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CSMonitor

A new high school in Philadelphia is more likely to be named after Wal-Mart than Walt Whitman.

That's because the public school district wants to sell the school name for a cool $5 million. Not only is the name for this state-of-the-art school up for sale, but so are names for separate classrooms, the auditorium, and other sections of the building. A school official says those additional naming rights could mean upwards of $15 million for the project. (On the plus side, no alcohol or tobacco companies are allowed to make bids.)

How much is too much when it comes to a commercial presence in public schools - especially when advertising already has pervaded those schools through vending machines, scoreboards, and banners?

Many school districts rely on state lotteries to help fund education costs - a less than reliable, or honorable, source of income. If corporations want to help schools, they should also be helping to show students that corporate citizenship doesn't have to involve crass marketing ploys, such as plastering a corporate name on a public building. Microsoft, for instance, is offering considerable expertise in building that new school in Philly, but not attaching its name to it.

Schools typically are named after Americans of extraordinary achievement - noted leaders, astronauts, athletes - or heroes who served as role models for kids. By selling naming rights to a company, a school unfortunately is sending the message that the heroes of tomorrow are the giant corporations of today, with students seen mostly as just a big marketing opportunity.

Schools should be places where learning takes precedence over advertising hype. And their funding should largely come from taxpaying citizens.

Okay, that's fairly calm. Now this, from the Philadelphia Inquirer, It's so sarcastic it's darn near shrill. In other words, I'm Lovin' it.®

Why stop at names? Go whole hog!

The Philadelphia School District thinks it can score $5 million by selling off the naming rights to a new public high school it is building in West Philadelphia.

Hey, why stop there?

Once you get the hang of auctioning your values to the highest bidder, it's addictive. Who knows how lucrative it might become? The woods are full of marketers eager to get their paws on the next generation of consumers as soon as they can.

No money to increase teacher pay? Not a problem. Just let educators market themselves to advertisers, keeping the fees they'd earn for plastering their shirts and sweaters with corporate logos just like a NASCAR driver or golf pro.

Today's health lesson brought to you by Fruit Gushers, kids. Today's Spanish exercise: Pretend you're a customer in a Taco Bell, and order a gordita. Today's lab experiment is sponsored by Dow Chemical. (And no one will mind, will they, if the good people from Dow get to edit that textbook chapter on the Vietnam War just a little bit?)

Come to think of it, the students themselves are a huge, unrealized marketing opportunity. Why not let corporations sponsor kids directly? The young already are used to wearing clothes slathered in logos. It's the logical next step. The latest Adam Sandler movie could sponsor the class clown; he could do a glowing movie review for Show and Tell. Def Jam could hire the baddest kid in 11th grade to front for its latest rap CD.

Really, this whole notion that public schools are some kind of sacred space, where the ideals of learning and citizenship should take precedence over the habits of mass consumption and marketing hype... well, it's just so 20th century.

So is that fuddy-duddy idea that schools should be named after civic heroes whom you'd want students to study and emulate. Who believes in heroes anymore? Civic values? Pfft. They don't help the bottom line, the district's or the nation's. What this economy needs are pliant consumers.

The public clearly doesn't want to pay for its so-called public schools, anyway, so why bother seeking fair funding through democratic process? It's such tedious, tiring work. You have to use the T word (taxes) and that irks the natives.

Just make the sale and collect the cash. It's the American way.