The ABC’s of the PTA
By
Diana Prince
Article
Last Updated: 05/4/2009
Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and…PTA?
Well, maybe that’s not the exact jingle
today’s crop of PTA parents grew up
with, but as far as nostalgia goes,
what’s more all-American than our
century-old PTA? It conjures up images
of well-scrubbed children, bake sales
and volunteering moms – the stuff of
Norman Rockwell’s finest and the
veritable backbone of the American
family. Established back in 1897,
there’s no denying the PTA has left an
indelible footprint on the American
landscape since its inception.
Only eleven years younger than its
parent organization, this year marks the
100th anniversary of the
Texas chapter of the PTA, which has been
suffering from
steadily declining numbers
despite a statewide increase in ISD
enrollment. In response, the Texas PTA
has begun to strategically
distance itself
from this heartwarming image of
hardworking but politically disinclined
coffee-swilling, cookie-baking
housewives, by touting its ability to
influence state policy through a 600,000
plus strong remaining membership. But
why the dwindling numbers?
In
an ironic twist, the Texas PTA may want
to rethink its latest PR strategy
of positioning itself as a political
machine and reconnect to those homegrown roots
it blames for the attrition. A brouhaha
last month at the State Capitol reveals
some fractures in this organization’s
picturesque image and a thinly-veiled
but well-hidden agenda that would
indicate it is the teachers’ unions that
call the PTA shots while partisan
platforms prevail. One thing is certain;
these recent events brazenly contradict
the public perception of a
non-threatening, one-for-all,
all-for-one kind of Americana. More on
that later - let’s get down to basics
first.
What is the PTA?
Although for most the name still evokes
visions of bake sales and old-fashioned
neighborliness, the PTA has been working
overtime to bill itself as equal parts
political prowess and home-grown values.
As described on the
Texas PTA website,
PTA is a non-partisan “grassroots
organization made up of parents,
teachers and others around the state
that has a special interest in children,
families and schools. By joining PTA, a
member automatically becomes part of the
largest child-advocacy organization in
the state -- over 630,000 strong across
Texas.”
The largest child-advocacy
organization in Texas.
Now that’s some muscle. And it’s
hard to argue with the worthiness of
such a cause. Both the state and
national
PTA motto
is “Every Child. One
Voice.” with the shared vision of
“Making every child’s potential a
reality.” Who wouldn’t support that?
But what happens when that one voice for
every child doesn’t seem to speak for
children or parents at all?
What does the “P” stand for in PTA?
Almost anyone could tell you that the
“P” stands for “parent.” But does it
really? Or does the “P” actually
stand for a plethora of purposes such
as, perhaps, pushing partisan platforms
promoting policies protecting public
schools, per se?
Whew - bet you can’t say that ten times
fast! Who knew so many p-words and such
powerful politicking were behind the “P”
in PTA? And since when did politics and
the PTA get all jumbled up?
That just may be the
best kept little secret of the PTA,
as explained by former public school
teacher, Charlene K. Haar, who studied
this issue and divulged her findings in
a 2003 book she authored entitled, “The
Politics of the PTA.” And what she found
is likely to make the average PTA parent
choke on their morning cuppajoe. In a
2003 interview regarding her book, Ms.
Haar explained:
“We need to go back to 1920,
when the PTA headquarters was
actually in the NEA (National
Education Association) building
in Washington, DC….The 1960s was
…when the NEA decided to
transform itself into a teacher
union like its rival, the
American Federation of Teachers…
Although the PTA had moved out
of the NEA headquarters in 1953,
there was still a very close
relationship between them. Many
teachers were leaders in the
PTA, just as they are today. The
NEA let it be known that if PTAs
continued to support the school
board during teacher strikes,
the NEA would pull its teachers
out and start a competing
organization. The PTA was afraid
of losing members, and so, in
1968, the PTA Board of
Directors--not the
membership--set a policy
declaring that, in teacher
strikes, the PTA would not
oppose the teachers and the
teachers’ union…
…local PTAs can no longer
provide any support to parents
who wish to challenge union
positions. In fact, a few
years ago at the NEA convention,
NEA President Keith Geiger
reminded the PTA that its
locals were bound by PTA policy
not to challenge the teacher
union positions in
collective bargaining.”
Is
it any wonder, then, that a notorious
teachers’ union partisan position and
textbook polarizing political
strategy
can be found among the Texas PTA 2009
Legislative priorities, slipped in at
the very bottom of the list?
Oppose
Vouchers
“Texas PTA supports our system of
public education as the major
vehicle for perpetuating the basic
values of a democratic system of
government. This system must be
strengthened and continue to be
governed by public officials
accountable to the public and
supported by adequate funding.
Texas PTA opposes voucher systems
or tuition credits for nonpublic
school tuition and other
education-related expenses, and
believes home schools and other
nonpublic schools should meet the
same educational standards as public
schools.”
