Will new Minnesota legislation invite corporate interests into the classroom?
Minnesota’s governor and some legislators have a plan to help Minnesota school districts:
Minnesota school districts and charter schools would be required to pool their purchasing power under a plan unveiled Wednesday at the State Capitol.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty and several legislators say public schools could save money on information technology, food services, supplies, equipment, transportation and other services by working cooperatively.
The money saved, according to legislators, would go directly back into the schools and not into the state budget. If approved, the state could end up giving school districts more than expected then, since K-12 education was spared from the first round of state budget cuts.
Uh-huh.
I’m all for efficiency and saving money by not duplicating services when we don’t need to. But reading this editorial in support of the legislation made my heart skip a beat:
It’s the sensible Costco concept applied to school budgets . . . . Under the proposal, the state’s Department of Education would create and maintain a list of preferred vendors for services, including school materials, supplies, tools, equipment, technology, food services and transportation.
Watch out: How many of those preferred vendors for school supplies will be able to bid low because their products will double as advertisements?
How can we say no to advertising on school buses if it puts more money into the classroom?
How can we say no to ads on student exams if it means teachers don’t have to pay for the copies out of their pockets?
How can we say no to chain restaurants in the lunchroom if they offer us the best deal?
And how do we say no to free classroom materials — even if they provide misleading information — if the alternative is no materials at all?
Years of inadequate federal and state funding have us backed us into a corner: We must offer up our children to corporate interests, hand over their malleabe minds so they can become brand-loyal consumers, and in exchange, we’ll get pencils and textbooks and writing paper.
I hope I’m wrong. But if I’m not — how can we say no?