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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.
These carry more value than just the money they bring in. They are encouragement that a kid's efforts in calculus (and education in general) are valued by the parents and local businesses.
Face it, the general message a well behaved student without academic problems gets is that they are the last people to spend money on.
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Before you get angry at this, think about the present state of public schools. When I was still going to school about 3 years ago, I was in a public school district that had to cut basically everything that wasn't absolutely essential due to a budget crisis. The schools were in shambles, and teachers had no supplies to do anything. One of my science teachers wanted to send a team to do Science Olympiad, a competition that involved performing experiments, taking tests, and building contraptions. The thing is, due to the budget cuts, the schools wouldn't pay for it. So, out of his own generosity, (teachers don't get paid much to begin with), he paid for all the supplies and the fees to go. This wound up probably costing him into the thousands, just to send his students to a competition. Many teachers don't have the materials they need to teach what they want to teach. If selling a space at the bottom of a test will give them a small relief to be able to buy materials and such, I think this is an excellent idea.
I know in high school the teachers paid for many supplies out of pocket and my teacher friends now that I am "grown up" still do. My Master's degree graduation was almost put off at least a year because of budget cuts, but luckily we narrowly scrounged up enough students to make it worth the university's resources. All teachers in my state faced a 25% cut in last month's salary because of budget shortfalls.
My son just turned one; I intend with every school year to start it by asking his teachers what the parents can provide for him/her to better teach our children.
All people benefit from an educated society. Like all things, the cost for education goes up. If the money they get doesn't match, education gets worse.
The fact that you moved is irrelevant to the posters point.
"nd yeah, we pay too much for too little."
DO you have any clue how much education costs? IS it even within your simple mind to comprehend the fact that the job you have depends on other people being educated? That you pay less from crime when the populace is educated?
Some public schools suck, but many of them do not suck. In fact, there are multitudes of private schools that are worse then public schools.
I suggest you look into the budget and results.
Coincidentally, ANOTHER report came out recently showing how public workers get more work done, are more efficient, and effective the the private sector contractors.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think the real question is why a structural engineering firm puts out ads on high school tests... lots of 16-year-olds contracting bridges and highrises these days?
I hope it gets modded down.
I agree with your cause, but not your method. Post a new story with information about the trial, as there are lots of people here (I imagine) that want to hear about this. Posting a comment in a story that doesn't relate is going to reduce your audience, not increase it. You can even post your story anonymously if you wish.
I'm in Tucson Az. Our school busses have ads on them.
Nobody wants higher taxes, nobody wants to pay for education
If it's for education, I want higher taxes.
Exactly. It's not how high my taxes are - it's what are my taxes used for?
You don't hear Finns bitch about their tax rate (nearly 50%) because, thanks to PROPER investment in education (read "Just for Fun" sometime, it actually provides a good explanation of the way in which the Finnish education system works), they have a higher standard of living than most Americans.
I can tell you *exactly* why politicians don't put a priority on funding education: the effects of a change to the education system won't be felt for at least a decade, sometimes even more. They want something that they can use to get people voting for them; crime decreasing (whether or not it's a cause-and-effect relationship); getting rid of those nasty child predators (or at least appearing to); cutting taxes (or making it look like they did).
Comparing schools of today with the schools that existed 30 years ago is completely unfair. Consider the dramatic changes in society over the last 30 years: how many schools in 1971 had computers in them? Or internet access? Now computers are needed in schools because nearly every existing job requires them. So there is a huge increase in needed expenditures for schools that did not exist 30 years ago.
Also consider the dramatic changes in students over the last 30 years. Many more students now arrive at school hungry and unprepared to learn than in the 70s. So now schools have begun providing breakfast programs and remediation for students who are far behind where they need to be.
Finally, perhaps one of the biggest increases in costs has come from staffing expenditures - both in salaries and in benefits (health care costs have skyrocketed). Although teacher salaries are still low (considering the education needed to get a position as a teacher), they have improved over the last 30 years. So my point is that direct comparisons between schools of today and the schools of the 70s is completely unrealistic and ignores huge societal changes that have impacted the role of school in society.
For your point on the test scores, I would suggest reading the Manufactured Crisis by Berliner & Biddle. They point out many of the problems with using test scores over a long period of time to "prove" or "disprove" educational improvement.
I don't see how the school board or the PTA could let it come to this level. There are many other ways to raise money for schools, our teacher in 6th grade would sell bagels for .50 during break using profits to cover shortfalls in class expenses. That was back in 1993 so these problems are only getting worse. I think that his method got the point accross, but he must have exhausted any other way of getting the money. If anyone has a serious problem with his solution they should step up and help this school raise the funds in a better way.
Teachers in my state get paid very poorly, but we have one of the highest property taxes of any state. Wait.. What? :O
"Anything tastes good if you deep fry it."
Empirical evidence says less death and lower spending.
I had a college calculus teacher who gave a multiple choice test (for some reason many in the class wanted it). For most questions you could choose A through M or so.....
In other words, if you didn't know the answer, it didn't help....
Kind of neat to see.
Programs like the No child left behind was designed to address the failures of the politics. The schools just aren't answerable or accountable to anyone. The NCLBA is designed to measure the knowledge of the teachers, the progress of the students and to offer alternatives when they fail. The biggest problem with the NCLBA is the attitudes of the teachers who are being made accountable for once. They are dead set against it because it actually points a finger at them.
There are many misconceptions about the NCLBA. Because I have said something you will probably see a lot of them posted here. I'll point most of them out when it happens.