Oh Screw It: Ads For Sale On High School Tests
Ads: they're everywhere! How many times must we repeat that pithy, insightful line? But it's true! Ads are on set-top box menus and the outsides of subway cars and inside your computer and strapped onto girls who are following you around. And every month or so ads appear in some new place and we think, "This, I fear, is the absolute pinnacle of psycho ad creep into every inappropriate nook of our lives." Well that was before teachers started selling advertising on their tests:
"[California high school math teacher Tom Farber] had a problem. At 3 cents a page, his tests would cost more than $500 a year. His copying budget: $316. But he wanted to give students enough practice for the big tests they'll face in the spring, such as the Advanced Placement exam.
'Tough times call for tough actions,' he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final."
But see the ads are just one small line at the bottom of the page, and they've mostly been very understated so far, so who would even care, right?
I'll tell you who: the late educational theorist John Dewey. I doubt he would approve of this one bit. And he's on a stamp, people. [USA Today]