Advertising on the Radio

Today on my drive up to Boone I was listening to KXNO to get my morning fill of sports radio when an ad came on the air discussing the need for assistance in financing the building of a new school/community auditorium in Nevada, IA. I have heard advertisements in local communities (through local paper, radio, tv, etc.) for items like this, but never on a more regional radio station like KXNO that I can recall. It got me thinking about the implications of this for schools in general.

What if we decide to advertise our school itself openly?
What if Open Enrollment was truly open?
What are issues that we would face?
Why can't we do this?
What would this lead to?

As a former business education instructor, it is my opinion that if we are doing a great job of meeting expectations of the community, parents, and students and have data to show what we are doing, we should be able to advertise these successes and promote the possibility of students attending our district instead of district B. Others share similar thought processes...

Benton Community School District

Open enrollment should be based on a year to year basis WITHOUT transportation. If a parent (or student) wishes to attend another district, and can afford to do take care of the transportation to do so, then the money for the student should follow THE YEAR OF the enrollment. Wherever the student first enrolls for the year is where the money would stay for the year due to the necessity of establishing/managing a district budget. This would mean a change to our accounting structure for school finance from July to June to a different schedule, but more of a just-in-time approach (i.e. if you don't have the money now, you can't spend it).

One area that I believe this would lead to is more investment in marketing for a district. It may also eliminate certain school districts, as students look to expand their opportunities. Certainly, it would lead towards stronger schools as a whole, as competition would drive demand for this to occur (I don't believe this is an assumption, competition in a free market economy is a necessity). More demand would occur for certain schools, which would lead to advanced policies regarding expectations of behavior, grades, etc. which would need to be met in order to attend. Charter schools would also have opportunities to expand, and businesses could them become directly involved towards investing in education (Wells Fargo School of Finance, anyone?).

With these changes to the educational system as it is today, would an end result be increases in the expectations for our society (raising the bar)? I would like to believe so...