In New York City, a tiny circle of parent-teacher associations is swimming in cash while hundreds of others are scraping by or reporting nothing at all. Among the 1,240 PTAs that reported fundraising totals for the 2024-25 school year, the top 30 - roughly 2.5% of the group - pulled in almost half of all recorded money. About 390 PTAs said they raised zero dollars, and roughly 330 did not submit any fundraising data. Those gaps translate directly into who gets arts residencies, after-school slots, and extra staff - and ultimately which schools parents find most appealing.
Data shows extreme concentration
According to Chalkbeat, fundraising during the Education Department's 2024-25 reporting window was heavily concentrated among a small slice of PTAs. The outlet based its analysis on the 1,240 groups that actually filed numbers and noted that some schools either reported zero activity or skipped reporting altogether.
PTAs can supplement, but not supplant
City policy says every public school must have a parent association and makes it clear that PTA money is supposed to supplement a school's budget, not replace public dollars. The NYC Department of Education's A-660 regulation spells out how PA/PTAs are supposed to operate, including rules on governance, financial reporting, fundraising, bank accounts, and recordkeeping. Advocates argue that those requirements make training and district-level support critical if PTAs are going to help cover gaps without hardening existing inequalities between schools.
P.S. 20 shows what a well-funded PTA can do
One Brooklyn school offers a vivid example of what serious PTA money buys. P.S. 20 in Clinton Hill raised more than $1.16 million last year, with roughly 85% of that haul coming from a paid after-school program serving students from pre-K through fifth grade. The PTA used those dollars to cover an art teacher, gardening and beekeeping programs, library and building upgrades, a mix of full- and part-time school assistants, and teacher professional development, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.
District splits are stark
The district-level numbers make the imbalance even harder to ignore. PTAs in Manhattan's District 2 raised nearly $18 million, while District 23 - which covers high-poverty neighborhoods such as Ocean Hill and Brownsville - brought in roughly $29,000. The spread highlights just how concentrated PTA cash is across different parts of the city. The reporting also points to big gaps in per-pupil fundraising at individual schools, and researchers warn that well-funded PTAs can draw politically active families toward already resourced campuses and magnify inequities that are already baked into the system, Chalkbeat notes.
Fixes, training and pooling money
Parents and advocates are floating a set of practical fixes: more training for PTA officers, district- or citywide pooling programs, and scholarships so that paid after-school offerings do not automatically shut out low-income students. Groups like PTAlink already provide webinars and toolkits for PA/PTA treasurers, and the Department of Education's Fair Student Funding formula and budget tools are designed to send extra dollars to higher-need schools, according to the city's financial resources hub.
