Teacher Sells Ads On Tests

Tom Farber, a calculus teacher at Rancho Bernardo high school in San Diego, has come up with a unique way of covering district cuts to his supplies budget. He sells ads on his tests. "Tough times call for tough actions," Tom says. The price of an ad on a Mr. Farber Calc test is as follows: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, and $30 for a semester final. Most of the ads are messages from parents but about a third of them come from local businesses. Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been "mixed," but adds, "It's not like, 'This test is brought to you by McDonald's or Nike.'" I see his point. Being a local business whore is much better than being a multinational conglomerate whore.

Comments

Works For Me

[VoxMagis]

I mean - if we can get businesses to supplement education funds in any way that is not a rise in taxes, why not?

I think we could put ads on School Buses and more of this type of stuff - sure, have some oversite, but lets get some money where it belongs without forcing businesses and citizens to raise taxes.

Re:Works For Me

[unlametheweak]

If Americans want public education with any degree of quality then they should be willing to fund it appropriately. Otherwise this whole Cable in the Classroom and No Child Left Behind lameness is just a sneaky way of encouraging privatization and school vouchers.

Re:Works For Me

[smooth wombat]

I think we could put ads on School Buses and more of this type of stuff

Right. Because if there's one thing we don't have enough of, it's advertisements.~*

*Testing out the new sarcasm tag

Re:Works For Me

[iron-kurton]

I think you guys are missing the point.

First, there is necessity. They need to pay somehow for the materials for educating the kids. Selling ads on tests is a bandage solution to stop the bleeding.

Second, this guy seems like a smart guy -- he is not only getting money for his materials, but he is also making a very loud statement to the government to pull its head out of its ass and appropriate more education funding.

Finally, it looks like the ads are not inappropriate (for now), and that he's not actually making a profit but only covering the expenses.

Nobody wants higher taxes, nobody wants to pay for education, but nobody wants the schools turning to businesses for funding. Where the hell are they supposed to get money to fund education?!?

Re:Works For Me

[PitaBred]

I'll pay for education. I don't want to pay for the No Child Gets Ahead program bullshit, where half the money is pissed away on a minority of kids who'd be better served in vocational or other alternative education, instead of dragging everyone else down.

People don't trust the educational system because teachers have been hamstrung by lawsuits, the administration is a political bullshit quagmire (seriously... talk to any teacher you know about the administration of their school), and you can't get intelligent, capable people to teach because males are suspected of being closet child molesters simply for being men, and anyone who is on the fence about teaching goes into private enterprise because the personal risk is much lower, and the pay is the same if not better.

Oh, and further news in that case: http://blogs.pcworld.com/tipsandtweaks/archives/003741.html

Re:Works For Me

[tweek]

First off, we're not a democracy so that doesn't really matter.

Secondly, any government school system will always pale in comparison to a private one because the government is terrible at managing anything.

We've thrown how much money over the years at schools and what difference has it made? Not a whit. Government shouldn't be in the business of education anyway.

Re:Works For Me

[nschubach]

nobody wants to pay for education

That's the problem. Nobody wants to pay for it even though their children are the ones using it. They'd rather make everyone else pay for it.

If schools were run like businesses, they'd be competing for your dollar and offering an education you approve of for your children. Parents might actually start paying attention to what their kids are learning as well instead of sending them off to a public funded babysitting service while they go to work. The schools would have to manage money, maintain a high standard of learning and make the most out of what they have instead of constantly asking for more. If you find the school is teaching your kids about something you don't approve of, send them to a competitor. We kind of have that now with private schools (like Catholic Schools) but the people going to these schools are also paying for the public schools as well. Most people don't like having to pay twice so the public schools have an unfair monopolistic advantage. Remove school taxation but create a law that their children must be educated up to at least a standard set of guidelines and you'll see a drastic improvement in education levels.

Of course, people will complain that it's a shock to all the parents who have multiple kids in school. I ran the numbers in another story and it could cost less than $10 a school day and less than $2000 a year. This is less than most people spend to eat daily. The taxes have already been reduced for those with kids... where's this money going? They get a standard deduction of anywhere between $850 to $5150 per dependent not counting your own single deduction of $5K-7.5K. So why then do we not have money? People are living outside their means because they've counted on this yearly return or they spend it on jetskis, TVs and other items that they think they need. Don't tell me your tax return plus MAYBE a little set aside from your paycheck wouldn't cover $2k in child education...

Sure, out of the gate, schools will be meeting the minimum levels set, but they will soon start to edge each other out and over time it will change. You could even upgrade the education levels from time to time based on learning curves.

Re:Works For Me

[sumdumass]

In my opinion (and apparently also in the opinion of a large portion of the US population), education is a clear and obvious interpretation of "provide for the general welfare".

