School bake sales can teach poor business skills

November 26, 10:58 PMEducation ExaminerDonna Gundle-Krieg

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 School bakes sales have always bothered me for many reasons.

First of all, they usually do not teach students math or business skills. In fact, they often teach students how to lose money and claim a profit.  

For example, if you bake cupcakes for a bake sale and it cost $10 to buy all the ingredients, the school will often sell the cupcakes for 25 cents each and take in a total of $3.

 Then the school will brag that they "raised" $3, when actually the baker is out $10. So there is a net loss. This doesn't even count the labor and headache! 

This is doing the students a great disservice because they are learning that you should only count incoming money and not cost. No wonder our country is in such a mess!

My sister is a teacher and tells me I am a pessimist. "Bake sales promote community," she tells me. 

That may be, but I think  that the reason she likes bake sales is because she is the buyer. She gets a great deal on the cupcake. The baker is the one who loses. And the kids really lose because they never understand what is happening.

A second reason that I do not like bake sales is that I don't know who baked the goods. Who knows what is really in the baked goods that are for sale?

In fact, there used to be a cookie exchange at my daughter's school. Each PTO mom would bake cookies and the teachers would come in and choose their favorites.

I stopped baking cookies for this exchange when one of the teachers told me she never eats the cookies. "For all I know, some angry parent has spit in them, or worse," she explained.

Last but not least, bake sales are not good because we are trying to teach our kids to be healthy. We sell sugar filled goodies and moan about our obese nation. See an interesting article on this topic: Should Bake Sales Be Banned?

This issue is fresh in my mind because today someone called me asking me to bake something for a last minute bake sale. I tried to explain this logic to her, and she obviously thought that I was just making excuses.

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