Whoa, hold on a moment...

Texas state PTA I'd wager is somewhere around another $1.5 million. Ask Ms. Beyer what the Texas PTA paid for the conference chairs at state headquarters? Let's just say that those better be some awfully comfy chairs.

I'll let you all in on a secret- those chairs were allowed to be purchased as an honorarium for people. So, in actuality, that money has been returned. As for our budget, not all of it is from dues- remember, Texas Life Members don't pay state dues, just National. I think some of our budget comes from Grants and General Donations.

I bet you said that to draw me out, didn't you Tim? Oh, and yes, they are very comfy... you can even lean back in them.


Casey Magnuson
Texas PTA Environmental Chair

Michelle B,
I agrre with many of your points. As a local PTSA President in Baltimore County MD, I am beginning to get upset with where I am seeing PTA go. National felt the need to hire a CEO to run the organization. National also just restructured their entire organization. With many states looking to do the same, is this the beginning of loosing their Non Profit Status. We are beginning to look more like a corporation and I am no longer seeing the benefits that National says it offers. Maybe it is just the state I am in, but after a recent State Convention, I am even more inclined to look elsewhere for support. I am a dedicated PTA President and have more then 7 years as an officer in PTA as well as sitting on County Council. Many councils do not even know what Roberts Rules are much less follow them. I feel PTA's are loosing grasp and will eventually fall to the way side.
ny parents just do not care to know what PTA at teh State or National level does. all they want to know is what are we as local PTA's doing to improve their childs education in their school. That is the only question for them. You can educate them all you want and the answer will be the same. Abpout 10% will care the other 90% still want to know what are you doing at their school for their children. It's personal to them, never political. In my opinion, they would rather see their membership money stay at the local school level and not go to state or nations.

Good Lcuk but I am thinking of a change.

Originally posted by Michelle B:
I did quickly address the issue of dues but not fully. I don't see the cost of being a PTA as the money 'your school' is paying to belong. I pay my $4.00 to belong. It's my money, not the school's. It is your individual member's money that they are 'funneling' through your local group to be a member. It is not your school's or group's money...... A senior citizen for example, knows that when they join a local chapter of AARP that it is a much larger organization and that their benefits extend beyond their own locality.

Michelle - You've made some strong points re: PTA benefits, but this one just doesn't stand up. The majority (I'd say vast majority, but there's no current accurate measure) of PTA's 5.9 million members simply joined the "parent group" at their child's school. A note came home with Johnny, "sure we'll join," they said, and they forked over $5. If by random luck their child's school was a PTA, then they became members of National PTA and $3 or $4 of their $5 went out to satte and national. If, on the other hand, their child's school had a PTO then their whole $5 stayed at the school. For the vast majority of parents, that's the decision. They can't spell PTA (hah, hah) never mind identifying with its goals and political positions, etc. That's why the macro number ($800+ per group) is appropriate -- it's not at all like each parent is making an informed decision to join national PTA. Not at all.

And the AARP is a similarly off-base example. Folks join that eyes-open. Everyone (most everyone) who joins AARP makes a clear, personal (financial or political or otherwise) to join AARP. Maybe they want the magazine. Maybe they want the hotel discounts. Maybe they support the political activism. But they know exactly what they're joining. Not the same in PTA. The opposite, in fact.

Tim

One more little thing, mum said

One of the big weaknesses of the PTA is that they don't have access to individual members, so they have to rely on the local units to get the word out on issues.

That has been true. However, starting this year National PTA has begun to get e-mail addresses for individual members as they enroll and the 9 states that they have started with are encouraging the units to get them to. A lot of information that National has put out in the past, that was supposed to be handed down to the membership, may have never made it. It's very true that you are only as good as your local volunteers. (a President for example may get the information from a Council President to distribute to memberships but the President never shares it)
However, because of this disconnect with local leaders, the e-mail list is a way for National to reach these local members and get their viewpoints.

Mum also discussed the 700 that returned the surveys. What's important is that everyone would receive the survey at all. That's the disconnect. With this "getting back to grassroots" they are trying to foster greater input from the members. It's a good thing and it's working fairly well here. They are also directly mailing to individual members in these states.
This hopefully will benefit us greatly in getting a true perspective of the membership's desires.

I did quickly address the issue of dues but not fully. I don't see the cost of being a PTA as the money 'your school' is paying to belong. I pay my $4.00 to belong. It's my money, not the school's. It is your individual member's money that they are 'funneling' through your local group to be a member. It is not your school's or group's money. That individual membership combined with the other individual memberships are funneled through your group's account until it can be sent to where it needs to go. That being said, it is also EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for a local unit to let those members know what they are a member of. I encourage ALL my units to educate their members so that they do not think that it's just to be a member of the local group and that they have a membership with some benefits and values and to know what the organization is all about. A senior citizen for example, knows that when they join a local chapter of AARP that it is a much larger organization and that their benefits extend beyond their own locality.

Hi Susan -

Interesting topic. The three points discussed are important, but I'll add a couple of others, too.

I love reading these descriptions of PTO Today -- a loose consortium of publishers, merchants, and fundraising vendors? What the heck is that? Funny.

