$1 Million PTAs and a Ruling on the Word 'Gay'.

In ''Way Beyond Bake Sales: $1 Million PTAs,'' on the cover of last Sunday's Metropolitan section, Kyle Spencer wrote about New York City public schools where parents' groups raise amounts in the $1 million range annually. On NYTimes.com, readers debated the role of private wealth in a public education system. A selection of comments is below. Readers also responded to Ginia Bellafante's Big City column, which examined the word ''gay'' and its changing currency as an insult in light of a court ruling that a false accusation of homosexuality could no longer be considered slander. In a large public-school system where the city gives the same dollar amount for each child, this is how the class system stays maintained. The haves have more. The have-nots don't. How different is it from the suburbs where local taxes support local districts, where wealthy towns have well-provided successful schools and poor towns have poor, failing, underfunded schools? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]