"This is a Freddy Krueger city. Everything rises again." Seattle schools Superintendent John Stanford, speaking after his Feb. 19 announcement that the district would withdraw its plan to solicit corporate advertising in its schools, wasn't merely foreshadowing plot developments. He--and Seattle School Board members--are writing them.

While media coverage led the public to believe that the ad policy had been spiked in February, the actual decision was put off twice. At both subsequent meetings--on March 5 and 19--motions were introduced to "delay," rather than "rescind," the policy.

The motion to rescind finally came a month late, on March 19th--by a 5-1 vote, after an amendment to delay (but keep) the policy failed 4-2. Rescission came with clear instructions to Stanford to whip up a new policy pronto. It also came with a clear insinuation by both school board members and Stanford that the problem wasn't the content of a policy that would auction off a captive audience of kids in a tax-funded institution to the highest corporate bidders; it was the perception of that policy by a hysterical, misinformed public. The solution, then, has not been to take a bad idea and toss it--but to take it out of public view by by tossing it back to Stanford's staff.

The issue of advertising in public schools is a complex and tricky one. It involves legislating the difference between an IBM logo on a school computer and an eight-foot billboard for Snickers in the stairwell. One is practically unavoidable and (arguably) is relevant to education; the other is not. But both are in a school solely because the sponsoring company is willing to give up assets to get their brand name in front of impressionable young consumers, in a school setting, on a daily basis. What's the difference?

The difference, according to proponents, is that the district isn't making enough money off the former. As such, the school district's legitimate financial crisis--with all sorts of local, state, and federal funding sources being slashed while their spokespeople pay homage to how much "we love the kids"--is being used as a red herring to justify a bargain any corporation would willingly pay for: youth believing that the Seattle School District endorses, say, Pepsi.

Hundreds of school districts nationally face equally brutal funding cuts, but only one--in Colorado Springs--has resorted to ads in schools. That netted the district of a rapidly growing city about 30% smaller than Seattle only $210,000 in its first year: a drop in the bucket compared to SSD's estimated $35 million budget shortfall, but an important and joyous precedent for advertisers.

From an ad agency perspective, it's a simple and natural extension from existing school-based efforts (Channel One, sponsored curricula, and the like) to sponsorship of sports teams, naming rights for gyms and buildings, billboards in the hallways, and your history teacher being required to sip Snapple or put her swooshed feet on the desk at some point during third period. They're all opportunities to create need, establish image, and promote name and logo recognition among a very desirable target audience--one, in this case, required by state law to pay attention every day. And they're opportunities being abetted--in this case, actively promoted--by elected officials who don't see the difference between corporate well-being and the public good. (Come to think of it, that's a problem in a few other political arenas, too.)

During the March 19 hearing, no acknowledgement came from Stanford or the board of the possibility of abuse of the public's trust, no acknowledgement that the Board might have done anything wrong, no mention of the systematic exclusion thus far of anyone other than district personnel and ad agency execs in the formulation of ad policy, or of the cesspool of conflicts of interest (including amongst board members) that solicitation of ads opens up. No possibility that, taking at face value Board protestations of their very best intentions, even someone who genuinely loves those kids can still do something bone-ass stupid.

None of those things were the problem; it was all the public's fault. Indeed, Stanford at one point in the decisive hearing went on a long monologue, echoed later by several board members, essentially blaming the victim (citizens outraged by the policy) for the board's dilemna. It was the public's fault for doubting the district's sincerity (and how much they love those kids). The sole reason for rescinding the ad policy was to quell all the misinformation and alarm out here.

Despite the public having forced the issue to a committee (charged with developing a "new" proposal ASAP), there were no instructions from the Board, or concern expressed, that the public be represented in (or even informed of) the process this time around. The School Board's solution instead will be to smother the next proposal in talk of "reasonable compromise" and a "win-win partnership" addressing both the district's financial needs and the needs of corporate benefactors in our community. And we do love those kids. (There now, don't you feel better already?)

Regardless of one's take on ads in schools, this sort of institutional arrogance is an outrage in itself. Usually, in Seattle politics, elected officials at least smile and kiss up to us before we get screwed. On this and numerous other issues, School Board members haven't even bothered with the lip service of public accountability. The mantra is "making kids the center of our universe"; the board actually meets with this idiotic phrase on the wall behind them.

With all the hot gasses and crushing gravity down there in the center of the universe, youth are getting burnt pretty badly. Such verbal sewage seems to excuse everything: shutting out the public from major decisions, auctioning off schoolchildren as an attractive target demographic, and telling us a policy is dead while ordering John Stanford's staff to clone it. Look for the sequel in your neighborhood soon--and next time the promoters won't be as careless about advance screenings.