredibly underfunded, understaffed, and the burden of dealing with 35 kids in a class, six classes in a day, with four hours of grading every night is taking its toll on America’s teachers.I certainly don’t know the answer. Well, I do know the answer. Smaller schools, smaller classrooms, more technology. What I don’t know is how to get from where we are now to that place in the future.I think there are brilliant teachers out there who’ve lost their ability to inspire in the politics of education.There shouldn’t be politics in education.
It is hard but you say it better than anyone as always.I totally would have eaten the chocolate too.
I’m still so confused about where the money goes. When I was in kindergarten, we were asked to bring some fat pencils and a Big Chief notepad. Now? My son needed Clorox Wipes, 3 boxes of tissue, pencils, crayons, BAND-AIDS! We also collect labels for cash and recycle plastic bags for more cash… and let’s not forget the taxes we pay. I’m a public school proponent, but I wanna know who does their books?! Agreed. Parenting is crazy hard.
My god. I feel so honored that I helped spark off this discussion. I feel like I have this talk ALL the time with my friends, but it is hard to bring that to public discussion, which I think makes it hard for change to happen. And here you all are public as pie, discussing in mad depth! I feel like emailing the link to my school superintendent just to let her know that interesting conversations like this are possible… I thought of starting a new blog to be the unofficial communication thingie for discussion of our school and district… Or… I could just do that on my regular blog the way I’ve been doing, which might have more potential for embarrassment on all sides. Hmmm.Anyway just wanted to say I feel inspired, and thanks.
Don’t think that private schools are immune from fundraising. Oh no! I had to sell my fair share throughout my years in Catholic schooling. From what I understand at my children’s school, all the money is raised by the PTA (read: students), for the PTA and it’s various annual activities, headed of course by parents. It is hard to believe that the parents push so hard for something that most loathe. I myself, refuse to let my children sell door-to-door, or really at all for that matter. They are allowed to hit up the unsuspecting relative who visits during fundraising season and of course I buy an item from each child. And that is it. I would much prefer to hand over a direct check to the school than to peddle crap.I made the mistake one year of sending out an e-mail to family members asking them to support their grandchild/niece/nephew’s school, relaying the fact that I did not believe in allowing my child to hit the streets with their wares. You wouldn’t believe the fury that I received back: “She has to see what competition there is out there and how things aren’t just given to you just because you have happened to win the ovarian lottery of having family who can buy things.Help her work on her sales pitch, or pre-sell the neighbors with a hand written note with picture , warning them that you will be coming around to offer them the opportunity to support her and her school.” Yeah, right!
I got the gift wrap catalog from my daughter’s school just last week- right in the garbage! Who needs it?I ate all my band chocolate bars too!
UGH. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Maya goes to a small public Montessori charter school here in Prop-13 California, and I just completed a three year term on the school board. So I was in on the meetings where they talked about how we did not have enough money in our budget to pay the bills. To keep the lights on. To meet payroll. The only way out is through fundraising, in this fucked up system. (I suppose we could have stopped offering our teachers benefits, like the rest of our school district, but we decided health care was actually important.) It drives me BONKERS. Our school has decided to cut back on the piss-ant gift wrap and candy sales, because the profit to the school is only 50% (and actually, that’s a great profit for a fundraiser). Instead, we have a giving campaign, where you can just donate $$ directly to the school, and 100% goes to the school, and you get a write off. You know how much they ask for? $1,000 per family, per year. Now, obviously $1,000 is a LOT less than tuition. It’s less than one month of tuition in many schools. But it’s a PUBLIC school, and it’s rediculous that we are being asked to do this. Of course, very few families actually give that much. Maybe 10 or 15, out of 150 families. So few families participate, that we still do have to have SOME of the selling type fundraisers. Crap, I’d MUCH rather just give money to the school, rather than have a closet full of wrapping paper I don’t need. Our other cool fundraiser is a read-a-thon. We team up with a local bookstore, and buy gift certificates with 20% of the money the kids raise. They get the certificates, and the school gets 80% of the money raised. Nice.Oh, and being a small, Montessori school has an advantage. No prizes for selling more crap. The kid with the parents in a big office building who sell $800 worth of crap get no more recognition than the kids who sell nothing. We choose to reward them for important things, not for selling crap.The whole thing makes me sick. Makes me sick that in CA, we put bonds out to pay for our schools, because the state isn’t willing to do so. So if you live in a poor area, or an area where you can’t get 2/3 of the vote, your school district suffers. GAHHHH!Your mom rocks, by the way. Buy her a drink from me next time you see her. (Like how you get to pay for it, and I want credit? I could be a politician.
)
Public or Private, it really doesn’t matter, there will be fundraisers. That is the way it is these days. Period. (I don’t like it… but just stating the obvious).I also am (ok was) a proponent of public education. But something needs to be done. They system has been far too politicized, corrupted and is officially broken.When you get a chance, take a look at your local school budget and divide it by the number of kids in your town. I did it, and found that the cost was around $15,000 per student. And for that, they weren’t getting the same education that a small private school (which costs consideraly less that that).It is a tough choice, supporting public education is one thing, but you can’t base the decision on convictions or aversion to fundraiser sales (because there no avoiding them). You need to think about what is the best for the kids. (Why yes, I am an expert at stating the obvious… how did you know?)
You know, this hits the spot. My 15 month old daughter came home from DAYCARE the other day with a fundraiser. You’ve got to be joking, I’m sure you’re thinking, but jest ye not. I already pay them weekly and now they want me to raise funds for them, as I’m sure a 15 month old has yet to master that skill. I think not.
I have many thoughts about this, but this, in your comment, Mom-101, struck me:“when the nation’s educators said it [NCLB] would be a failure from the get-go, why did no one want to listen?” – oh, easy – because the nation’s educators are members of a union (teachers’ unions) and therefore inherently untrustworthy and bad, so, “don’t listen to those people”…Came over from Sweatpantsmom’s link to your very well-written post, where I commented further on the public vs private school issue for myself. I too HATED the fundraising s***t. Our (public) charter school went in for the high-end wrapping paper crap, to show how much classier we were, I suppose, than the town’s other public schools. Way expensive, environmentally unfriendly, pointless, etc etc etc. The only fundraising I never minded chipping in the effort for, for DD, was Girl Scout Cookies. Those babies sell themselves!
My kids’ school in India (http://www.miripiriacademy.org) does fundraising the easy way – passing around the bucket at other events! Works pretty well, although along with public schools, we’re always rather strapped for cash. At least we know our donation is going directly to support some kid that wants to go and can’t otherwise do so (scholarships), or buy needed equipment etc for the school.OK. Enough said! 
Oh, and ps – hope everyone caught the sarcasm in my teachers union comment!