Saturday, March 17, 2012

At the PTA, Clashes Over Cupcakes and Culture - NYTimes.com

At the PTA, Clashes Over Cupcakes and Culture - NYTimes.com:


‘It’s Never Just About the Cupcake’

Dave Sanders for The New York Times
FUND-RAISING At Public School 295 in Brooklyn, bake sales raise money for good causes. But they can also cause tension between affluent and less-well-off parents.
THE Cupcake Wars came to Public School 295 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, in October.

What Did You Spend on Public School This Year?

Supplies, trips, fundraisers and activity costs add up. Help us figure out how much public school parents are spending by completing our online form.
Metropolitan | The New York Times
Read more articles in this week's Metropolitan section.
Ángel Franco/The New York Times
HELPING Carmen Reyes, a PTA president in Harlem, helped families afford a fund-raising fair.
The Parent-Teacher Association’s decision to raise the price of a cupcake at its monthly bake sale — to $1, from 50 cents — was supposed to be a simple way to raise extra money in the face of city budget cuts.
Instead, in a neighborhood whose median household income leaped to $60,184 in 2010 from $34,878 a decade before, the change generated unexpected ire, pitting cash-short parents against volunteer bakers, and 





How much have you spent this year on your child's school or school-related activities?

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Schoolbook-50SchoolBook Editors  March 15, 2012, 1:53 PM
Public school is rarely free. But how expensive is it, really? After five years of cuts to school budgets, New York City parents are being asked to contribute much more. Add in expenses for ambitious and enriching school and after-school activities, programs, trips, events, sports and extras like school pictures and yearbooks -- and the dollars mount.
SchoolBook’s journalists want to figure out how much New York City public school parents are spending on school-related expenses – and for what. How do your school's expenses stack up against others across the city? Are the costs higher than in the past? And what expense has taxed – or irritated -- parents the most?