July 11th, 2005
Your Kid's Education, Brought to You by...
By Greg Toppo
USA Today
Someday soon, students in a suburban Detroit school district may attend schools “sponsored by” or even named after corporate or private donors.
In what observers say is an unprecedented move, the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools board of education voted unanimously last month to offer naming rights for its schools. Though no offers are on the table, Tom Sklut, the district’s chief development officer, says, “We felt like we needed to position ourselves to be able to consider an offer should one happen."Among the possibilities: Naming a planned $15 million elementary school after whoever donates 51% of its cost, or renaming an existing school. Because elementary schools are traditionally named after local educators, Sklut says, the name probably would be hyphenated. Another option is keeping the old name but adding “sponsored by” a donor. “We’re working really hard to not throw away history here,” he says.
Naming rights have long been attached to sports stadiums, college facilities and, more recently, public school gyms and playgrounds. In nearby Rochester, two builders earned naming rights for school playgrounds after donating to their construction. Elsewhere, Burger King sponsors 24 “Burger King Academies,” schools within schools for troubled kids.
But this is the first time the name of a whole school is for sale, says Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, an Oregon-based non-profit that campaigns against commercialism in schools and elsewhere. “Some things are too important to be for sale — and that includes our schools and our kids.”
Sklut says the move is simply a way to help balance the budget. “The fact of the matter is, the state does not have the money to fund public education.”
He notes that the district has been praised as one of Michigan’s best-managed. “We know how to pinch a penny, and still we see the need to ask the private sector ... to provide a stronger education for our students.”
Dean Bonham of The Bonham Group, a Denver sports and entertainment marketing firm, says students “almost always benefit” from such deals, if they’re structured correctly.
Resistance “typically drops off pretty quickly,” he says. “There’s sort of a fatalistic acceptance of the fact that we’re living in a commercial society.”
That’s the problem, says Susan Linn, author of Consuming Kids. “It’s not just schools; children are bombarded with commercials constantly now. There’s no commercial-free space in their lives.”
Sklut disagrees. “It’s hard to imagine that ‘Dodson Elementary School sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive’ would do them any harm just by its presence.”
Actually, the district, in an upscale area west of Detroit, hopes for private donors, he says; besides, donors won’t really be buying half the school, just offsetting costs. Sklut figures an endowment of $7.5 million — half the cost of the new school — could generate about $375,000 annually, enough to pay half the salaries for the music staff at district high schools. “It would be hard to argue that that’s a bad thing to do.”