A long article in Sunday's Los Angeles Times describes the Parent-Teacher Association's struggle to survive declining membership and increasing demands on parents' time and energy. Eclipsed at wealthier schools by fund-raising booster clubs, the PTA is described as battling its Leave-it-to-Beaver image as a "coffee-and-cookies" club for middle-class white women, as well as a disconnect between school-based chapters and the PTA's federal, state and regional hierarchy. Undiscussed in this article is the possibility that parents are abandoning the PTA because it has evolved in a fully fledged member of the public-school establishment and is far more attentive to "T" than "P" concerns.
"Can the PTA get a passing grade?", by Molly Selvin and Gail Zellman, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2002
