California district takes control over PTA-funded enhancements at individual schools

From The San Francisco Chronicle: Patrons of the Albany (Calif.) Unified School District are up in arms over new district-imposed controls on PTA cash at each of the city's three elementary schools. The school board is dictating what parents can and can't buy for their kids to supplement their public education: things like school-day art, music and chess. The controversy arose earlier this year, when district officials decided it wasn't fair for two of the schools, Marin and Cornell, to have parent-funded academic extras like chess, art and music class while Ocean View, their less affluent sister school, went without. So the district suspended those extra classes.