Like seemingly every other public institution, our schools are struggling financially. But their efforts to raise extra money are getting out of hand.School administrators are turning our children into little Amway salespersons.Example:During regular school hours, Northwest Middle School in Canal Fulton holds an assembly at which an outside company pitches a magazine fundraiser. Students are told that if they sell one subscription, they will be treated to a magic show — held during school hours —featuring “incredible illusions and world-record card-throwing tricks.”Sell four magazines and you have a chance to win cash.Sell eight and you get preferred seating at the magic show and an autograph from the magician.Sell 12 and you get to snatch a bill out of a cash box containing denominations from $5 to $50.The kids also are encouraged to “out” their friends and relatives. As the flier puts it, “Complete seven different names and different addresses of friends outside of Canal Fulton” and you can “win a lanyard, a funny frog and sour gummies to feed your frog” — plus be entered in a drawing to win $25.Now, with apologies to the district’s English teachers, if that ain’t bribery, I’ve never seen it.Northwest is certainly not the only school to do this sort of thing; more schools are doing it every year. Nor is this necessarily the most egregious example. But Northwest’s program dates back more than a decade and has continued to roll merrily along with very little backlash.Until now.While most parents either shrug or roll their eyes when those sorts of fliers come home, one Northwest parent hit the ceiling.Eric Buwala has a seventh-grade son who is such a high achiever that he was a Student of the Month. When his son came home with the magic-show flier, Buwala got worked up enough to send a note to the principal.He didn’t much care for the response, or the response to his response, so he went on the warpath, eventually requesting reams of financial records.Those records (which he shared with me) show that last year’s magazine drive brought in $15,163 and, of that, $8,406 went to a company from Tennessee called Great American Opportunities.It’s not clear from school records how much of the money went to the magazine publishers, but in documents filed in a 2010 lawsuit in Delaware (in which Great American successfully sued a competitor for stealing trade secrets), the company said its gross profit margin was 27.8 percent.In any event, our little salespeople are keeping a mere 46 percent of the money they collect.Documents from the school also indicate that the magazine money goes into what is called the Principal’s Fund and is used for a wide variety of purposes — including classroom materials.That seems to be in direct opposition to the “Student Activity Accounts Administration and Procedures” policy in the school’s own handbook, which specifically prohibits using the fund for “purchases of equipment, supplies, postage, etc., for curricular or classroom use.”Principal’s Fund records show expenditures for such things as office supplies, a shredder and sixth-grade Social Studies books.Among the larger payouts: $1,175 for track uniforms and $1,757 for “activity pass [for] Sluggers & Putters.”Says Buwala: “Shouldn’t the people on the track team either bear that expenditure or fundraise to offset it? Why does my son have to sell magazines to raise money for the track team?”Good question. The way it usually works is that certain groups stage fundraisers to benefit their group — track athletes selling Entertainment books to pay for track uniforms, band members selling baked goods to raise money for a band trip.School Principal Bob Venables expressed surprise when he was told that using the Principal’s Fund for regular classroom equipment and materials is prohibited per the school’s own policy book.“Really? We’ve always used it [that way] that I know of. The Principal’s Fund has always been that broad-type thing.”Venables, a Northwest graduate who has spent three decades in various capacities in various Northwest buildings and is in his first year as middle school principal, says his district is particularly strapped for cash. Its per-pupil expenditure ranks among the lowest 5 percent statewide.The Ohio Department Education pegs the figure at $8,109 per kid.“Our community wants us to reduce costs and get some alternative ways to supplement our stuff that we can provide back to the students,” he says.When asked whether he has any qualms about bribing the kids and using them as an unpaid labor force for an outside company, he says, “We don’t force the students to participate. ... We do give them some rewards.”Venables calls it a learning experience.“It teaches the kids a little bit of responsibility in handling money and entrepreneurship. There are people out there who are going to buy magazines, so why not support the kids in the school?”Again, to be fair, plenty of other schools run similar programs. In the Medina public schools, the incentive is even more alluring: a daylong trip — on a school day — to Kalahari Resorts in Sandusky.Still, there’s something about this that just doesn’t feel right.As Buwala notes, not only are students required to sell a magazine to gain access to a school assembly, but they first must sit through a presentation put on by outside people who train them how to sell magazines. In other words, a private, for-profit company comes to town and turns them into child laborers.And, at least at Northwest, the money is going into a sort of loose, all-purpose slush fund.Says Buwala: “I love the educators at our school. I’m not against paying taxes to provide public schooling. But with more and more requests for money, I can’t help but feel that no one is minding the store.”Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or bdyer@thebeaconjournal.com.