13 January 2012

Schools may allow advertising on students' lockers. And on the walls. And on the floor.

I'm absolutely appalled by this.
School lockers are becoming the latest venue for bombarding kids with advertising.

Just what that will look like is on display at the north suburban Centennial school administration building: four lockers wrapped in a bubblegum pink ad for the Mall of America's "Underwater Adventures" aquarium.

On Nov. 1, the school board is slated to decide whether it will allow the ads on up to 10 percent of the available surfaces in all of the district's seven schools. That includes lockers, walls and floors. The take for the district? $184,000 a year.

In a bleak economy, with dim prospects for any new state school funding, Centennial -- with $3.6 million in cuts this year and more likely on the way next year -- is just the latest school district looking at the ads as an alternative way to generate some cash. Paul Miller, president of Coon Rapids-based School Media's, the company that would install the ads, said he expects to have nine Twin Cities school districts signed up by the end of the year.
The rest of the story is at the StarTribune.

Addendum:  Reposted from 2010 to add this variation on the theme -
And on school buses 

Last year USA Today and the New York Times reported that some school districts were planning to sell advertising space on school buses.
Utah became the latest state to allow school bus advertising when its governor signed a law last month authorizing the practice. The strategy began in the 1990s in Colorado, then spread to Texas, Arizona, Tennessee and Massachusetts. In the last year, at least eight other states have considered similar legislation. One of them, New Jersey, approved school bus advertising in January...

Districts with 250 buses can expect to generate about $1 million over four years by selling some yellow space... Officials say that the revenue, while small, can still make the difference between having new textbooks — or a music teacher or a volleyball team — and not having them.
More at the links.  I'll step aside and let those of you with school-age children debate the merits or downsides of these changes.

Photo credit:  Matthew Staver.

26 comments:

  1. I can't believe I'm about to actually write this... but... thank God for high school graffiti.

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  2. I'm sure that promotes a calm and focused learning environment. /sarcasm

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  3. Brainwashing our kids is educational.

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  4. Is this the sister-post to the Pink Floyd/BeeGees mashup? We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control.

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  5. Jerry In and Around DallasOctober 20, 2010 at 7:54 AM

    Sad. Originally advertising was confined to those book covers one picks up at school for your textbook. Anybody remembers those?

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  6. No. No, no, no, no, no. I said, No!

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  7. you know people bash this idea for being distracting and subjecting children to adverts but I think it's a good idea. Kids in schools are going to be distracted almost 100% of the time at any age and will more than likely not even notice the ads. it sucks that it has to be this way but schools are underfunded by the government so this is a great way to get some extra income. The more income the better the teachers, programs and buildings will be. Great idea.

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  8. What's next, pampers advertising candy bars on their diapers?

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  9. In response to the anonymous comment made on October 20, 2010 12:45 PM, you are wrong. Funding for schools is not the problem with our educational system. The root problem is that parents do not raise their own children anymore. As a result, even if the parents had a strong moral code, their children have little chance of adopting it because their parents are not around to lead by example. Nothing good will come from throwing money at schools.

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  10. This reminded me of this classic Simpsons clip.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLFB9A4F97D68AA82D&feature=player_detailpage&v=ucjQm9GCW6Y

    It is in Spanish but I am sure the point gets across.

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  11. Well, this was embarassing but the link got cut out. Here it is again in better form.

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  12. Of course, anony 9:45, throwing money at schools doesn't do anything. Except paying teachers, buying essential supplies, providing transportation, paying staff, paying for building repairs and safety...

    Sure, many parents need to spend time with their kids. But depriving public schools of funds needed to educate kids who can't afford private school or need to work for pay instead of homeschooling isn't going to help anyone.

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  13. Excuse me, kids whose parents can't afford to send them to private school, etc. I keep having trouble with a non-tactile keyboard and I can't use the computers at work.

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  14. it sucks that it has to be this way but schools are underfunded by the government so this is a great way to get some extra income.

    Maybe we should make the military cover its tanks and buildings with advertising, and make bank bailouts and welfare to the wealthy contingent on such advertising as well.

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  15. I don't like the idea, but I think my elementary school must have been one of the first to allow advertising in the school (because most adults seem not to have experienced it) and I didn't care. I didn't even realize they were ads -- and not in the sense of wanting to buy the items and not knowing why :) but in the sense that I just thought they were pretty pictures someone was kind enough to put up in the school. :)

    I think the adults worry about this sort of thing much more than the students. And aesthetically, I think the pink, advertising covered lockers are much more attractive than the military green or beige that is the alternative in my experience.

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  16. I see how this is going:
    Step 1. - Remove arts electives (remove inner identity from individuals)
    Step 2. - Mandate a dress code (remove outter identity from individuals)
    Step 3. - Advertise.
    I have no doubt that the products marketed will eventually have campus permissions other brands will not.

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  17. ...and what of the unfortunate kid who is already picked on and now gets stuck with a pink locker?
    Surely they won't discriminate who gets what, that's a court battle for sure.
    But if I was 17 year old male (more testoserone than common sense) and was assigned a pink locker... I'd have issues. And how about a Twilight locker?
    Oh the suffering...

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  18. Think of all the splendid learning opportunities!
    Learning how to graffiti wittily. Learning how to read between the lines and be appropriately cynical about the messages in advertising. Rewriting the adverts in correct English and retrofitting all the missing punctuation. Examining the advert carefully to see what has been carefully omitted or glossed over...

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  19. until the government puts more money's into the school system, the money has to come from somewhere. People will complain about their student's exposure to these ads but then cry bloody murder when the state wants to increase their taxes. If anything it is smart on the part of the school.

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  20. btw anon January 6, 2012 11:45 AM

    since when does parents "not raising their children" have anything to do with the funding of school systems? Your argument is inconceivably off topic.

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  21. I remember the "Burger King" buses in Colorado Springs in the 1990s.

    It looked tacky and wrong. But, it had to be done for financial purposes.

    My daughter had an excellent start in those public schools and is now an engineer.

    And she's a vegetarian who has never set foot in a Burger King.

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  22. I think the people who think this is the only way to get revenue are kinda missing the point.....big time...

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  23. We can assume that the school gets paid by the advertisers. What alternative sources of revenue would you suggest?

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  24. I have more of a problem with the advertising on the lockers than I do a school bus. The advertising on the bus is geared more towards the adults driving down the road instead of the teenagers. Personally, I don't want advertising in my children's schools.

    In response to Anonymous (January 6, 2012 11:45 AM), The problem is many things and not necessarily parents not raising their kids. Funding, lack of individualized help, teaching for standardized tests instead of the subject, teachers who are burned out, and students who are burned just to name a few examples.

    The public schools that my children have gone to throughout the years don't show them how much fun learning can be. They make learning tedious and suck the fun right out of it. Better funding might help get better programs into those schools. In the mean time all I can do is show them how fascinating different subjects can be when you learn about them on your own time.

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  25. If I was a student in one of these schools, I think some serious defacement of the adverts would be in order - does anyone remember Wacky Packs?

    So glad we decided to homeschool. We're not religious, but we don't see the public schools getting any better - apathetic parents, kids who don't read but watch plenty of professional wrestling, etc.

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