Here\u2019s a riddle: What\u2019s big, bright, and yellow, rides on four wheels, and markets junk food to kids five days a week?<\/p>\n

If you guessed a school bus, you\u2019d be right. \u00a0That\u2019s because in many states a school bus is no longer just an old-fashioned, box-on-wheels transporting kids from home to school and back again. From one coast to the other, school buses are now rolling billboards.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b>Gone are the days when a school bus was just a mode of transportation.\u00a0 Gone too are the days when Johnny and Sue hopped off the bus and raced into classrooms to learn the basic curriculum of \u201creadin\u2019, writin\u2019, and \u2018rithmetic.\u201d\u00a0 All that started to change in 1993 when Colorado passed legislation allowing advertising on school buses.<\/p>\n

To date, nine states \u2013Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Tennessee\u2014allow advertising on the exterior of school buses.\u00a0 \u00a0Today when Jamie and Sophie take their seats on the bus, they become a captive audience for sophisticated, corporate messaging that aims to encourage early-childhood brand-name recognition and budding consumer loyalty.<\/p>\n

Eight more states\u2014New York, Rhode Island, California, Washington, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, and Kentucky\u2014hoping to jump on the corporate bandwagon considered, but failed to pass, legislation in 2012 legalizing advertising on buses.<\/p>\n

Who sent out the invitation?<\/b><\/p>\n

So who\u2019s responsible for inviting corporations into our educational system?\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to lay the blame for commercial creep solely on the corporate world and its quest for ever-younger consumers.\u00a0 After all, there\u2019s a reason why many of America\u2019s largest corporations have seized the opportunity. McDonald\u2019s, Nestle, Staples, and CVS pharmacy are just a few competing for kids\u2019 attention, both inside and outside the classroom. Small businesses are climbing onboard as well. They\u2019re taking advantage of advertising opportunities on school buses to sell their brand to kids on the bus as well as adults sharing the road with the yellow fleet.<\/p>\n

Corporations, however, are not the sole players, nor the most culpable, in the new, competitive world of free-market solutions to funding education. \u00a0Taxpayers and elected officials at the local, state, and federal levels share the responsibility\u2014and blame\u2014for the perfect storm that has pushed many cash-strapped school districts into the waiting arms of the corporate world.<\/p>\n

The truth is when curriculum, staffing, benefits, and administrative costs outpace funding revenues, when federal and state funding are flat or falling, and the financial and philosophical commitment to public education is on the wane, what\u2019s a cash-strapped school district to do?\u00a0 When infrastructure–buildings, classrooms, computer and science labs, athletic programs and facilities–is substandard or needs refurbishment, where does the money come from? When property owners, state legislators, and governors declare \u201cno more\u201d to property-tax increases that stagnant wages and fixed incomes cannot possibly keep pace with, where does a school district turn for help?<\/p>\n

The corporate world and privatization interests were primed to pounce on a new avenue for marketing to school-age kids. And pounce they did.<\/p>\n

\u00a0How can school districts say \u201cno\u201d?<\/b><\/p>\n

In states where advertising, promotion, \u00a0and sponsorships are allowed in and around schools, the revenue stream can be significant and hard to resist. In New Jersey, ads are expected to generate an annual $1,000 per bus.\u00a0 According to Alpha Media, a company selling and managing ads on school buses in Texas and Arizona, districts with two hundred fifty buses could generate $1 million in revenue each year.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, where state law prohibits advertising on the exterior of school buses, in September 2012, five districts voted to allow advertising in the interior of their buses.\u00a0 One district, although limiting advertising to health, safety, wellness, recreational and educational topics, estimates it will still generate $150,000 in revenue from advertising on the inside of the district\u2019s forty-six buses.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Give marketing interests an inch, and they\u2019ll take a mile<\/b><\/p>\n

Nothing in the school experience seems to be beyond the pale anymore.\u00a0 In Newton, Massachusetts, schools are considering selling naming rights to the school buildings themselves.\u00a0 In Peabody, Massachusetts, district regulations permit business-card-sized ads to be printed on the backs of notes to parents sent home with elementary schoolchildren. (Pretty darn clever.\u00a0 Why worry about finding minimum-wage workers to hand out promotional flyers? Just use the kids instead.)<\/p>\n

In Los Angeles, the largest school district in the country, administrators have agreed to sell the naming rights to cafeterias, football fields, and other extra-curricular teams\u2014with potential revenue of up to $18 million. Four Albuquerque, New Mexico, high schools located on highly trafficked streets now lease out space for electronic billboards.\u00a0 And how much is that space worth?\u00a0 A tidy $40,000 annually.<\/p>\n

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