School districts that boost their coffers by entering into money-making agreements with companies rarely gain much in return, researchers find.
Brian Brent, a professor and associate dean at the University of Rochester in New York and a study co-author, said in an interview that the cost of administering and maintaining such contracts seldom factors into the equation. A summary of his research appears this month in School Business Affairs, a magazine published by the Association of School Business Officials International.
The findings were based on survey responses from school business officials in 197 districts in Pennsylvania and 307 in New York. The research focused on two primary forms of making money: granting exclusive agreements to sell or promote products or services and appropriated space agreements, in which districts may sell space on school property, such as scoreboards or buses.
