In the postings above from PTA supporters I read things like "Schools are political arenas..." and "We make our treasurers accountable when they embezzle money from our organization"(paraphrase). I have no doubt that this is a frequent thing to watch out for.
Any parent who supports traditional family values and traditional moral norms or any parent who is not an ultra left-wing liberal supporter of the Democrat Party should be very clear on the political agenda of the National PTA. It is your right and obligation to know where your money is going and for what political causes. The PTA is right up there in league with the NEA and AFT in their fight to prevent any kind of meaningful school reform from taking place.
Everything they do is politically motivated and very left-wing.
If you don't believe me, just go the the press releases section of their own web site:
www.pta.org. You can find, for example who the speakers of their last DC Conference were. It's a "Who's Who" of Socialist politicos and Clinton flunkies. I've pasted them below for your convenience. I don't see any experts on School Reform Issues down there and rest assured you never will.
What you've got below as speakers at the PTA conference are the two most liberal Democrats in Congress, Ben Cohen, who is a Socialist,pot-smoking ex-hippie from Vermont (I used to live there), and Bill Clinton's most vulgar attack dog and critic-killer and his wife, the token conservative. Don't think that your dues money is going to much more than lining the pockets of left-wing Democrat politicians, because it isn't. And while the article was informative, I have to say that it deliberately chose not to expose the real political stripes and agenda of the PTA. As the commercial goes: "This is not your father's PTA". The PTA, G.L.A.D. and AFL-CIO are three peas in a pod and it's only fair that people know what they're joining. If you like multiculturalism, diversity and identity, ie. divisive politics, politically correct groupthink, mob-like coercion, government monopoly and antagonism toward religious based moral values, radical environmentalism, gay activist indoctrination at school etc. then by all means join the PTA. But,if you're more independently minded in your thinking, and don't consider Che Guevarra to be a great political hero, I suggest that you don't.
(From the PTA's web site)
Speakers Throughout the Conference Include:
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) and Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Department of Education Assistant Secretary Mario Moreno
Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club
Ben Cohen, co-founder Ben & Jerry's Famous Ice Cream and President of Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Stan Collender, Senior Vice President with Fleishman-Hillard
Mary Matalin and James Carville.