Charity: a Share for the Schools

Media and sports tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s family foundation donates $10 million for the construction of a new cathedral in Los Angeles--the Catholic Church’s version of the Belmont Learning Complex. Bill Gates plops down $6 billion for the largest charity organization ever, and a multitude of other multibillion and millionaires are making charitable donations to universities and churches throughout Southern California.

Hey, what about us--the real impoverished--the K-12 public schools? Every time I see a new building going up on the overcrowded UCLA campus or on the lawns of USC, I find myself repeating my mantra, “Hey what about us? Don’t we matter too?”

Building a new church in Los Angeles or adding a new university building is like opening another nail shop or liquor store in the inner city, where I live and work. I can’t tell these rich people how to spend their money or where to put their donations, but if I could, I would direct them to my school and others like it.

Take Murdoch’s recent boon to the richest nonprofit corporation in the world--the Catholic Church. His $10 million given directly to our 2,000-strong student body would supply each student with a new laptop and personal reading library to start off the new school year. The money would also buy a new gymnasium for the physical education department and supply our school with a dance instructor and permanent computer trouble-shooter. The rest of the money could go to our neighbors at Crenshaw High so that they could build a much needed auditorium and expanded library.

Building churches and university buildings to save souls and build minds is fine, but this money mostly goes to adults who need repair or who have already been saved or educated. Why not spend the money on building and educating young minds and saving wayward souls? My inner-city school, like most of the other schools in our area, is in a gang fight with poverty, violence and low test scores. Why not jump in and save at least one of our schools and show how charity, when it begins at home, can uplift the academically and spiritually downtrodden?

Southern California is home to some of the richest high school alumni in the country. Our region also generates billions for the entertainment and sports industry, yet none of these institutions see the formative years as being worthy of largess. Why not contribute to the alma maters that molded and prepared them for their successful lives?

To his credit, Keyshawn Johnson, the New York Jets wide receiver and Dorsey High alumnus, has contributed thousands in scholarships to Dorsey High students, but his Dorsey High counterpart, Karim Abdul Jabbar of the Miami Dolphins, has done nothing for Dorsey.

Hollywood’s movie moguls could also do well to build a few media centers on our local urban campuses. Students are dying to learn more than the three Rs. Learning how to edit film and sound, direct, produce and act in a motion picture would go a long way in helping our students stay focused in school and manifest how their education relates to the real world.

With our school buildings averaging 75 years in age, and more than half of the students we teach living below the poverty line, we too need cathedrals of knowledge to be built.