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Speak Out
Should in-school advertising be allowed?
By James Horner, student
The side of your bus features an ad for a popular sneaker. When you arrive at your stop, an electronic billboard greets you with a sale ad for a local car dealer. Inside your building, corporate logos are etched above the entrances to some rooms. Later, at the place you have lunch, a food company is passing out samples of its latest pasta creation. On the way out, you pick up a flier with a bunch of ads on the back. Nothing too unusual here, except that the bus is your school bus, the billboard is planted right outside your school, the logos are above the school gym and library entrances, the lunch place is the cafeteria, and the flier is a field trip permission slip.
With school districts facing critical budget shortfalls, many are trying to raise funds by inviting advertisers to promote their products on school property. The idea of exposing children to ads in school has met with reluctance, but increasing numbers of parents and administrators are concluding it is a necessary alternative. “As uncomfortable as it may be for folks, it’s less comfortable to get rid of programs or go through more layoffs,” Melissa Infusino, director of partnerships for the Los Angeles Unified School District, told the New York Times.
The possibilities for in-school ad placement have led to some novel approaches. For instance, lockers are a prime location for catching attention, and several Minnesota districts are testing plans to cover 10 percent of all surfaces, including lockers and floors, with ads that are expected to bring in nearly $200,000 a year per district.
In New Jersey, yellow school buses can now have ads on their exteriors as the state joins a half-dozen others in a move that could generate $1,000 per bus. Four Albuquerque, N.M., high schools located on busy streets will earn a total of $40,000 annually starting in March by leasing out space for electronic billboards that will flash ads and school announcements. One concern about bus and billboard ads is that they will distract drivers and lead to accidents. School buses are yellow for a reason: to alert drivers to be extra cautious because children are present. Exterior ads will alter how school buses look.
School websites have not been overlooked either, with numerous districts selling page space to companies that run ads with links to their own sites. Virginia’s Prince William County Public Schools reports raising $75,000 in its first year of selling web ads. One of the more unusual ideas was implemented in Peabody, Mass. The school district is printing 10 business card-sized ads on the back of all notices that go home to elementary school parents, including permission slips. The venture is expected to generate up to $24,000. In nearby Hull, Mass., the high school’s location along the flight path to Boston’s Logan Airport has led administrators to consider selling ad space on the school’s roof.
Corporate sponsorship provides another lucrative revenue source. Los Angeles just became the largest district in the country to agree to sell naming rights to various school settings and activities, including its football field, cafeterias and some extracurricular teams, for a potential gain of $18 million. The district will also permit approved food companies to hand out samples on school grounds for a fee.
Most districts prohibit ads for alcohol, tobacco and gambling; some schools also reject ads for unhealthful foods or political advocacy ads. Still, some parents and educators object to the ads because students are a captive audience. “They think we’re trying to franchise our kids,” National PTA president Chuck Saylors told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “They’re in school to learn, not to exercise their purchasing power.”
Drawing the line on certain types of ads could also prove a challenge, experts note, as districts seek to maximize the dollars they can earn. “This is really tricky stuff for school districts,” Richard Colvin, director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University, said in an interview with USA Today. “They have to be very careful about the image they’re projecting.”
Critics of mixing ads with education also point to a 2006 study in the medical journal Pediatrics that showed that students who watched Channel One, an in-class public affairs program that runs 10 minutes of news and 2 minutes of advertising or public service announcements, remembered more ads than news stories.
What do you think?
Should in-school advertising be allowed? Which types of ads are not acceptable? Should school districts restrict where the ads can be placed? Will schools be able to draw the line at what is appropriate? Does your school have any advertising? If so, how has it affected you? Join the discussion!
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