Daryl Lease is an editorial writer at the Herald-Tribune in Sarasota, Fla. His e-mail address is daryl.lease@herald-trib.com.

When Hollywood executives admitted on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago that they have used children as young as 9 to test-market slasher flicks, there was a predictable display of chin-tugging, teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing among parents and lawmakers. The outrage was certainly appropriate, but lost in the furor was this equally alarming fact: Wild-eyed zombies with rubber knives are not the only slobbering, craven creatures chasing after our kids.

We have come a long way from the quaint old days of Saturday morning television, where Madison Avenue pioneered the concept of flipping kids upside down and shaking loose mommy and daddy's money for the coolest new cereal or the coolest new toy. Now, the advertising onslaught runs seven days a week and is no longer limited to the home.

More and more corporations are discovering that the classroom, often free of pesky parental oversight, is a great place to stage a shakedown.

A captive, and unsuspecting, audience

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recently released a report on the commercialization of schools. Researchers found that a growing number of school districts, eager to find new sources of income, are accepting "donations" from corporations and granting them exclusive rights to distribute their products in schools, obtain personal information about students and even drop thinly veiled advertisements in the curriculum.

Channel One, the granddaddy of marketing in schools, now beams a heavily commercialized news show into about one-fourth of the nation's middle schools and high schools. A crowd of imitators is emerging on the Internet.

The leader is Zap Me, a California company that provides hundreds of school districts with free computers on the condition that they be used at least four hours a day. The computers run a constant stream of ads, and -- most disturbingly -- track the kids' Web surfing. The information is categorized by age group, sex, zip code and other categories and then distributed to advertisers.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who asked for the GAO report, object to Zap Me's methods and say most parents do not realize how much their kids are treated like consumers at school. "If you had an 8-year-old or a 10-year-old," Dodd asks, "would you allow someone to come into your house to do a survey on your child without your consent?"

Soft-drink manufacturers are probably the most aggressive marketers. More than 200 school systems in the United States now have exclusive contracts with Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola to sell their brands in vending machines. Typically, schools get a flat fee, plus a percentage of sales. In the Florida county where I live, for example, Coke offered the school district a deal valued at $4.8 million over 10 years -- if kids guzzle the predicted volume of sugar water.

"It's really about resources," Coca-Cola spokeswoman Kim Price explained. "We're in a situation these days where schools need resources, and they're asking for help. We're in a position where we can provide that help."

The Pepsi (and Coke) generation

Indeed, these deals seem harmless at first glance. Students already are buying soft drinks the rest of the day, so why not transfer that money to a productive use? If Coke or Pepsi can help a city or county hire more teachers or build new schools without raising property taxes, what is the harm?

But why do these companies not simply make an old-fashioned donation, with nothing more than a "thank you" and a tax write-off expected in return? Why are they creating a system of "help" that transforms schools into convenience stores with textbooks?

The answer is obvious: Companies are winning a captive consumer group -- known in years past as "students" -- while creating an appearance that they are generous corporate citizens. But as one national opponent notes, "This isn't philanthropy. It's a cold, calculated business deal based on the idea that they'll influence kids to buy more soda."

The cold, calculated part is found in deals that offer schools a percentage of sales. The more frequently kids are exposed to soft drinks and encouraged -- subtly or otherwise -- to drink them, the more money the district earns.

The arrangement easily can turn educators into pimps for pop. A couple of years ago, Colorado Springs school officials were embarrassed when a confidential letter by an administrator made its way into a local newspaper. In the letter, the administrator urged principals to move vending machines to help drum up sales -- "location, location, location is the key" -- and asked teachers to let kids drink soda during class. The administrator signed his letter, "The Coke Dude."

To increase sales, many schools are relaxing rules that have long restricted the sale of soft drinks to lunchtime and after school. Last year, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his Cabinet approved a measure allowing schools to sell sodas all day to high-school students. "We have too many rules on schools," Bush said in a bold, Seussian declaration worthy of this "Hop on Pop" movement.

Not the education today's kids need

Soft-drink manufacturers are only too happy to restock the machines. "We want to enhance school life," David DeCecco, a spokesman for Pepsi-Cola, told the Orlando Sentinel after the Florida Cabinet vote.

In addition to the worrisome marketing aspects of these deals, there are serious health concerns. Assisting in the sale of high-caffeine, high-calorie drinks undermines any lessons that schools attempt to teach kids about healthy eating habits. It is no wonder that recent studies show American children are increasingly chubby and out of shape.

Teeth are not the only things subject to decay in these arrangements, unfortunately. The deals water down the public's already eroding sense of responsibility for providing children a good education. If we are truly living in one of the strongest economies in American history, do we really have to peddle soft drinks and other products to our kids in order to pay for their education?

We would never consider selling bags of sugar to children during school hours and using the proceeds to buy chalkboard erasers and crayons. How much less repulsive, really, is what we are doing now?