School budgets are so strapped these days that parent groups are not only battling to keep basics in the classroom, but some parents are even fighting one another. The superintendent in Albany, Calif., last fall suspended PTA-funded chess, music and art classes at two elementary schools after the parents at a third school complained they couldn’t afford a similar curriculum. Why, the parents at Marin and Cornell elementary schools wondered, is the PTA at Ocean View trying to keep our kids down? “It’s kind of sad,” says Edel Alon, an information-technology analyst and the Ocean View PTA president, who thinks private money in public schools can create inequality. “Parents have gotten into some pretty feisty arguments.”
