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You're excluding the fundraising capacity and ancillary services funded and paid for by the PTA.

Wealthy neighborhoods have PTA budgets that are in the hundreds of thousands/millions. They pay for after school activities, language immersion programs, music, sports, you name it.

It is shocking the discrepancy between neighborhoods in NYC. Average donation per pupil might be $20 in a poor neighborhood and $5,000 in a wealthy one.

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We saw this first-hand in San Diego. We luckily found a place to rent in a pretty well-off area (Point Loma) and our kids elementary school regularly raised >$250,000 a year for the school (1st through 4th grades). When we moved to a more "normal" school in another state, we found their stretch goal was more like $30,000 and it took all year to get there. The first school paid for multiple extra teachers and aides, as well as lots of other benefits.

A single school in a rich district may have more funding than five or six entire districts in other parts of the city.

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