After Boston school superintendent Carol Johnson yesterday announced a budget that would cut 134 teaching positions, pressure is on the Boston Teachers’ Union to agree to a wage freeze and avoid the layoffs. Meanwhile, in budget-strapped places like Idaho and California, some enterprising teachers are taking fiscal matters into their own hands – -not through protests or the ever-hopeful-yet-pitiful school bake sale, but through selling ad space on their tests and quizzes.

It sounds like sort of a joke, and indeed, the amount of money raised this way is the proverbial drop in the bucket. An Idaho teacher picked up about $300 from a local pizza chain in order to (irony alert) sponsor a U.S. history test on the Great Depression. Students saw test questions about past economic panic, intermingled with an offer for $5 pizza. The teacher got his entire paper budget covered during the present economic panic. 

Creepy? Maybe. A depressing commentary on the public’s willingness to invest in education? Definitely. And yet: Just think of the ad revenues a test as widely distributed as MCAS could bring!  And in the hands of a skilled teacher, think what students could learn about math, finance, and media literacy — not to mention politics!  Sample discussion question: “If Coke pays $100,000 for an ad that 300,000 kids will look at for 30 minutes, what price does the company attach to each minute of your own personal eyeball time?” “Why do you imagine they value your eyeballs so much? Explain.” “How many Cokes would Bay State kids need to buy before the company saw a return on the ad investment?” etc. etc. etc. 

Or, maybe more to the point: “How many test-ads would Boston need to sell to save the jobs of 134 teachers?”