“Of course those “free” papers are paid for with tax money.”
I naturally assume that these are simply giveaways to phoney up the circulation numbers.
My children go to private schools, so I know that a dime has not come out of our school budget for the papers. I’m not necessarily certain papers delivered to my school could even be paid for as part of a government program sisnce the school is a Christian school, I would think any influence would come under that dandy “separation of church and state” canard.
Ah, well in the case of a private school, they are probably using it as a write off on taxes to donate to schools...plus, as you note, it boosts their circ numbers. Now for public schools, I wouldn't be shocked to find that budget money is used to purchase papers...for example, at a university.