The Eanes school district in Austin, Texas, has earned tens of thousands of dollars selling ad space on its buses.

Erich Schlegel/Texas Tribune

Should Ads Be Allowed at School?

Faced with budget cuts, a growing number of school districts nationwide are allowing companies to place ads on school property, including lunchrooms, gyms, parking lots, and buses. The arrangement can benefit both parties. Schools earn money because businesses pay them to advertise on campus. And businesses are able to reach potential new customers: you and your friends. People in favor of allowing ads on school grounds say it’s a great way for districts to bring in extra money without having to raise taxes in the community. But opponents say allowing ads on school grounds isn’t the answer to shrinking budgets.

December 10, 2018

Most students are surrounded by ads from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep: everything from the McDonald’s billboard you pass on the way to school to your best friend’s T-shirt with American Eagle written across the front. And then there are all the ads you see online when you’re watching a YouTube video or researching a term paper.

In fact, marketing experts estimate that the average person sees about 5,000 to 10,000 ads every day. All of them are designed to get you to buy or use a product. Yet most of these ads don’t bring a single dollar to your school. And that’s something we could change.

In the United States, advertising is a multibillion-dollar industry. What if your school district could harness some of that financial power to supplement its budget? Many schools nationwide are facing steep budget cuts and are in desperate need of money to pay for everything from teachers’ salaries to new laptops.

Money from advertising can help schools that face steep budget cuts.

I own a firm that handles marketing for school districts across Texas, and we are very careful to choose only family-appropriate advertisers, such as local restaurants or sporting goods stores. We help place messaging on the outside of school buses, on school websites, and at school athletic venues. The ads are primarily targeted to adults—parents, teachers, and other members of the community—not to kids.

Over the past 11 years, we’ve raised millions of dollars for Texas schools. That money has helped pay for new computers, textbooks, supplies, team uniforms, teachers’ salaries, and so much more. At the same time, local businesses are able to reach new customers. It’s a true win-win.

Advertising is highly profitable and is here to stay. Why not capture some of that market and put those dollars to work at school, where they’re needed most?

—CYNTHIA CALVERT

Owner and Founder, Steep Creek Media

Advertising is everywhere: the internet, billboards, stores, TV, and movies. In fact, ads have become so common that sometimes they’re hard to detect. Especially online, ads are often disguised as entertainment, like when your favorite YouTuber or social media celebrity talks about a cool new product. Those stars act like they’re your friends, but they’re really getting paid by brands to sell you stuff.

School should be a place where no one is trying to sell you anything. To begin with, kids are required by law to go to school; they don’t have a choice about being there. Beyond that, advertising conflicts with the fundamental reason you’re there: You’re in school to learn about the world and how you can make your own special contribution to it. But marketers want only one thing: your money. In order to get it, they make ads saying that buying the right things will make you beautiful, popular, and happy. But they want what’s best for them, not for you.

School should be a place where no one is trying to sell you anything.

Until recently, most people have agreed that schools should not have advertising. But some marketers are trying to sneak in, because they know they can make a lot of money selling things to kids.

They know that you and your friends are open-minded and excited to learn, so they want to teach you to buy their products. They know that if you hear at school that a brand or a product is good, you’ll probably believe it. And they know that unlike on TV or online, you can’t just change the channel or go to the next video. Students at school are a captive audience.

A lot of school districts have very tight budgets, and sometimes companies offer to pay for things like music, sports, or science equipment. That’s great. But schools shouldn’t accept financial assistance if it means companies would place ads where students can see them.

Let’s keep marketing out of schools so you can focus on what really matters: learning.

—DAVID MONAHAN