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

[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?!?

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.

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

[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!

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.