Your opinion would be completely wrong. The federal government does not operate any public education. They assist in public education provided by the states. There is no constitutional warrant for a public education and there never has been. Jefferson knew this and didn't attempt to start his public education efforts until after he was president and gone even though his previous private school attempt failed too (before he was president).

And while the constitutionality of the government providing education has not been challenged directly as far as I can find (Systems of public education in the US have existed since before the US did, dating back to the 1640s.), it can be considered implicitly constitutional due to various caselaw concerning aspects of it, such as Pierce v. Society of Sisters.

The constitutionality of education isn't a matter of the federal constitution. It is of the state constitutions and the laws within them. Our founding fathers (Thomas Jefferson included who was the first popular spokesman for a public education system) knew the constitution gave no right for it in the federal constitution. I'll get to your suggestion of case law in a minute.

Anyways, the Old Deluder Satan Act of 1647 decrees that every town of at least 50 families hire a schoolmaster who would teach the town's children to read and write and that all towns of at least 100 families should have a Latin grammar school master who will prepare students to attend Harvard College. This is a state law in Massachusetts which pushed the responsibility onto the towns. Most all other laws until the mid to late 1800's did the same. After the declaration of independence, 7 of the new states had constitutions that provided something for education. Jefferson's attempt at public education in DC used public donations as it's means of funding. The feds didn't get involved in public education until around the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 in which is funded universities to make them accessible to more people. They were still private and public education was and is controlled by the states. The US government is not directly involved in education. All they do is perform research and statistical analysis concerning education and provide grants to states for their public schools. The No Child Left Behind Act did little more then supply an amount of funding for failing schools if the states set requirements for the student's education and tested to see that they were meeting them. Participation in it is completely voluntary by the state.

The case law and lawsuits you mention are a little misleading at first glance. In the Pierce v. Society of Sisters case, it was Oregon State schools operated under state law that when the law was changed violated a provision of the US constitution. This doesn't mean the US constitution demands the schools or that it even speaks to them. It means that something happened with the schools that went counter to the constitution. Traditionally, the city and local governments were responsible for the schools. Then people who lived too far from the towns started getting left out so the counties took over. Even when the state mandated the education, it left it to the locals to achieve. Then most of the state built the public education into their constitutions which in turn guarantee a public education by the state but not the feds.

American Greed: Pay your damn taxes!!

[Drake42]

If people weren't so hell bent on not paying taxes we wouldn't have this problem. I hear people say "I don't have kids, why should I pay for school tax"

Guess what? You went to a school? You PAY for a school! Otherwise, go live in a third world country.

Did you know that in California it takes a 2/3rds majority to raise taxes but only a 51/49 vote to spend more money??? Now we're having massive teacher and police layoffs because republican assholes and cheating democrats aren't willing to man up and pay their dues.

I love paying taxes.
I use them to buy civilization.

Re:American Greed: Pay your damn taxes!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Schools get a fuckton of money as it is. I have been to many public schools and a common theme is mismanagement of money to buy unnecessary perks for the admin staff or show-off stuff for the district bureaucrats.

Alot of money could be freed from other government programs that are totally wasteful and unnecessary as well.

The biggest problem with your post is the idea that culture and civilization are things to be "bought". That is demonstrative of the materialist mentality that exists in society.

Re:American Greed: Pay your damn taxes!!

[Neoprofin]

I'll grant you that there can be educated people without public education but I dare you to tell me, since you're curious what the argument is that an educated public benefits everyone, do you have an argument as to how an uneducated populace would in any way be more beneficial? The arguments for a society where all members are provided the basic foundation to be skilled and competent employees through training in math and literacy seem pretty obvious to me. Throw in some history as a good civics lesson and I honestly don't see how you can say education doesn't benefit the society by preparing them to function productively as adults.

Obviously good parenting is also a factor, but there's nothing a school can do to fix people not taking any responsibility for the wellbeing of their children. It's nice of you to bring up that you don't feel like you have enough control. Well tough shit, welcome to America. You don't decide where they build roads, what laws are passed, where your tax money goes, who gets hired to non-elected positions the list goes on forever. If you want complete control of the next generation have a child and raise them well. Home school them if you like. Yes, you still have to pay property taxes even if your child isn't getting the money, but you also get to reap the rewards of the tax money and labor those students will later produce.

Boohoo

[internerdj]

If you can't be bothered to support your schools well enough that the teachers can print out tests, then you shouldn't be pissed the instructor is having to subject your child to ads to be able to afford to print the tests. This isn't even the teachers getting a (well deserved) raise, this is about not having the supplies that directly contribute to your child's education.
Ads on tests. Bad prescedant? Yes.
Can't be bothered to do anything for your child's education outside taxes? Worse prescedant? Yes.

