December 3, 2008, - 12:31 pm
This Guy Does the Work Some Americans–Whining Public School Teachers–Won’t Do
By Debbie Schlussel
I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of Tom Farber. In a time when public school teachers are constantly whining about how they have to take money out of their own pockets to pay for treats or other unnecessary things for students, Farber isn’t whining.
He’s actually taking initiative and is a great role model for his students on how to solve financial problems in tough economic times. He’s a calculus teacher, but should probably also be teaching business classes:
When administrators at Rancho Bernardo, his suburban San Diego high school, announced the district was cutting spending on supplies by nearly a third, 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.
San Diego magazine and The San Diego Union-Tribune featured his plan just before Thanksgiving, and Farber came home from a few days out of town to 75 e-mail requests for ads. So far, he has collected $350. His semester final is sold out.
That worries Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a Washington-based non-profit that fights commercialization in school and elsewhere. If test-papers-as-billboards catches on, he says, schools in the grip of tough economic times could start relying on them to help the bottom line.
And this is bad because . . .?
“The advertisers are paying for something, and it’s access to kids,” he says.
Apparently this guy has never seen Nickoledeon, weekend morning TV ads, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam. The ads on the tests (see the photo) are tame and unintrusive. It’s far better than the barrage of ads kids were forced to watch at school on “Channel One.”
About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”
Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been “mixed,” but he notes, “It’s not like, ‘This test is brought to you by McDonald’s or Nike.’ ”
To Farber, 47, it’s a logical solution: “We’re expected to do more with less.”
Whenever I hear public school teachers whine about how they had to pay a few hundred dollars out of their pocket on supplies for students in a year, I think: Hmmmm . . . a very tiny price to pay for eternal job security through tenure (despite incompetence and ignorant children coming out of public schools), whole summers off and lots of paid federal holiday vacations, and full healthcare benefits.
Now, I’ll think that and of Tom Farber, a teacher who did instead of whined.
Teachers who shake up the status quo and do more than is expected of them should be rewarded. We put them in charge of our kids for most of their lives. Its not good enough to just meet the standards. They must be surpassed and this goes for the teachers as well as their students.
NormanF on December 3, 2008 at 1:14 pm