A Brief History of PPS School Foundations

Local School Foundations (LSF) are non-profit organizations led by parents within individual PPS schools. These organizations raise private funds to pay for teachers and educational support staff.

Some school communities have the capacity and the interest to conduct substantial fundraising activities. They keep the first $10,000 raised plus two thirds of any additional funds raised and apply that staffing needs at their individual school. The District's Fund for PPS redistributes the remaining one third of the funds raised to other PPS schools in the form of need-based grants.

You may be asking yourself, why is this occurring? Why are private funds being raised for public school employees? We must look back at the history of school funding in Oregon in order to better understand how this came to be .

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SCHOOL FUNDING

• Before 1990, schools were predominantly funded by local property taxes. The state provided less than 30% of the funding for education.

• From 1990 to 1997, property tax ballot measures eroded the local tax base for education and shifted the main funding responsibility to the state without providing any replacement source of revenue.

• The state is now responsible for nearly 60% of districts' operating revenue. Until the Student Success Act (SSA) passed in 2019, Oregon failed to create a dedicated source of school funding.

• Most state funding for education comes from income tax revenue, which is a less stable funding source than property taxes. When the economy dips, the revenue from income taxes falls.

• Donations to individual school communities are tax-deductible, so the more money that parents contribute to their own school community, the less revenue goes into the general fund for all schools.

• Based on Portland's history of redlining and gentrification, longstanding residential segregation means that individual school fundraising is concentrated in school communities serving whiter, more affluent populations.

• Corporations used to contribute a lot more in income taxes and property taxes than they do now. In the mid-1970s, corporations contributed about 18.5 percent of all income taxes paid in Oregon. Today, the corporate share has shrunk to just 6.7 percent.[1]

• In 2000, the Oregon Public School Funding and Equalization, Measure 1 was approved by voters. This amended the state constitution, adding Article VIII, Section 8, which allows legislators to either fund schools according to a level determined by an outside commission or write a report explaining why they didn’t.

• Year after year, Oregon lawmakers fall short of funding schools at the levels recommended by the Quality Education Commission and instead publish reports, like the one for 2018, explaining that there is not enough revenue.

• Education advocates have worked, year after year, to remedy the situation. In 2003 there was the failed attempt at passing a temporary tax hike. The funding crisis at that time was so severe the school year was cut short, a situation covered by the NY Times and Doonesbury. In 2019 the Student Success Act was enacted, finally providing a dedicated source of state funding for schools. The estimated investment is $1 billion per year.

For additional details about the history of education funding in Oregon, view the illustrated history created by Oregon teacher, Lindsay Ray.

FOUNDATIONS FORMED IN DIRECT RESPONSE TO THE PROPERTY TAX BALLOT MEASURES

Shifting more of the responsibility for school funding to the State was not necessarily a bad idea. It has the opportunity to address significant disparities that have existed between urban and rural communities across Oregon. But it was poorly implemented and left a seemingly dire situation in Portland Public Schools. So parents tried to fill the gap in their neighborhood schools to address the under-funding occurring as a result of the property tax ballot measures.

In 1994 parents and the PPS Board established the Portland Schools Foundation to expand fundraising efforts to address staffing losses due to budget shortfalls. In addition, the PPSF Equity Fund, aimed at supporting high-need schools, was established, and each LSF was required to contribute to that fund when raising funds for their own school.

For more information on the history of Local School Foundations, please visit the PPS Fund website.