Local Fund-Raising Prompts Larger Questions About Equity

By Ann Bradley

The idea had such an appealing, '90s ring to it: Rather than wait for their school board to pay for a new high school auditorium, residents of Bowie, Md., would rally together and raise the money themselves.

After all, the proposed auditorium had languished on the list of capital projects in the Prince George's County school system since 1976. With budgets tight and new classrooms the school board's highest building priority, Bowie High School's boosters could see that their cherished project was going nowhere.

So they decided to step in where government...