in another universe…

Jul 13, 2011

I read an article on Alisa’s BLOG this morning. In it, she talks about a mailing she received from a school within our county in Indiana (Jackson), encouraging recipients (particularly parents of school-aged children of other schools in the county) to consider enrollment in THEIR school — but only if you want your child to “be the BEST” (“If your goal is to be the BEST, join the Best!”) In this universe, it is every parent’s goal (ok, every decent, caring parent), to provide the best education — the best kick-start to life — to their children.

It’s doubtful you’ll hear any Mom or Dad say, “I just want my kid to be mediocre. That’s my goal!”

But what grabbed my attention is who funded the preparation and mailing of the publication — PepsiCo.

I personally don’t see anything wrong with Seymour’s attempt to up enrollment by targeting students in other districts — but I do think it’s wrong for PepsiCo to sponsor the marketing for that cause in particular — even if Seymour schools can sell more Pepsi at one sporting event than Crothersville will all year. On their web site, Pepsi claims to fund amazing ideas that refresh the world“Dream it, submit it, get enough votes and we’ll help make it happen for your community!”

How many dedicated teachers and innovative students from the Ville are submitting ideas for promotional funding from Pepsi and other industries? My guess is… not nearly enough! Still, searching as hard as I could, I didn’t see one thing under education (or anywhere else) on the Pepsi site that related to funding publications to encourage a student to switch schools. And, let’s face it… the Ville isn’t going to be able to garner as many votes for ANY project when pitted against larger communities. Thanks, assholes Pepsi.