WASHINGTON -- November 11 -- Yesterday, the Philadelphia School District announced plans to sell naming rights to a new high school in West Philadelphia. The school district also plans to sell naming rights to individual classrooms, the auditorium, and other parts of the school, according to the Associated Press.

“It is a sign in the decline of our values that we name things not after our heroes or history, but after corporations with the deepest pockets,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. “Schools exist to promote character and good values, not commercial values.”

“Our schools should honor civic virtue and civic heroes. That is especially true in Philadelphia, which is rich in heroes and history,” Ruskin said.

“What is Philadelphia going to do next? Rename the Liberty Bell after Taco Bell?” Ruskin asked.

Commercial Alert is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy. For more information, see our website at: http://www.commercialalert.org.

Commercial Alert's web page on naming rights for schools is at: http://www.commercialalert.org/index.php/category_id/2/subcategory_id/78/article_id/189

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