Benefits

Benefits of Commericialism

"THE SQUEEZE is on for public school districts in Illinois. Caught in the pinch between skyrocketing expenses and slowly growing revenues, many districts have cut programs, reduced staff, shelved expansion plans and withheld salary increases. Some have cut extracurricular activities such as sports, school newspapers and yearbooks. Others have gone to a 12-month schedule. In human terms these retrenchments mean that many Illinois students no longer have the benefit of the same programs that students enjoyed ten or even five years ago. In economic terms, they show that the revenue base supporting public education in Illinois — from federal, state and local sources — is insufficient" (David V. May).

Many of you might think that this statement from an October issue of Illinois Issues is perhaps from a year or two ago. Sadly the above statements are not recent. In 1977 the state of the State of Illinois, and much of the nations public education systems were already in trouble. Public education has not improved significantly in its finances since 1977 on its own. School districts are being forced to look to sources outside the government for funding.

Looking to business or individuals for financial assistance is not a new concept for government funded organizations. Universities take contributions from individuals and name buildings after them. Hospitals take contributions from individuals or organizations and name wings after them. Public schools are just getting on board. June 27, 2005, The Detroit News reports that some schools in Michigan are so strapped for funds that they are considering selling naming rights to increase revenue. "That could be the reality in the Plymouth-Canton school district, where administrators say their budget is so tight they may consider selling naming rights to their new elementary, existing schools, athletic field or even events." (MacDonald) They have not had any companies submit their financial contributions in exchange for naming rights yet, but it is something that the district is seriously considering. In the case of the new elementary school being built, a company could donate 51% of the 15 million dollar expected price and receive naming rights to the building. The more than 7.5 million that would be donated would be an enormous help to the district as anyone could imagine. Michigan is not alone in their interest in selling advertisement to businesses. On a smaller, but mobile, scale, in Scottsdale Unified School District, the school board has approved the selling of exterior bus space for advertisements (restrictions to be determined by the superintendent).

"Businesses are increasingly making inroads into the classroom, particularly in underfunded schools. In exchange for advertising space and marketing research, businesses provide money, teaching materials, technology resources, and sports equipment." (Larson) Many underfunded schools would be without scoreboards, playing fields, computer labs, software, auditoriums, texts, etc... if it were not for outside funding. The funding might come with a catch, must identify publicly the funding source, but each case needs to be weighed to see if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Does a teacher identify a local business with a poster in the class to recognize who paid for the weekly newspapers (Newspapers In Education contributor) or not get the newspapers? If your students can not afford the weekly subscriptions and you feel it is very necessary for them to learn using the newspaper, it is worth the poster recognizing the organization that made the papers possible.

The corporate sponsorship in education is beginning to help lighten the financial load of many school districts. It is beginning to take kids off the streets for fundraisers and put it on the shoulders of big business. Some of these examples are cited in the Arizona State University’s report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends. A few examples given are NBC, Campbell’s Soup, and Scholastic got together to sponsor an essay contest with a $100,000 scholarship as first place; Visa gave students with perfect attendance in summer schools in Kansas City, Missouri, a prepaid Visa card worth $125; Starbucks Coffee started “Ask, Listen, Learn: Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix,” a multimedia program offered to middle schools to provide students and parents with information to help them communicate about alcohol together; Ameriquest Mortgage Company’s good behavior incentive programs that provide baseball tickets to students performing kind acts; and the most impressive one, car dealerships in Fort Worth, Texas, giving away cars in a drawing to students with perfect attendance (attendance in the participating schools went up at least 3%).

Many times money can be a big issue in allowing kids in lower income areas to even visit local museums and exhibitions. In 2003, Merrill Lynch and the Museum of Modern Art invited 100,000 children from over 200 New York City public schools to attend the Matisse Picasso exhibition as part of their education program.

For schools that think that allowing corporations to fund school activities and programs will lead to corporate logos being placed throughout the schools, The America’s Schools Program has come up with a new idea. It allows large corporate donors to channel funds to schools without the appearance of direct corporate sponsorship. Instead of individual corporate logos, such as the Nike swoosh or Pepsi's yin-and-yang-like circle, companies that participate in the program agree to display the official star-shaped America's Schools logo.

In addition, corporations can license the logo for placement on actual products (remember the Olympic symbol on the side of soda cans?) in exchange for donating a percentage of the sales to the program.

Schools, in turn, get a share of that revenue by providing support for the America's Schools program by displaying or publicizing the logo in school materials, on Web sites or school newspapers, on purchase orders and in letters to the local PTA. There is no fee to join and schools can quit at any time, and the money can be used at each school's discretion.

There are also some personal examples of some benefits of commercialism in the Bureau Valley School District and also neighboring districts. Family Video allows students to obtain free rentals of movies for every A that they receive on their reports cards. Pizza Hut has their Book It! program that gives out personal pan pizzas when students meet their reading requirements during the school year. In a neighboring district, Pizza Hut has built gyms, tracks, and ball fields and has also donated equipment to local schools. When Bureau Valley went to the state finals in football, Union Bank sponsored charter buses for the team to travel to the state championship game in Champaign, IL.

The Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education (CACE) released a report, "Corporate Involvement in Schools: Time for a More Critical Look" written by Alex Molnar. The report found eight categories of corporate involvement found in schools, they are as follows:

1.	Sponsorship of Programs and Activities—Corporations paying for or subsidizing school events and/or one-time activities, including contests, in return for the right to associate their name with the events and activities.
	Example: The Duracell/NSTA Invention Challenge for grades 6-12 invites schoolchildren to “design and build working devices powered by Duracell batteries.
2.	Exclusive Agreements—Agreements between schools and corporations that give corporations the exclusive right to sell and promote their goods and/or services in the school or school district.
	Example: In 1997 Colorado Springs District 11 signed a 10-year exclusive vending agreement potentially worth $8 million with Coca-Cola.
3.	Incentive Programs—Corporate programs that provide money, goods, or services to a school or school district when its students, parents, or staff engage in a specified activity.
	Example: Through its “Book It!” reading incentive program, Pizza Hut offers school children who meet their reading goals a free Pizza Hut pizza.
4.	Appropriation of Space—The allocation of school space such as scoreboards, rooftops, bulletin boards, walls, and textbooks on which corporations may place corporate logos and/or advertising messages.
	Example: Cover Concepts offers schools free textbook covers featuring advertisements from the cover’s sponsors.
5.	Sponsored Educational Materials—Materials supplied by corporations and/or industry associations that claim to have an instructional content.
	Corporate Example: Mobil Corporation sponsored a lesson plan series called “Critical Thinking about Critical Issues.” Industry Association Example: The Polystyrene Packaging Council produced the Plastics and the Environment Sourcebook.
6.	Electronic Marketing—The provision of electronic programming and/or equipment in return for the right to advertise to students and/or their families and community members.
	Example: In an effort that recently failed, the ZapMe! corporation provided ad-bearing web access and computer equipment to schools in exchange for the rights to collect student web-use data, to advertise to students, and to use school facilities after school hours for corporate purposes.
7.	Privatization—Management of schools or school programs by private for-profit corporations or other non-public entities.
	Example: The Leona Group manages 34 charter schools in Michigan and Arizona, in return for a management fee.
8.	Fundraising—Any activity conducted or program participated in to raise money for school operations or extracurricular programs.

Each of the above eight corporate sponsorships provided students with that they would otherwise not have had access to because of the lack of public funding for public schools. Sadly, the public funding situation for education has not changed greatly since 1977, but the outside opportunities have become more accessible.