Today’s Wall Street Journal features this article about financially troubled public schools seeking sponsorship from churches and corporations.
It seems local school districts are seeking sponsorship for everything from buying pencils and textbooks, to music teachers and engineering programs.
This seems wrong on many levels. On one hand, corporate sponsors want to advertise in the school cafeteria for brands like Nike. On the other hand, the church groups are distributing shoes to needy students.
We just had a parent meeting for the school where my daughter will attend kindergarten next year. Because of the changing demographics in the neighborhood, they’re looking at half the funding they used to get from the state, feds and school district. 4 years ago, the school was 97% low income, now it’s only 63% low income. The state and feds pay more per low income pupil than they do other pupils, so they have the same number of heads with far fewer dollars.
The school district solution is to make cuts, of course, including reducing kindergarten to a half day (really, 2.5 hours.) The parent group (a 501c3) formed to raise funds, and solicited the kindergarten parents to make “donations” so we could keep a full day class, instead. They’re asking for $100 a month (or $800 a year) from folks who can pay it, $25 a month from those eligible for reduced price lunch and $10 a month from those eligible for free lunch.
It makes sense to me, although of course I wish it wasn’t necessary. I definitely prefer it to marketing in the school from contracts with corporations and churches. But I also realize that not every school has a parent community who can or will make similar arrangements in their schools. It takes nearly a full time job to organize such an organization, and we’re very lucky to have people willing to do it, and lucky to have parents who recognize the need and are willing to pitch in funds over and above our property taxes to ensure our own kids get a good education. But what about those other schools whose parents can’t?
I can see soliciting help from local businesses, that just seems like a win-win situation.
My son’s middle school is a few blocks away from a large local bookstore (Bookman’s for those who care). Bookman’s gives the school generous donations of money and materials. The school has a big sign out front thanking Bookman’s for their generosity.
The school gets donations they wouldn’t otherwise have. Bookman’s gets free advertising, a reputation for being a good corporate citizen, and the thanks of parents who will probably go there to buy their books.
That’s not really free advertising for Bookman’s. They only get the sign in front of the school because they donate materials. Cost of advertising = cost of donated materials.
If public schools are accepting private sponsorships, must they accept everyone who makes them an offer? Should they draw a line at some point regarding sponsorships they are not willing to accept?
It’s one thing for a book store to make a financial contribution to a school in exchange for a credit line on the school’s marquee, but what about a gun shop?
I am nowhere near a lawyer, but I don’t see why they can’t. I’ve run three businesses which solicited advertising, and I was never threatened with legal action for not accepting a specific ad. (Mostly, I’d turn down the massage establishments that seemed sketchy or had a bad reputation.) Of course, anything is possible these days. But a contract is still a contract, and you can enter or reject a contract from anyone you wish, as long as you’re not discriminating against a protected class. Gun shops, NAMBLA, even Pepsi are not protected classes.
The only way I see things getting sticky is if they’re using a third party to collect the ads, the way the SDMB posts ads they claim to have no control over.
An obvious problem, mentioned in the 2008 thread, is what about religious advertising? “This test sponsored by Skyclad Coven of Wicca” would probably upset some people. Or political advertising. “Candidate A supports our schools. Candidate B takes a wide stance in bathroom stalls.”
Thanks for the replies. I can see the point that, while tax revenues are down, there is a great deal of benefit in having outside assistance step up and help pay for things the schools need.
I’m still troubled by some things in that article. Even if school boards can pick and choose their contracts, we have before us an example of a school where tobacco company sponsorship is not acceptable but gun stores are fine. Also, in the specifics they give about sponsorship by the large Baptist church, although it sounds like the church is keeping a fairly low profile, the school principle says he thinks it’s wonderful and he hopes more of the kids will “come to Jesus.”
The article mentioned another concern is that more companies/churches will want to be sponsors in more affluent school districts rather than for those in low income areas. Should that be regulated?
WhyNot, you mentioned the ways the parents in your district are stepping up and contributing their own money to help offset some expenses in the schools. Did your association make the decision to pay out of pocket in lieu of accepting sponsorship?
As for Pepsi, they have deep pockets and they can sponsor a lot of great things for a school, but at what cost? There has been a huge push here, and I assume nationwide, to get sodas and junk food out of the schools. It seems inevitable that inviting a company like Pepsi to sponsor a school program is also an invitation to bring their products back to the cafeterias. Where can we draw the line between oboes and obesity?
On the other hand, I think the Credit Union setting up a branch in the school cafeteria is great. Talking to kids about responsibly handling their money is often left too late, and a lot of young adults find themselves in real world trouble.
Although I realize the school districts can pick and choose who they accept as sponsors, the parents are going to have to watch them like hawks. Some are good; some are bad; some are insidious. It makes me uneasy.
I don’t know the answer to that. I’m new, and was not a part of the parent organization when they set things up; I don’t know if they sought or were offered other forms of support.
There are some corporate “sponsors” listed on main page of the website, namely Field Foundation of Illinois (I have no idea who they are or what they do) and Home Depot, who donated $500 worth of gardening tools for the school’s ecology program. The Thank You to Home Depot mentions a parent by name; I don’t know if she works for Home Depot or solicited the donation from them as a private individual or as a representative of the parent organization.
There are also 30 restaurants “recommended” on the website, with a note that they donated food for a fund raising event last year, and a list of 13 “Corporate Sponsors” which seem to be area businesses, “for donating to our [event], helping us reach our $75,000 goal.” So it seems they do accept donations from businesses, but I can’t tell you if the website mentions (and logos) are paid advertising or complimentary gestures. …Oh, actually, I know one of the business owners listed there! I’ll send her an email and see if she can tell me more.
It’s worth noting that these are all listed on the parent organization’s website, which is a different website from the official school one, and all fundraising is done through this parent organization, a legal 501c3 not-for-profit, not the school directly. When I walked through the school, I did not notice any advertising other than the Dairy Council stuff that’s common in school lunchrooms, but it’s possible I missed something. So it seems that they’ve struck a balance here - businesses may advertise with the parent organization without the advertising being in the kids’ faces.
This argument always amazes me. Property tax collections here are at the level they were in 2003. How in the world were the schools able to run in 2003 with such a meager level of funding?
I know many, many people, myself included that make less money now than I did in 2003. We have to tighten our belts and make do with what we have. The schools continue to increase spending like it comes from a printing press. Instead of stopping their bloated programs or getting rid of one of the 4 useless vice principals, they talk about how kids will have to sit outside in the rain to learn because they can’t afford to maintain the roof anymore.
Not really. one of the 5,348 basic and inevitable problems with our near-total reliance on public schools is that when tax revenue goes down, the schools get hammered. It’s basic math and it can’t be avoided. When the money doesn’t flow in to the government coffers, there will be a shortfall. When the shortfalls are as drastic as they are right now, desperate measures will result.
I am, like any decent person, concerned about the results of having children surrounded by advertising throughout the school day for twelve years of their life. Education is supposed to expand the mind to consider different worldviews. How will kids learn to question corporate mentality if they’re staring at McDonald’s and Nike ads all day starting at age 5? Nonetheless, it’s not like kids are getting a shortage of advertising already, so I doubt this will be too much of a change.