Do we have that about right? That is the trail of logic or illogic, depending on your point of view, in this editorial. What do you think? The issue is getting a fair amount of media attention. The larger issue of advertising in public schools is being considered by the Hawai’i Board of Education. More details of the situation nationally is here, including numbers from Phoenix, Ariz., where the school district anticipates its bus ad efforts, begun one year ago, will bring in $300,000 this year and up to $900,000 annually in a few years, USA Today reports. In Florida in 2004, Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Palm Beach School District boards approved ads for the insides of their buses and are working out the details, the paper reports.
Another story here, which details the decision of a Colorado school district to seek school bus advertising beginning in 1993, out of a serious need for revenue. This year, Colorado Springs School District 11 will collect $650,000 from a deal that combines school bus ads with Coca-Cola vending. The school district, which may be the first in the nation to have such an arrangement, says that most of its school bus advertising is not for junk food or soda but for local doctors and local merchants. Nevertheless, a busybody consumer group is complaining.
