Schools Should Not Encourage Corporate Sponsorships

After reading " The Case Against High School Sports" by Amanda Ripley started to make me think. There were many strong points about how the priorities of the sports are beginning to be more important to students than their education. Another great point was that the financing and budgeting is unfairly distributed throughout school districts and is spent more on athletics and clubs and not enough on classes. And I Believe that schools should put certain restrictions on the spending and promoting or in school sports and clubs because of the major drop in national and world comparisons.

In today’s market driven society children can’t escape ads and their marketers, even their schools are filled with the advertiser’s products distracting the youth from learning.

Although extracurricular activities can be costly, high schools shouldn't stop funding extracurricular activities because clubs help students find who they are and what they like, and sport clubs like football actually generate money for the school and school pride.

In the article, Every nook & nanny: the dangerous spread of commercialized culture, written by Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor, the authors argue how corporations have had great influence on schools, television, movies, internet and other forms of media culture through advertising. Prior to 1989, advertising was not accepted in schools. Chris Whittle convinced schools to accept adverting by offering to loan TV sets providing children to view 10 minutes a day of news, banter and at least two minutes of advertisements through Channel One. Food and beverage companies soon entered the schools with ‘sponsored educational materials’ fed in their TV advertisements to the mass audience. Companies began ‘Ad creep’ because

No one expects somebody to work two fulltime jobs and not get paid for it. Nobody would think it would be fair to work so hard and not receive any form of compensation. This is exactly what is happening to student athletes. Student athletes are not only fulltime students, but also are fulltime athletes. There are two very decisive sides to this argument. On one side the NCAA claims that the student athletes are amateurs and cannot be paid. They also claim they are paid in other ways such as a full ride scholarship to a top level education. The other side of the argument states that the work load of a fulltime student and a fulltime athlete is almost unmanageable and the NCAA is making millions off of their work and sweat. This is an issue

$9,139 is the average cost of college for a student to go attend an in-state four year public university (“College Costs”). This amount does not include housing, food, books, or supplies; this can end up totaling near $10,000, but imagine if both of these figures were paid for you. This would mean you would pay nothing to attend a four year college, and this is the reality for many individuals today; these people are commonly known as student-athletes. Many student-athletes receive full scholarships to schools covering their room, board, tuition, books and any other expenses they may incur because they are playing a sport at the institution. Not to mention many of these individuals will receive stipends to use at their own will. However, these same students feel like these benefits are not enough (“Here’s”). Some students feel like they are being cheated out of their talents because NCAA uses them in media and in other profitable ventures but they are not paid. Others just feel that the role of a college athlete should include receiving payment since they are like professional athletes and see their sport as their only profession. Student- athletes may have a similar role to professional athletes, but do not deserve the same compensation because they are receiving their payment through a school scholarship.

And then there was high school. This is the first generation that came of age in the era of rampant advertising in the schools, as well as Channel One, the news program piped into schools complete with advertisements. As a Generation Xer who graduated from high school in 1988, I recall very few ads in school. A relatively short time later, the hallways, lunchrooms, and sports facilities of cash-strapped schools frequently are sponsored by corporations. When I ask students if this happened in their schools, they supply never-ending examples: stadiums dotted by Nike swooshes, lunchrooms filled with Pizza Hut and Chic Fil-A, a back-to-school party sponsored by Outback Steakhouse, even book covers sponsored by corporations. Then, of course, there’s the prom. Eschewed by some of my Gen X counterparts, the prom is back and bigger than ever, teaching future brides and grooms

Doctor Benjamin Barber’s article The Educated Student: Global Citizen or Global Consumer? discusses how the schools are being attacked by advertising campaigns. Barber talks about the poor school districts being targeted by a company called Channel One. Channel One provides

What is one goal for high schools to accomplish besides their athletic programs winning state? The goal is sponsorships whether if it’s from shoes companies to sports drinks. What sponsorships do for their school of choosing is they give thousands to even millions of dollars for the school to be fully equipped with the company’s gear. Specifically for the athletic department. That entitles the school to get brand new equipment whenever they like and can supply athletes with the newest gear from that sponsor, but there have been some issues with these sponsorships. So the big question is should Shoe companies continue to give free gear to high school? Between families and schools being upset that their school was not chosen for sponsorship,

I am against paying college athletes. I am against it because the athletes are not just athletes; they are students too. The athletes are getting paid to go to college at the school that they are attending. Being an athlete is second to being a student, because if the student-athletes do not make the grade to pass then they can not play. There is already so much going against paying these student-athletes. Will all the athletes be paid the same amount? Will a starting football player at Ohio State get paid the same amount or more than a walk on redshirt freshman that will not get to go on the field on Saturdays for three more years? Will some schools get to pay the student-athletes more than others? For say will Alabama football get

The corporate school reform which has originated through political movement mainly has methods in which are taken from the political approaches. The fact that most of the school board members consists of those who professions in business instead of education is not favorable. The Failure of Corporate School Reform on page one states that the corporate school reformers try to “imagine public schools as private businesses, districts as markets, students as consumers, and knowledge as product.” If I am able to purchase my knowledge, that will be great. Yet, I am not able to do that, and I feel like the reformers are only looking at me as one of the pawns on the chessboard; the reformers are only thinking of us as money.

Sponsorship is a cash in-kind fee paid to a property normally in sports, arts and entertainment in return for access to the commercial publicity associated with that product. For example a company may provide equipment for a famous athlete and ask in exchange for its logo to appear on its clothing and other assets in order for the company to receive brand recognition.

One day during algebra we were learning a new and difficult way to solve an algebra problem. I didn’t know how to do the homework, so I used the internet to teach myself,the website went through step-by-step and taught me and I was able to finish and get all the right answers on my homework. Technology can be a huge positive to someone's learning experience. Every student should be allowed to have a device in the classroom because it allows faster information, different teaching techniques, and teaches you how to find the right information out of many answers .

Saving money, especially for schools, is extremely important because they can use it to expand a student’s horizons towards academic activities. According to an article by Amanda Ripley, Premont Independent spent more than $520,000 on activities, supplies, and traveling for sports (11). Ripley continues saying that hiring substitutes for teachers and chaperoning trips for sports can become quite costly (11). This shows that having sports could be a bad choice for schools to make if their goal is for students to

While America has a prominent fear of corporate partnerships monitoring students’ education, they are an easy revenue for schools to provide better facilities to their