Enjoy your future Mceducation.

http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091212/GJNEWS_01/712129913/-1/FOSNEWS

DURHAM — Longtime educator Todd DeMitchell has a dark vision: He can see the day Staples has its logo splashed across school flooring it helped fund, or when Nike's trademark swoosh looms over the entrance of a high school's "Nike Gymnasium," or when "McLectures" take place at schools benefiting from the fast-food company's advertising.

It's a vision spurred by what the chairman of the education department at the University of New Hampshire says is a growing trend of cash-strapped public schools relying on advertising and other, nontax revenue sources to fund education.

He calls it the "Googlization" of public education, reasoning that, like Google, schools can find themselves providing students with something they don't pay for while marketing them as a captive audience to deep-pocketed advertisers.

DeMitchell, an author and professor of education and justice studies, said he's not concerned with advertising that fills scoreboards at school athletic fields. That's been happening for a long time, he said. For DeMitchell, the issue centers on naming rights and schools acting as a marketplace in order to get the funding necessary to carry out the curriculum.

Schools spend more than enough to educate the students - the problem is that's not what they spend money on. Typically a third of a local school district's budget goes to retiree pensions and health care - not including the health insurance for current teachers. Administrators are grossly overpaid and overstaffed! Only after all direct expenditures for students are nearly eliminated does the administration even consider laying off one part-time janitor. So now we're going to get more corporations to sponsor various facets of school funding, in return for which they'll get their name plastered all over whatever it is they are willing to fund.