Volunteerism and Cash-Strapped Britain: Are U.S.-Style PTAs on the Way?

While reading the New York Times Motherlode blog the other day, I was struck by a piece about current trends in American education. Apparently, many public school districts in the United States are increasingly turning to parents in order to cover budgetary shortfalls.

In some cases, it's the parent-teacher associations that are spearheading the movement to make up for things like teacher's salaries and supplies when school boards can't. In other cases, schools are making direct appeals to parents for monetary contributions, sometimes making them mandatory.

There's a lot to say about this trend toward parent-funded public education in the United States: Is it appropriate? Is it enough? And -- as many commenters on the Times post wondered aloud -- what do you do in school districts where parents can't afford or don't have time for this sort of fundraising?

But as an American parent who's lived abroad for nearly four years with two school-age children, what most caught my eye about this story is how utterly inconceivable it would be in the U.K., where I reside. I've done a ton of fundraising for my daughter's school over the past four years. And it's been an incredible eye-opener for me about the depths of cross-cultural differences between the U.S. and the U.K. on this front.

As I wrote in an essay several years ago for the International Herald Tribune, the Brit's just don't "get" fundraising. They find it personally repellant, socially awkward and culturally alien. It's perhaps no surprise, then, that a huge percentage of the parent volunteers at my daughter's state (public) school are foreigners. And every single American parent at the school -- there are maybe 10 of us -- is on the PTA.

There are probably lots of different factors that account for British squeamishness when it comes to charitable giving and volunteerism. Culturally, the Brits really are more reserved by nature. Institutionally -- as Alexis de Tocqueville told us long ago -- civic engagement is a hallmark feature of American society. Lacking a larger state apparatus, Americans have always stepped in to provide certain social goods precisely because we don't expect our government to do as much for us.

The numbers bear this out. According to a 2006 study of comparative international giving by the British-based Charities Aid Foundation, Americans give nearly twice as much in charitable donations as a percentage of GDP as do Brits, 1.7 percent vs. .73 percent. Even when controlling for differences in personal income taxes and religiosity, this study found that the U.K. could, by virtue of its wealth and tax incentives, be doing quite a bit more charitable giving than it is. Volunteer rates across the two countries are also revealing. Although a comprehensive international data set on this topic is still being assembled, one study conducted in 1998 showed Americans to be far more generous in giving their time than their counterparts in Europe.

But I wonder if this is all about to change, at least in the U.K. After all, we're in a brave new world over here. David Cameron was elected prime minister promising two fundamental changes to business as usual. First, there would be an unequivocal attempt to rein in Britain's soaring budget deficit through profound cuts in government spending. Second, the Conservative Party also campaigned on the slogan of creating a "Big Society," one in which neighborhood and community groups would play a much larger role in solving local problems.

Whether this idea will extend to public school financing is unclear. But there's no question that the education reform that's being contemplated by Cameron's administration -- in tandem with its coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats -- is all about placing more power in the hands of parents through things like the introduction of "free" (charter) schools.

I'm not sure how much I want to see parents forced to cover educational shortfalls in any sustained way in the U.K.. But I do think it could only be a good thing for this government to engage its citizenry more actively in civic organizations -- the PTA and otherwise. As a parent who's run just one too many bake sales over these past few years, we need all the help we can get.


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