This year, we finally said “enough” and told the boys that we wouldn’t be participating in any fundraisers at school. This has been quite liberating, especially given the number of fundraising events in the Perrysburg elementary schools. There’s Market Day, and the Scholastic book sales, and Sally Foster, and the American Heart Association… and the quarterly fundraisers at Wendy’s and McDonald’s… and probably some other ones, the memories of which I’m repressing.
I don’t mean to sound stingy, but we pay hefty property and city income taxes already, and the notion that I have to let my kids pimp wrapping paper, candy, or anything else to buy “extras” rankles. It’s made worse by the fact that many of these fundraisers offer ticky-tack prizes for the kids; that just raises the noise level, and in the end the schools don’t get much of the money anyway. So, we just said “no”. This Detroit News story outlines a third option: some parent-teacher organizations are just asking parents to write checks if they want to opt out of the fundraisers. I’d be happy to do that.
Paul's Down-Home Page 
Amen – these schemes totally discount the cost and overhead of the products being sold. And, it masks the true problem – underfunded schools.
Around here, in the Palo Alto school district, where the houses are all $1.5 million+ and 2br/2ba condos are $750k+, from what I’ve heard parents are required to bring a voluntary donation of $2000 in cash. Note the huge number of ironies in that statement. Talk about broken.
I guess not every area can be as forward thinking as where I grew up (Long Island) – where my middle school had a full fledged TV studio (with blue screen, tv truck, and etc).