Way Beyond Bake Sales: $1 Million PTAs.

EACH fall, parents at the Anderson School, a highly regarded K-8 on the Upper West Side for gifted and talented students, receive letters from the PTA emblazoned with the school's elegant ''A'' logo. Though Anderson indulges in the usual trappings of public-school fund-raising -- bake sales, book fairs, auctions -- this letter is blunter: It urges parents to simply write a check. And it suggests an amount: This school year, it was $1,300. Ayda Gibson, 44, the mother of a first grader at the school, said she did not mind being asked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]