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Well we've taken another giant step down the road to the commercialization of public schooling. School boards have begun selling ad space in their buildings. Pennsylvania's Pennsbury School District, for instance, is selling advertising spaces as large as 5 by 10 feet in all of their 16 schools. Ultimately 218 ads of various sizes will appear on walls, floors and even shrink-wrapped over lockers and cafeteria tables. One wonders, if the Superintendent happens to be female, has the school board considered marketing the space across her behind. Instead of the ever popular "Juicy" or "Pink" the message might read "Post-It Notes!" or "Dick's Sporting Goods!"

Yes, the Pennsbury school board recently signed a contract with a national advertising agency that should boost their annual budget by as much as $424,000. All they had to do was sell access to the 10,950 children and teens entrusted to their care.

To be fair,  the great recession and massive cuts in state aid, caused the district to be $6 million in the red. Those cuts were initiated by Republicans, by the way — the very same political party whose most "conservative" elements plan to eliminate "government schools" entirely. (They're socialistic, don't you know?)

These same die-hard "conservatives" assure us, there is nothing the government can do, that private enterprise can't do better. I can't wait until MTV Networks takes over our public schools. Lady Gaga could teach home economics! Lil' Wayne could teach poetry. Hell, even their CEO could get into the act. He could introduce the youngsters to the principles of American government — corporate style.

For similar considerations see http://www.newfoundations.com/Carpenter/SchoolChoice.html