School Districts In Iowa Compete For Enrollment, Use Advertisements To Attract Students

Des Moines Register:

Iowa schools usually compete for basketball titles and top test scores this time of year. Now they're battling each other for students, too.

Driven by dollar signs, the pursuit of pupils through advertising and other recruiting efforts is a sign of the times in a state where a shrinking rural population has eroded enrollments and forced schools to close.

Read the whole story: Des Moines Register

Comments

[raechel]

01:04 PM on 02/24/2011

All of this wringing of hands over the cost of advertising makes me laugh. How much do you think school districts spend to inform people about magnet schools, etc.? This seems to me to be a very efficient and cost-effective way for schools to inform families about what they think they have to offer -- we have French and Mandarin, we have music and art, we will treat your child as an individual and design all of our instruction around his or her unique needs, we promise your child will read at the x level by grade w if he enters our school by 1st grade, we have football, we have a new building, etc. And parents are used to selecting products and services by listening to "marketing" messages -- why not for schools? And how does it hurt anyone?

In fact, I would really like to see individual teachers be able to do the same thing -- here's how I teach and what I focus on. Here's how the kids in my class did last year. Join!

[raechel]

12:51 PM on 02/24/2011

Now, isn't this interesting? So if the mother in Ohio, convicted for stretching the truth to get her kids into a better school, lived in Iowa, she would just be doing what 25,000 other parents did -- find the best schools for their kids?

Go Iowa. They've always been ahead of the other states on education. I say we watch them and follow.

[tooncesrocks]

08:59 AM on 02/24/2011

schools are spending their already dwindling resources on advertising campaigns...

..this is a sign people

[eceresa]

08:27 PM on 02/23/2011

This has been happening where I live for years. Takes education dollars out of the classroom, makes everybody angry, and helps nobody. This is one of the reasons school choice backfires.

[jtabs]

03:23 PM on 02/23/2011

Signing bonuses next?