New Study Finds Soda Vending Contracts Flawed For Schools
A recent story in The Oregonian (link here) reports that a new study has found that the contracts schools are signing with soft drink companies are not only bad for students' health, but are also a very bad deal for the schools. This further demonstrates the inability of "corporate sponsorships" to fulfill even their own promises to support schools, not to mention the critiques of corporatization of education. As has been discussed before, the incumbent in Position 6 of the 4J School Board is an executive with a local Pepsi distribution company and has testified in favor of soft drink vending machines in schools before the state congress.
According to The Oregonian:
According to The Oregonian:
The total revenue to school districts from the contracts that were analyzed ranges from $12 to $24 per student annually. What parents don't realize, though, is that most of the money comes from their own pockets. That is, it comes from their teens plunking down money to buy soft drinks. Vendors, meanwhile, walk away with between $14 and $32 per kid per year in sales revenue...What we hear about, of course, are big cash advances and gifts such as scoreboards (which usually double as advertising for the vendors).The full story can be read here (link).On an annual basis, such "gifts" amount to paltry sums. Some even have to be paid back, if schools terminate their contracts early without delivering an agreed-upon number of soda sales. Typically, vendor "gifts" equate to $2 to $8 a year per student.
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