It's Their Party And We're Not Invited
If you answered yes to both of those questions, then you could be eligible to attend the inaugural benefit for the five charters in the Hebrew Charter School Center's (HCSC) network (including Hatikvah, which is taking almost $300,000 from my small district next year).
"Afternoon at the Theater" is a private performance of Roald Dahl's "Matilda The Musical" at the Schubert Theater in NYC.
That's right. A private performance of a Broadway musical as a fundraiser for five "public" schools.
You need some serious disposable income if you want to attend this school fundraiser on steroids.
Sponsorship Packages
$50,000 - Chancellor
TWO teachers in every classroom!
Help to enable every Hebrew Charter School Center classroom in Harlem, Washington, DC, East Brunswick, NJ, San Diego CA and Brooklyn to have two teacher in every classroom."
Includes 12 premium Matilda tickets
$25,000 - Superintendent
Give our kids a leg up!
Send out most at risk students to summer and spring recess sessions at Harlem Hebrew.
Includes 10 premium Matilda tickets
$18,000 - Head of School
Broaden our students' horizons!
Help provide chess, Israeli dance, and music in one school for a year.
Includes 8 premium Matilda tickets
$10,000 - Principal
Make our teacher the BEST!
Help support educational coaching for teachers in Hebrew, math and general studies for our teachers in all HCSC schools.
Includes 6 premium Matilda tickets
$5,000 - Teacher
Support our most challenged students!
Help support special education including additional instructional time for our most challenged students.
Includes 4 premium Matilda tickets.
Individual Tickets
$750 - Priority Plus Seat
$500 - Priority Seat
$250 - General Seat
Sponsor a student
$250 - Sponsor one of our students to join us at the show!Interested?
Or maybe you wish you could figure out a way to have this kind of fundraiser for your kid's school?
Well, here's all you have to do to make that happen!
Step One !
Find a hedge fund demi billionaire!
Step Two!!
Get his daughter(who also happens to be married to a hedge fund guy)to run one of your schools and be on your board!!
Step Three!!!
Gather your closest, most loaded New York socialite friends to be on the Host and Event Commitees!!!
Jonathan Tisch Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels.
Jeffrey Zucker President of CNN Worldwide
Lisa Applebaum Haddad She may have less name recognition, but she's the daughter of Eugene Applebaum, who sold his chain of drugstores to CVS in 1998 for a mere $1.48 BILLION. Oh, and Lisa happens to be a HCSC board member.You could spend hours searching through the list of developers, investment firm CEOs, and entrepreneurs named Bippy on the Host and Events Committees, and one just turns out to be more stinking rich than the next.
Traditional public schools that aren't backed by billionaires DO NOT have the kind of connections to pull off a private performance of a hit Broadway musical. Guess we'll just have to stick to bake sales, book fairs and box tops to get extra programs for our kids.
Can you imagine the fundraising efforts it would take in a public school to afford two teachers in every classroom? But these guys can make that happen in a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon.
Must be nice.
I have half a mind to hang out in front of the Schubert theater on Sunday with a big sign.
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| Wanna join me? |
Nice! I wonder how much David Tepper, Avery Eisenreich or even Roy Tanzman contributed... Or, do you think they just call in political favors to get things like use variances reinstated?
ReplyDeleteAs a Jew, I find this shameful. No separation of church and state, and a synagogue (which truly IS a non-profit organization, and does not receive state funds) style fundraiser. PLUS--adding salt to the wounds--taking money away from the public school district, cheating those children.
ReplyDeleteI had argued against the approval of this charter previously, on Diane Ravitch's Blog. (I live in another state.) A shanda! (shame, scandal)
Are you really criticizing a school for fundraising? My spouse is a teacher in a public school and the parents of the students spend more money on cigarettes than they spend on providing pencils, notebooks and paper to their kids. They wouldn't spend a nickel for their schools. If this fundraiser was for your kid's school would you criticize them too?
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteHave you EVER heard of such a fundraiser for a traditional public school? I sure haven't. I helped organize a gourmet dinner fundraiser for my kids' school that was $50 a plate and people balked at the price. Tickets for this fundraiser started at $250 and went as high as $50,000.
When a charter chain is backed by a billionaire, even fundraising becomes inequitable. That's all I'm saying.
And dear, I hope your public school teaching spouse doesn't speak of his/her students' parents with the same level of disdain as you express above. While I couldn't agree more that parent support is crucial, your comment is dripping with contempt, and I find that distasteful.
Thanks for stopping by!
Darcie
Darcie, really?
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that that the Hebrew Language people may have learned from Highland Park what a good fundraiser theater can be: This past year the Highland Park Education Foundation hosted an evnet using its Broadway connections to raise money when they featured Amy Herzog at the Italian Bistro.
The Highland Park Education Foundation has boasted over the years raising thousands of dollars for the Highland Park Public schools, and I would think that the Highland Park Education Foundation folks would love to leverage other famous HPHS grads like Sam Hoffman, Willie Garson and Soterios Johnson. So while the Matilda fundraiser may have been a bit more sucessful, Highland Park is hardly limited to boxtops.
And while the Highland Park Education Foundation may have not been sucessful raising big money for the Highland Park public schools, other public school supporters have been very effective in raising very large sums:
The Princeton Education Foundation has boasted giving their district $113,000 this past school year.
The Rumson Education Foundation boasts having raised $15 Million since its inception for their school district.
The Somerset Hills Education Foundation just raised over $100,000 at their chiili cook off.
and,
The Summit(NJ) Education Foundation just raised $150,000 at their Casino night fundraiser. And the foundation boasts giving their public school districts $342,000.00 in grants in 2012.