Saturday, April 24, 2010

Hewlett-Packard High School

It's kind of a catchy name. Some in the county I live next to think it's a way to compensate for budget cuts:
The public school system is looking at $40 million less in funding for the upcoming school year, because of low revenue and state-mandated budget cuts.

Finding companies willing to pay for exposure at high school sporting events is one option officials should consider, board member Keith Sutton said Thursday.
They're not really looking to rename schools, but is it really such a bad idea? DISH, Texas did it and they seem to have benefited. After all, one of the professors who sat in on my thesis defense was Dr. Robert Tollison, BB&T Senior Fellow. As far as I know he never seemed bias in favor of the banking industry. Although there seem to be many corporations with attachments to primary schools, it's possible there could be a conflict of interest. Here's one article firmly against corporate sponsorship describing some unseemly practices:
classroom packets that promote Hershey's Chocolate or Kellogg's Rice Krispies; third graders practicing math by counting Tootsie Rolls; young children learning to read software that uses corporate logos like KMart, Coke, Pepsi, and Cap'n Crunch. Calvin Klein provides book covers along with tattoos sporting their logo CK!
There are definitely trade-offs. Is it worth promoting Hewlett-Packard in a word problem if you can cut class sizes in half? I guess the answer depends on how much the corporations asks for in exchange for funding.

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