Random Acts of Kindness? External Resources Available to Seattle Public Schools.

A discussion among school and business leaders in Seattle (Washington) revealed that no one had a clear picture of the total community effort in support of schools or the external resources schools actually needed. The Program on Reinventing Public Education of the University of Washington conducted a study to determine how external resources were being distributed in the Seattle schools and whether these resources were meeting the needs of schools. School principals were surveyed in 1995 about the 1994-95 school year. The survey asked about funds from Seattle's Families and Education Levy, but did not ask about funds raised from sources within the school, such as a Parent Teacher Association. Survey results showed the immense scale and variety of external resources provided to Seattle schools. The Families and Education Levy alone provided over five million dollars in the school year, and was hailed by principals as indispensable to their schools. Local businesses offered multiple resources. In fact, public sector programs, grants, and contributions made up 49% of the dollar value of services available to Seattle public schools, and another 10% of the total dollar value of resources came from one private grant to a single high school. The remaining 41% came from local private sources in the form of 321 separate programs and services. Many of these were transient; almost half identified in a 1991 study of private contributions had disappeared by the 1995 survey. Researchers found that the overall distribution of these resources appeared to be random and unrelated to goals and strategies for school improvement and student achievement. (Contains three figures.) (SLD)