Today’s Math Test is Brought to You By…..

by nicole ~ December 5, 2008

I once had a journalism professor who said one of the few places we’re free from advertising is in the classroom, then he turned around and saw a web address scrawled on the whiteboard behind him, muttered some profanity and said “guess they’ve got us here now too.”  Well, I have to wonder what his reaction to this would be?

According to this article in USA Today, one math teacher in San Diego has taken up selling advertising on his tests in order to pay for his printing costs, which are beyond the school’s budget.  The article states:

“San Diego magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune featured his plan just before Thanksgiving and Farber came home from a few days out of town to 75 e-mail requests for ads. So far, he has collected $350. His semester final is sold out.”

Of course, this idea hasn’t come without opposition, as illustrated in the USA Today Article.

That worries Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based non-profit that fights commercialization in school and elsewhere. If test-papers-as-billboards catches on, he says, schools in the grip of tough economic times could start relying on them to help the bottom line.

While I agree with Mr. Weissman, and think this may open up a whole new can of worms for school, I also think the teacher was pretty smart.  He saw a problem and dealt with it the best way he could without having to cut any of his curriculum… though I bet his students wouldn’t have minded!

Nicole Amato is an Account Executive at Mediashop PR and a graduate of Northeastern University with a BA in Journalism.