Re:Boohoo

[internerdj]

Teachers in my state get paid very poorly, but hey we have one of the lowest property taxes of any state. Yay priorities. :-/

Re:Boohoo

[merreborn]

this is about not having the supplies that directly contribute to your child's education

We have one of the highest per-student education spending rates in the world, and yet so little of that money ends up going where it's actually needed -- to competent teachers and classroom supplies.

D.C., specifically, is an amazing example of waste:

D.C. spent about $13,400 per student in 2006, which was only exceeded by New York and New Jersey.

Despite the city's high per-student spending, scores on math and reading were the lowest in the country last year, according to results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests.

To make matters worse, less than half of that money is actually going to instruction; most of it goes to administration, with 14 administrators raking in at least $150,000 per year.

We've doubled education spending but test scores haven't improved at all:

And while many people say, "We need to spend more money on our schools," there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement.

Jay Greene, author of "Education Myths," points out that "If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved ... We've doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren't better."

He's absolutely right. National graduation rates and achievement scores are flat, while spending on education has increased more than 100 percent since 1971. More money hasn't helped American kids.

Much of the money never makes it to our children; instead it goes to tenured incompetents who only bother to show up to work for the paycheck, useless bureaucrats, and other waste.

World's highest per-student spending rates, and yet our teachers can't afford to make photocopies. How the hell did we get here?

The Next Test...

[HarvardAce]

While not a bad idea, the implementation could be much better...Picture this test:

1) McDonald's $2 Big Mac contains two all-beef patties that are cylinders of height 0.5cm and diameter 5cm. Burger King's $3 whopper contains two beef-like substances that are cylinders of height 0.3cm and diameter 4.5cm. How many more times valuable is the Big Mac versus the Whopper, assuming a sandwich's value is directly proportional to the amount of beef (or beef-like substance) in it?

2) A Subway Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki 6" sub contains 250 kcal of lean, healthy energy. A Wendy's Baconator contains 975 kcal of thigh-hugging and gut-enlarging fat. If all the energy of these sandwiches were put into a 100kg person climbing a ladder, how much higher would the 100kg person have to climb in order to use up all the energy (assuming all energy spent is put into the potential energy from climbing)?

The possibilities are endless! We'd never have to worry about education funding again!

So wrong

[swordgeek]

This is so utterly wrong that I honestly feel sick. If this is happening, then it means that society as a whole has failed at one of its three primary purposes. Capitalism has gone from a financial model to a political one, and now a societal one.

Re:Not terrible

[swordgeek]

I'd say that this *IS* terrible, and that your response proves it.

Schools, first and foremost, shouldn't be a profit centre. Secondly, they shouldn't be even thought of in terms of profit/loss, or fiscal sustainability. If you're going to put financial terms on a school, then it is a cost centre, plain and simple. You put money into it because you need it, not in order to get money back out of it (directly).

Of course, you need to justify your costs. Boards are set up for that--"We need this much money for these educational tools and programs, and this is how it will get used." That's the price of living in a money-driven economy.

Putting ads on educational materials creates so many more inadvertent lessons: Society doesn't value education; your only important role in life is as a consumer; knowledge is only worthwhile if it has direct practical benefits; the list goes on.

"I don't mean full on advertising like blaring announcements between classes with videos to boot, but maybe corporate funded text books..."

There is no difference. There is NO DIFFERENCE between corporate funding of books, ads on exam papers, and non-stop ads over the PA system, except for volume.

The thing to keep in mind is that companies don't buy ad space out of the good of their hearts--they do it because they can make a profit, and the way they make a profit is by getting the viewer (i.e. the students or their parents) to buy their product.

Besides which, advertising in schools is generally illegal in the US--the vending companies have managed to circumvent it, as have the dirtbags at Channel 1. The result is that parents are fighting, and in some cases winning.

Re:Intellectual Property, eh?

[habig]

Give them a multiple choice test where some, all, or none of the answers might be correct, rather than the usual "process of elimination" mode. To get the question right, you need to have filled in exactly all the right answers and none of the wrong ones.

While still easy for teachers to grade, students quickly learn to appreciate the "write out your work" tests!

Re:Reductio ad absurdum

[mewshi_nya]

Actually, since I'm an economics major, I want to have a paper on this exact topic at some point:

All these programs, like health care, welfare (when used PROPERLY), education (up to and include university), have a HUGE economic impact on the US.

If we get the kind of return prison rehab programs get (1.70-3.50 dollars saved for every dollar spent), then we can VERY easily regain our edge by just investing PROPERLY in education.

We don't invest properly in education, i know, bizarre concept!

Re:...OR TURNITIN.com (appeal this week)

[profplump]

Google only indexed published material that (except in the case of error) is intended to be publicly available. When turnitin stops indexing the unpublished material that students submitted in private as part of their eduction you can have your analogy back.