It’s not surprising that an organization
built of public school supporters would
support the public school system, but
should that system and its profiteers
trump the desires of parents and needs
of children? According to the Texas PTA,
it most certainly does. And this is
where the organization found themselves
up to their elbows in hot water last
month in Austin, when they activated
their massive network to recruit a
parent of a child with autism to testify
against a locally-developed and
parent-driven bill, Senate Bill 2204,
that was designed to
enhance public school services in
order to improve life outcomes for
students with autism.
The bill was developed for those
students most at risk of ending up in
costly residential placements in order
to allow them to pursue an independent
life, and spare parents one of their
greatest fears – seeing their children
end up imprisoned in one of the 12
Texas state schools.
Yet in a pervasive political ploy, the
PTA tagged it a “voucher” and deemed it
must die.
The following is the exact text of an
e-mail that was sent by the Plano
Council of PTAs to both local members
and forwarded to neighboring ISDs:
Plano Council of PTAs is in need
of a PARENT of a CHILD WITH
AUTISM to present a testimonial
TOMORROW before the Texas Senate
opposing a Voucher Bill.
Funding of this quick trip to
Austin is available, CAN YOU
HELP?
It
is unknown just how many of these
emergency action alerts went out from
the various PTA chapters on the eve of
the hearing on Senate Bill 2204. It is
no accident, however, that the city of
Plano was specifically targeted to
recruit a PTA “plant” for this hearing.
SB 2204 was filed by Plano’s own Senator
Shapiro, a much-beloved champion of
children’s rights and, in particular, a
staunch advocate for students with
autism. Perhaps the PTA thought it would
be particularly powerful (and painful)
for the Senator to be faced with her own
constituent fighting her own bill.
And the PTA gods delivered! A Plano
parent of not one but two young
children with autism scrambled to heed
the request with a single-minded mission
– to kill the bill, possibly enticed by
an all-expenses paid trip to Austin
courtesy of the PTA pocketbook.
And the testimony was painful,
just as the PTA must have hoped, but not
in the way they had hoped. There
was one major miscalculation by the
Texas PTA and their dutiful recruit. Her
children had Asperger’s syndrome, a very
high-functioning form of autism, and per
her own testimony, were not in need of
an intensive behavioral program like
those students in need of a crisis
intervention plan for whom the bill
was written. While all children who fall
anywhere on the broad autism spectrum
are entitled to appropriately
individualized education plans according
to federal law, this parent had
something else on her mind – insurance
coverage related to mental health
disorders. Her testimony even seemed to
suggest that our public schools have no
obligation to address affected
children’s educational needs at all –
calling it a “health issue…that needs to
be addressed in the medical
setting and paid for by health
insurance, not our education
funds.”
It
wasn’t more than a minute into her
testimony representing the Texas PTA
that it became clear this parent was not
a stakeholder in the legislation she was
opposing. She was an unfortunate pawn in
a bigger
agenda that encourages the silent
cleansing of certain students.
Unlike the other parents who were there
on their own dime to speak from the
heart to support legislation that they
hoped would lead to a better future for
these children, it was transparent that
the only parent opposing SB 2204 must
have been motivated by something else (a
perk package?) that would be incentive
enough to leave her two young children
with autism at home to travel to Austin
to fight a bill designed to bring
resources from the private sector into
the public school setting for the
betterment of all.
Once the ploy was discovered and she
confessed to her all-expenses-paid
appearance courtesy of the Texas PTA,
rather than retreat gracefully, she
became increasingly combative and
condescending, insisting that all
children with autism, no matter where
they may fall on the broad spectrum, are
“the same” and that she was there to
“educate (Senator Shapiro) on this
(issue.)” She continued to insult
Senator Shapiro, insisting she
“obviously” needed to be educated on the
topic until she was told her time was up
and made a hasty exit. Not surprisingly,
the Texas PTA officers who were at the
hearing to testify on other legislation
that day did a disappearing act as well,
one would assume out of utter
embarrassment and possibly to strategize
on how to contain this PR disaster.
Imagine the surprise then, when parents
contacted the Texas PTA about this
outrage, only to be met with as
unapologetic a posture as the Plano
parent herself demonstrated on the
witness stand. It seems the Texas PTA
hoped parents would believe the PTA had
been victimized in some way, and their
witness harassed and unfairly cut short
despite her factually inaccurate
testimony, personal irrelevance and
irreverence and having substantially
exceeded the allotted time, and despite
selling out all children with special
needs’ rights to an individualized
education in order to “support and
strengthen the public education system.”
So where is the apology to the
parents and children the PTA sold out?
To the dues-paying PTA parents
everywhere who were stunned and
embarrassed by this testimony that they
themselves unwittingly funded and who
never knew they were paying a state
organization to lobby in their name
while taking questionable legislative
positions they were never polled on?
Or
is the reality of joining the PTA merely
that parents pay for the privilege to
work their tails off for their
children’s public schools, only to find
themselves prostituted when those
dollars are hijacked to fund the
lobbying activities of teachers’ unions
that are counter to serving our most
vulnerable students and families? So
let’s ask again:
What does the “P” stand for in
PTA?
Here’s an action alert for the Texas PTA
officers:
