National PTA Seeks to Reverse Drop in Membership

Gary Parkes, president of the PTA at Carmel Elementary School, stands in an empty classroom in Woodstock, Ga. Parkes said he and many other parents in the local organization would like to sever ties with the National PTA and become an independent parent-teacher organization, but had been told by the school district that this would not be allowed.

—David Goldman/AP

Critics question costs, advocacy priorities of groups

By The Associated Press

When Otha Thornton, the president-elect of the National PTA, signed up to help lead the PTA at Maryland's Meade Senior High School in 2005, the chapter had about 25 members. Within two years, membership soared to 400 as the suburban Baltimore school community mobilized to boost morale and academic performance. Now, he's trying to rekindle that spirit on a larger scale as the PTA strives to reverse a steady decrease in its national membership.

"I tell parents: 'Other people are making choices for you and your children. We need you at the table,' " said Mr. Thornton, who will become the National Parent Teacher Association's first male African-American leader next year.

By any measure, the PTA, whose national headquarters are in Alexandria, Va., is one of the most venerable of America's volunteer-based nonprofits. It was founded in 1897 as the National Congress of Mothers and at its peak in the 1960s claimed...