Growing up, my elementary school sold wrapping paper. It was an OK deal, so my mom usually bought a roll or two. Same thing with "happenings" books (Predecessor to "entertainment" books). etc. Every year she'd complain about it, saying, "I'd rather just give the school money." Once I was out of school, she stopped buying.

Didn't she understand that if we just give the school money, I don't get the inflatable guitar that is not available anywhere in stores???!!!

Anyway, fast forward to today where (maybe this is just in my area) taxes that go to the school district are quite high. Additionally, we spend $100-200 on school supplies (that are "donated" to the grade. . .may not even go to my son's class). On top of that, there are 3 fundraisers, a box-top-for-education drive, a fall and spring festival (which usually costs me around $50 each). And his (public) school requires uniforms that are only available through the PTO. It seems excessive. (In addition to the usual school junk like book drives, book orders, selling candy for the band, etc.)

My son just came home with this year's first fundraiser. Gifts, gift wrap, cookies, and other miscellaneous crap. They had a presentation on all the stuff they could win, including "sell 50 and your name is entered into a drawing to get a limo ride to lunch." Maybe I'm too harsh of a parent, but we had a long talk about how $10 for a small spool of ribbon or $30 for giftwrap is a ripoff. Then I explained how much the flingmonkey cost them, and showed him where he could buy one with his own money. Then I showed him where we collect many, many boxtops to donate. And talked about how to use money wisely. Should I have just bought some cookies and been done with it?

I would like to see a little more transparency in our schools regarding where all of this money goes. We should be able to see teachers' salaries (including a breakdown of how much they make per month of the school year), administrators, etc. And where all the money is going, including what percentage is from each drive. Then, maybe they could say at the beginning of the year, if you donate $500 right now, your child will not waste a single minute of their time in a fundraising assembly in the cafe-gym-atorium.

And after all that, I hear about how my son loves science "the most, because we don't have to do anything. . .we just watch a whole Bill Nye the Science guy." When I asked what it was about, he says "I don't know, but it had a lot of explosions. . .even a whole building exploded."

Awesome.