Anyone for a Free Public Education? or to quote Time Magazine, "Can a PTA Bake Sale Save a Teacher's Job?"

Here is a link to a Time Magazine article and follow-up to my earlier post on the efforts of NY City schools to tamp down the private fundraising by parents.

My favorite paragraphs?

Yet even Korach will admit that the one major issue with relying on parents to help pay for school essentials is that it exacerbates inequities that already exist between well-off school districts and those with lesser means. "We're not naive," he says. "You couldn't do what we do in other communities."

Randi Weingarten, longtime head of the New York City teachers union and now president of the American Federation of Teachers, has long seen schools beg parents for additional help, handing out lists of classroom supplies that need to be purchased. To ramp that up would only "punctuate the haves and have-nots," says Weingarten. "It leaves the nagging feeling of, What does that mean for kids whose parents aren't able to fundraise like that?"

Can a PTA Bake Sale Save a Teacher's Job?