Sponsorship isn’t evil

The debate on corporate intrusion in public schools is nothing new. It’s been going on for decades, since soda manufacturers first began sponsoring scoreclocks. It’s popped up again in the Vancouver area, as the school board there turned down Chevron’s Fuel Your School program, which donates money from drivers to purchase school equipment.

Chevron offered $1 per fill-up of 30 litres or more toward educational programs. On the surface, that might be considered blatant commercialization of our young people.

“We need to keep corporate influence away from classrooms,” said Vancouver school board chair Patti Bacchus, who believes the responsibility for education funding belongs with the provincial government.

Should sponsorship catch on, where would it end? Schools, hospitals, highways?

But if the corporate world wants to get involved, why hold them back? Corporations have donated scholarship and bursary money for decades.

Expecting a tasteful plug in return is not unreasonable.

What’s being offered by Chevron isn’t another Alex DeLarge brainwashing in the style of A Clockwork Orange.

If money’s tight, why vote down something that can effectively benefit children?

In case critics of corporate sponsorship haven’t noticed, advertising is nearly everywhere in a child’s world, from the Internet to designer clothes and shoes to those ever so skillfully placed products in animated films by Disney and others.

Patti Bacchus is refreshing in that she’s a rare school board trustee who speaks out on controversial issues and is not afraid to offend anyone.

It’s just, this time, she needs to reconsider her position.

Board should embrace Fuel Your School program