I got this ad on Facebook today:

So, Facebook knows I’m an educator and is saying, ‘Hey, use our billion dollar company to ask your friends to fund public education.’ – I didn’t click the link, but I wonder if FB takes a cut?

When I go to Twitter, almost daily I see #clearthelists hashtags with tweets like this:

And

Another billion dollar company, Amazon, profiting from people trying to support public education out of their own pockets.

Let me be clear, I have nothing against teachers asking for help to get things they want for their classroom. Most of the educators I see using this hashtag are American, and because most educational funding is from local taxpayers in the US, there are gross discrepancies in funding available to schools based on zip code. Some schools and teachers in those schools really have to work with very little resources.

The reality is that wherever you live public education is publicly funded and there are always limits on what can be afforded. I’d love to get an expensive new 3D printer for our school to replace our aging one, but I also don’t see that as a priority this year compared to other things that I’ll use my budget on. That doesn’t mean that we are poorly funded, that means we need to be fiscally responsible with our budgets.

The thing is, it bugs me that educators, who tend to be connected mostly to other educators, are asking their network of friends to help fund public education, while billion dollar companies profit. That’s messed up.

Locally, there is a company, Finger Food, that has donated considerable amounts of technology to schools to help get kids interested in coding and STEM projects. They see a direct benefit to supporting public education in their/our community and they work closely with district leadership to make sure they are getting the most bang for their donated buck. This is a great relationship, which benefits our community.

Why don’t more companies look at education this way? When educator and family friends of educators ‘clear the lists’ of items a teacher wants for their classrooms, how much does Amazon make?

I remember years ago a big sports company wanted to put their logo on a high school gym floor for a sizeable donation. There was an uproar in the community about advertising invading our schools. My opinion on the matter was not popular. I thought, kids are bombarded by ads all the time, a logo without a tag line is not a big deal… so this is what I’d do:

Yes, for $—— you can put the logo on our gym floor for 5 years, then we re-sign a new contract or you redo our floors to remove the logo. Don’t like that idea? That’s fine, let us know if you change your mind. So, our schools or district sets the terms and companies abide or not, rather than pandering for any money and settling on company terms. Come into our building on our terms.

Anyway, that’s a separate idea to my original thought… and a bit controversial. What’s not controversial is that while teachers are asking friends to support public education, large corporations are doing little to support public education while also profiting. I think there needs to be more companies thinking about how they can contribute to the education of young people. If just 5-10% of major companies were to find ways to donate less than 0.05% – 1/20 of 1 percent- of their profits (that would be $500 on a million dollar profit), think about how well public education could be funded!