Posted on 11/23/2008 4:41:15 AM PST by CE2949BB
RANCHO BERNARDO — Kevin Change said it was strange the first time he saw an advertisement across the bottom of his calculus test. But now he and his classmates look for them.
“It's really interesting to see what it is each time,” said Change, 16, a junior at Rancho Bernardo High School.
Some are pithy one-liners, hawking the names of local businesses: “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester! Braces by Henry, Stephen P. Henry D.M.D.”
Others are inspirational quotes, like “Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it – Vaclav Havel.”
They only appear on the first page of an exam.
The unusual advertising may be here to stay, said calculus teacher Tom Farber, who came up with the idea to pay for his printing costs.
Farber said the money he gets for printing was cut this year to about $300 for two semesters. Printing the quizzes and tests costs more than $500, he said, and doesn't include handouts that students download and print on their own.
To reduce expenses, the Poway Unified School District chose to trim materials and supplies instead of personnel, Superintendent Don Phillips said. Each high school in the district reduced its budget for such items by 30 percent, but how that was accomplished was left to each campus, he said.
Phillips said teachers have been reaching out to parents for donations for a while, but Farber's idea is “one of the more creative ones.”
Farber's customers pay $10 for an ad on a quiz, $20 to be on a chapter test and $30 for a spot on a semester final. Some of the quotes, either personal ones or by famous people, are paid for by parents.
The messages must be appropriate and in good taste. Farber hasn't received sponsorships from any major retailers or store chains, but he hasn't ruled them out. He said he would prefer to get ads from local mom-and-pop stores, such as a tuxedo shop around prom time.
Farber said he could have decided to give fewer tests to save money, but that would have meant students had less practice for passing the Advanced Placement calculus exam near the end of the school year.
Farber, a teacher in the Poway Unified district since 1992, said he has never had to ask parents for help until this year. But with the state of the economy the way it is, he said, schools might have to depend even more on parents.
Farber said he came up with the idea over the summer. He saw ads on public buses and sponsorships at Qualcomm Stadium and decided to promote his idea at Back to School Night in September. He collected $270 from parents at that event.
“I haven't heard any negativity,” he said.
Farber said he has sold about $350 in ads, more than enough to make up what the school budget doesn't pay for. He said he still has ad space for next semester, and whatever extra money he collects will go to the math department for other teachers to use. Checks are made out to the department.
Colleagues haven't copied his idea yet, Farber said, but some have been asking parents for donations.
Students said they are paying attention to the messages.
Lauren Meyer, 17, a senior, said the ads are a good solution to the budget problem.
Her classmate, Chris Nunez, 18, a senior, always looks at the ads before he starts working on the questions. Both said they enjoy the quotes.
“They're inspirational,” Nunez said. “Sometimes, they help when the test is stressful.”
Luke Shaw, 17, was less enthusiastic. The senior said a recent sponsorship that was the name of a structural engineering company didn't do anything for him.
“I'm always hoping that someone will sponsor it with a trig formula or something useful,” he said.
I wonder what Superintendent Don Phillips's salary is, and how many Assistant, Deputy Assistant, and Special Assistant Superintendents he has?
I don't think the printing sponsorship is a terrible idea; another choice would be to write the test questions on the blackboard and have the students copy them on lined white paper.
So, the more tests he administers the more ads he can sell, right? Add to that the fact that there’s tacit endorsement of the product by virtue of the fact that it appears on a school-related item in the first place. And why stop there? Why not have ads all over the classroom? I like the idea that this guy is inventive and creative - I don’t think ads belong on test papers and I’m unbelievably tired of hearing how our educational system is underfunded. Maybe schools should post their dollars-per-student information before asking for donations - much like fast food restaurants are forced to post their nutritional information.
I figure if you total up local, state and Federal spending on K-12. Add in other costs like Police that come out of the Police budget, capital costs of buildings and such, that in Massachusetts we spend about $20,000 per year per ‘student’.
Now if you think like any private enterprise and figure about half of your factory's production will fail out in the world, the marketplace. You have to eat those costs and fold them into the units that do work. So, I figure it costs around $40,000 per year, per student to price out the ones that can get through the first year at community college.
So, this is what I tell my teacher friends. I say, imagine you have ten students. And I give you $200,000 for the year. You rent the classroom, provide the heat, books if any, supplies, and you keep the rest. For example, you might spend $100,000 on the classroom, and keep a $100,000 for your self.
Usually you can see their eyes widen, a wiff of thought smoke, and then then shut down into usual town worker mode.
Good analysis! I remember seeing a state-by-state breakdown on how much money went for classroom inputs vs. how much was “overhead.” Of course, you’ve got to keep the lights on and have flush toilets, but the salaries of the non-teaching employees are where a lot of the money disappears. (Not to mention what they steal.)
The school district might collect lots of money per student, but that doesn't mean that teachers get lots of money for classroom expenses.
I always end up spending a fair bit of money out of pocket for copy paper, printer cartridges, etc. before the school year is over.
Our governor decided to award each teacher $100 per year to be spent on classroom supplies, and in response, the district cut our supply budget by $100 per teacher.
I'm not planning to sell ads on my tests any time soon, however, and I haven't asked parents for donations yet.
Or use the overhead projector. I've done that.
Right. I taught second grade for a (short) while and I did the same thing, buying ancillary materials for my students on a regular basis. We had a seriously underfunded school in the first place, but I know teachers continue do this and should never have to. If allocated money actually went to the classroom teacher for teaching purposes that would be great! As it stands now, I have the feeling that no matter how much money we pour into the schools it will never be enough. How do we reform the system to ensure that money goes where it needs to be?
If your schools have Channel One, your kids are already sitting through some SERIOUSLY targeted ads every day during school time.
That’s another good option. It’s been so long since I’ve seen an overhead projector that I forget they existed!
I too don’t care about having the sponsorship, but agree there are other ways to save (and anyway, they should be all about saving taxpayer money regardless). When I was still teaching HS we made a classroom set of tests, which we reused year to year (unless curriculum changes were made which forced rewriting of tests). The kids wrote their answers on their own paper. Saved a LOT of paper and money.
Wow, I never was out of pocket for that sort of stuff. I paid for things I wanted to get for my classroom out of my own pocket, but nothing I would have considered essential.
LOL the private school where I taught last year had what they call an Intelligent Classroom. Basically my computer was hooked up to a big screen and could be manipulated with a remote control. I put my overhead into the closet and didn’t use it ever again!
Maybe the parents could tell the teachers that it would probably be cheaper for the state to pay parents to homeschool, which has been suggested by a public official in one state already. That would shut them up fast.
Now that I think about it, someone used an overhead projector in a presentation I saw at church last year. But they seem to be getting pretty rare out in the real world.
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