Is the PTA Relevant to Children?

I would love it if the PTA’s focus was, as your article stated, a way to improve parent involvement in the schools (“Can the PTA Get a Passing Grade?” by Molly Selvin and Gail Zellman, Oct. 20). That is the key to success with our children’s education, but local benefits are pushed aside for the so-called “benefit of the whole.”

Take a look at the PTA’s Web site and the long list of issues it’s dealing with on a national level. But on the local level, PTA work is so time-consuming and paperwork-laden that while it may help parents become better leaders in the community, it provides little immediate benefit to the local students it should serve. Does the PTA serve our children? I think the parents involved in their childrens’ schools have the right heart but are involved in the wrong organization.

M. Moore

San Pedro

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Is the PTA relevant? The answer can be found in the startling statistics released in October by the child advocacy group Children Now. In a nationwide study, California had the eighth highest rate of child poverty and 25% of the state’s children come from low-income families. The 10th District PTA’s low-cost eye and dental clinics are more relevant than ever.

Cynthia Chaney

Los Angeles