MichelleB makes the key point on PTA v PTO Today. That's very often how PTA higher-ups paint the choice (they then proceed to backhandedly trash PTO Today -- we're a convenient foil). The fact is, though, that your choice is actually PTA vs. Independence. Not PTA vs PTO Today. As a PTO, you don't have to pay a dime to PTO Today. You don't have to join anything. So the for-profit argument is a smokescreen. Our development -- and each year we have more services available for parent groups -- has made it easier to be independent and has made independent groups more effective. We have somem paid services, too, for groups that choose to get even more help from PTO Today.

As a simple aside, I'd mention that national PTA alone has an $11 million dollar budget with nearly 100 paid employees and offices in the Sears Tower in Chicago. Texas state PTA I'd wager is somewhere around another $1.5 million. Ask Ms. Beyer what the Texas PTA paid for the conference chairs at state headquarters? Let's just say that those better be some awfully comfy chairs. The "we're just a little ol' nonprofit" argument (especially when compared to PTO Today) doesn't hold a lot of water.

The National PTA's Hispanice initiative, in my opinion, should be a credit to PTA. It's good work that PTA is doing in that arena. Are your dues dollars supporting it? Yes. Did you vote on spending your dues dollars that way? No. But is it good work? In my opinion, yes.

Politics? Ithink folks above covered this pretty well. PTA is unabashedly about politics. That's one key differentiator. There are a lot of groups -- groups filled with very connected, caring, politically involved people -- who believe that politics (especially sometimes divisive issues like vouchers and sex education and charter schools and alternate lifestyle politics -- shouldn't be mixed with parent group work. These are people who may be very active Democrats or Republicans, may be the chair of their Right-to-Life Committee or their Pro-Choice Committee, but who believe that the parent group should be about making their school a wonderful place for their kids to learn. That's a very fair choice. PTA believes that the parent group work and the political activism do belong together. I disagree. That's a good discussion for your group to have, as it's a fundamental difference between PTOs and PTAs.

There was also no mention of dues above. It shouldn't be overlooked. If you go PTA, you'll pay (average here) somewhere north of $800 for the privilege. Your group should also look at what your getting in return for that investment.

Finally, I couldn't agree more with what mum said about speaking to current PTA folks and folks who've left PTA. It's not some coincidence that the number of PTA unts keeps dropping. The trend is too pronounced to be some sort of anomaly. Something's going on. And it's especially true in Texas. I get 5-10 "we're a PTA going PTO" calls per week. Lately, at least half of them have been from Texas alone. I don't know exactly why, but it's been eye-opening. There are at least three entire councils in Texas actively pursuing going PTO en masse. Some of those are public. Some of those are still very quiet.

Glad you're doing your homework. I would speak to a variety of officers (not council officers, but local unit officers) in Katy and ask for their feedback on affiliation. What are they getting from affiliation? There are some great councils and that local connection can be nice. Maybe Katy is one of those. You can also contact me directly (800-644-3561 x 203) if you have more questions.

Good luck,

Tim

It doesn't sound like you have much time, but before you switch I would strongly suggest that you talk to other PTA Presidents in your school district and get their take on some of the benefits, rather than just relying on what the council president tells you. My own experience is that what the state and/or district council people promise and what is actually delivered do not necessarily jive. Other people have had excellent experience with their state and district councils. Although PTA is a national organization, it's only as good as the local volunteers that you will have to work with.

I'll address two specific points that your council president brought up. One is on the various comments about supporting causes at the direction of the membership. I would ask some specific questions about how they go about getting that direction. One of the big weaknesses of the PTA is that they don't have access to individual members, so they have to rely on the local units to get the word out on issues. As an example, my district has something like 165,000 students in it, and is virtually all represented by PTA. The district recently took a survey about something, and received about 700 responses (that's not even 1%), many of which could have been duplicates, because there was no control on the survey to make sure you only voted once. The local district will no doubt take the results of this survey and use it to lobby for certain issues "at the direction of the membership." Would you feel comfortable with that? Our school very actively encouraged people to vote, but we were in the minority (and I also don't think we were very successful). Most schools failed to pass the survey on to their PTA members at all. Anyway, if you're going to go PTA, I think you need to find a person who is willing to go to your parents and find out what their stands are on certain issues, and then pass them along to the appropriate state/local representatives, so that your voice can be heard and counted. If you are not willing to do that, then why bother joining PTA for the lobbying benefits?

You will also find that many individual PTOs do some lobbying on certain issues that have a direct impact on them--rezoning, school board issues, etc. You won't find them lobbying on the national level like the PTA does, however--what Cindy Beyer says about this stuff I think is true. PTOs and PTAs basically have the same restrictions put on them in terms of being unable to endorse candidates for office.

I also feel compelled to talk about "ongoing training and support." If you want to join PTA to get this, ask some very specific questions. Several months ago I attended some "mandatory" new officer training at the local district level. Unfortunately, it apparently wasn't mandatory for the instructors, because many of them didn't bother showing up. While this training was free, I still wasted half a day (and $50 in babysitting) because the courses I wanted ended up being cancelled. The same thing happened to our local unit president when she went to a state convention for training. That said, there are some eLearning courses available on the National PTA website which look to be very good, although I haven't tried to take any of them. While the PTOToday conferences only happen once a year and aren't as widely available, they are inexpensive and practical, and can meet many needs. So, if you want to switch to PTA so you can get training, make sure you know what you might be able to get and how worthwhile it really is.

I'm unable to comment on the minority parent initiatives because I am unaware of any.

I disagree with the characterization of PTOToday, but will let Tim stand up for himself on that one....