Pimping out my Kids

The other day I got this note from my kids' elementary school:

"You are invited to attend your child's Art Gallery Event!

Dear Parents:

Our students have been working hard on a special art project that will be displayed at our KidsArt Fair on.....(date and time).

It's a big day for our school--don't miss the opportunity to share in the joy of creative expression with your child. You may purchase your child's framed artwork for $29.95 (plus tax). Our school receives 20% of all frame sales to support art education. There is no charge to visit the gallery--bring the whole family!"

What? (or WTH??? is more like it) Let me get this straight. So I can attend this wonderful art gallery, at no charge, and then buy my own kids' artwork. So I have to pay $30 to buy my kids' work? Exactly how is that legal?

Let me tell you, I'm all in favor of supporting art education and music education, etc. But I'm not going to do it by allowing the school to sell my kids' artwork for a profit. And I have two kids, so now I'm roped into spending $60 because who can really go see their kids' artwork and not want to buy it? And you can't buy one without the other. What happens if I don't want to buy my kids' work? Can someone else buy it? Can I buy some other kids' work? What if my kids' artwork stinks? What if I like little Katie's flowers better than the ones my kid did? Can I buy Katie's work and pretend it's my kids'? You see where I'm going with this...

Also, let's add this fundraiser to the one that the art classes already did in the fall. Back then they had the kids draw pictures and then sent them off to the Art by Me folks to make into magnets, tshirts, notebooks, totebags, etc. Then they sent home the magnet of the kids' artwork and basically strong armed me into buying it. I tried to get out cheap by just buying the magnet and one cheap little thing for each kid, but I still spent around $30-$40 on that fundraiser. What this tells me is that my kids aren't getting much in the way of art education at school, unless of course the driving principle is that to be an artist you have to sell everything, even to your own family. Seems to me my kids have spent the better part of this past year in art class learning how to shakedown their parents with cuteness.

I guess I'm going to email the art teacher and the principal to ask a few questions...namely, if I don't purchase the frame, can I still have my kids' artwork back? For the Art by Me stuff, I never got the artwork back, so the only way to get a copy of my kids' work was to buy it.

Why can't schools ever catch on to the fact that we parents really, really, really hate these danged fundraisers? If they would ask me to send in a $10 check to cover art supplies, I'd be more than happy to do so. Instead they ask us to spend $30, for which they only get 20%, or $6. This is fundraising at its most insane.