USAToday is reporting on a high school teacher in San Diego, who has started selling advertisements on his test papers in order to pay for printing costs for his class. He felt it was the only way to subsidize the costs of printing for his classroom; his budget is $300, but his printing costs about $500 per school year.
Most ads, at this point, are pretty innocuous. Inspirational messages from parents top the list of ads, but ads have also been bought by local engineering firms and an orthodontist.
What concerns me about this is that this marketing gives advertisers access to children. Our children are the most vulnerable to advertising, without the maturity and life experience to weed out the obnoxiousness that is advertising. I can block advertising when my kids surf (ad blocker plus for Firefox) and keep the television watching to a minimum, but if my kids are getting advertising at school on their tests and homework papers, I have absolutely no control over that. While I would trust that the teacher would not allow questionable advertising to be printed on his test papers, when it comes to the almighty dollar, often greed trumps good sense.
I can appreciate the teacher’s ingenuity, but I think there is probably a better way. If he only needs to make $200, couldn’t he have had a small class fundraiser that targeted the parents, who should be supporting their kids’ education anyway? I have to think this teacher went too far.