Spring is here and that means the final dash to do fundraising this school year. Across the country, bake sales, car washes and candy drives will be sponsored by PTAs in a desperate attempt to nickel-and-dime parents into funding everything from end-of-year promotions to field trips. As long as I’ve been a public school parent in Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., I’ve participated in this rite of passage. As vice president of my son’s elementary school PTA, we spent many hours trying to find ways to carve up a small, shriveled pie.