Subway sandwich contest: Homeschoolers not wanted

[Desertdog]

Subway sandwich contest: Homeschoolers not wanted
Spelling-challenged promotion offers gift 'bastket' to winners


By Jay Baggett
© 2008 WorldNetDaily


Subway, the sandwich restaurant, wants to hear your child's story  unless he or she is homeschooled.

The national chain's "Every Sandwich Tells a Story Contest" offers prizes and a chance to be published on the Subway website and in Scholastic's "Parent & Child" magazine but specifically excludes homeschoolers:

 
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. Contest is open only to legal residents of the Untied (sic) States who are currently over the age of 18 and have children who attend elementary, private or parochial schools that serve grades PreK-6. No home schools will be accepted.

Subway's website promotion not only misspells "United" States, but offers the grand prize winner a "Scholastic Gift Bastket (sic) for your home."

The 2007 winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee was Evan O'Dorney, a 13-year old homeschool student from Danville, Calif.

Contestants are urged to write, in 500 words or less, a story that has a beginning, middle, and end using one of four provided story starters:

The Mysterious Meatball
When the invitation to the Meatball came in the mail...

Turkey Doesn't Live Here Anymore
There was a loud knock on the door, but when Salami Sam opened it ...

The Race to Red Onion Ranch
Everyone gathered in the center of town for the start of the race except ...

Nothing Better
The smell of fresh baked bread coming from the store was so good that ...

The contest, launched in January, has a deadline of June 30, 2008. A grand prize winner and 6 runners-up will be selected on July 15 and announced approximately a week later.

 
The company's website promotion encourages submitters to describe in their essays "random acts of fitness," such as eating right, exercising, playing sports and living a healthy lifestyle.

Subway has marketed itself for several years as a healthy alternative to fast food, featuring spokesman Jared Fogle who went from 425 pounds to 190 pounds on a daily diet of the chain's lower-calorie sandwiches.

The exclusion of homeschoolers, presumably because the grand prize includes $5,000 worth of athletic equipment for the winning child's school, has caught the attention of bloggers who educate their children.

Valerie Bonham Moon, writing for HomeEdMag, referred to the exclusion as "Subway's P.R. gaffe."

"By now, the Subway sandwich shop marketing division must know how bad of a decision it was on the part of whichever wonk who decided to expressly exclude homeschoolers from their latest contest. E-mail lists may not be utterly aflame over the exclusion, but there is more than one p---ed-off homeschool mom spreading the word. I've been reading their e-mails."

Moon notes Subway, with a bit of forethought, could have easily included homeschoolers:

"One of the more obvious work-arounds that the developers of the Subway contest could have included for homeschooling parents who entered on their childrens behalf, was for the equipment to be donated to a local park, or to a school of the winner's choice. Problem solved  good will all around. Too bad that it didn't play out that way.

"I look forward to seeing how the Subway wonks handle their self-inflicted wound."

The blogger at Capturing Today, a homeschooling mother, isn't waiting for the self-inflicted wound, suggesting homeschool families "act now!"

"Excuse me, but there are MILLIONS of homeschool students in this nation and this is just discrimination. A homeschool student could easily donate the athletic equipment to their homeschool athletic association, local park, athletic center, neighborhood center or the like. I realize they are doing this to have a mass-marketing effect, but they could have just as great a media response from a charitable homeschool student donating the prize.

"I believe this is a wonderful opportunity for us to make our voices heard that we as homeschool families are tired of being cast in a negative light.

Jim and Cathy Peschke, blogging at Croydoncraft, expressed their displeasure by entering an essay on behalf of their 3-year-old homeschooled daughter who, while visiting a Subway restaurant, breaks into tears upon learning she's not eligible to enter the contest.

"I cried and cried, and asked Daddy if we could leave. He said 'Certainly. Not only will we never visit a mean old Subway store again, we'll organize a B-O-Y-C-O-T-T of Subway stores by all your homeschooling friends!'

'I sure hope Subway changes their silly policy so Mommy and Daddy can take me back for more sandwiches.'"

[Perd Hapley]

Subway's no good anyway. 


At a yard sale today, I saw a sign reading, "NOT RELIABLE FOR ACCEDENTS."   

[Manedwolf]

Subway's no good anyway. 


At a yard sale today, I saw a sign reading, "NOT RELIABLE FOR ACCEDENTS."   

I'm seeing more and more phonetic spelling even in things like newspaper comment areas and such. It's disturbing.

[wmenorr67]

Hey it is the Hooked on Phonics generation.

[Manedwolf]

Hey it is the Hooked on Phonics generation.

Huked on fonics werked four mee!

[280plus]

I think I'll do the "Salami Sam" one but I'll bet they don't like the story. 

[MicroBalrog]

Phonetics work when delivered by competent teachers.

And the reason they don't allow homeschoolers is, naturally, because the homeschoolers would have an unfair advantage.

[HankB]

Phonetics work when delivered by competent teachers. (emphasis added)

I've read that the SAT scores of "education" majors are, on average, lower than those of all other college students.

[zahc]

very easily believed, that.

[wmenorr67]

Phonetics work when delivered by competent teachers. (emphasis added)

I've read that the SAT scores of "education" majors are, on average, lower than those of all other college students.

Those that can do, those that can't, teach.

[Sergeant Bob]

The exclusion of homeschoolers, presumably because the grand prize includes $5,000 worth of athletic equipment for the winning child's school, has caught the attention of bloggers who educate their children.

I suspect theis has a lot more to do with the contest rules than some "conspiracy" to exclude home schoolers.

Jim and Cathy Peschke, blogging at Croydoncraft, expressed their displeasure by entering an essay on behalf of their 3-year-old homeschooled daughter who, while visiting a Subway restaurant, breaks into tears upon learning she's not eligible to enter the contest.

"I cried and cried, and asked Daddy if we could leave. He said 'Certainly. Not only will we never visit a mean old Subway store again, we'll organize a B-O-Y-C-O-T-T of Subway stores by all your homeschooling friends!'

'I sure hope Subway changes their silly policy so Mommy and Daddy can take me back for more sandwiches.'"

Please, give me a frickin break...

A homeschool student could easily donate the athletic equipment to their homeschool athletic association, local park, athletic center, neighborhood center or the like, or tie Subway up in litigation for months because little Jimmy wants all the playground equipment in his own little yard or even better, lots-O-cash from a lawsuit.

Maybe they can start their own home schoolers advocacy group and call it the NAAHSC or PETHSC.

[Boomhauer]

Those that can do, those that can't, teach.

And those who can't teach, administrate.

[El Tejon]

AFT has really been active in trying to prevent corporations from linking up with homeschoolers.  NEA/AFT want to marginalize homeschoolers and any victory for them counts.

[Racehorse]

Phonetics work when delivered by competent teachers. (emphasis added)

I've read that the SAT scores of "education" majors are, on average, lower than those of all other college students.

From what I understand, most education majors are also some of the easiest majors at most colleges and tend to attract students who can't cut it in other disciplines. Sure, there are some who are very talented and just there because they love teaching, but I think they're in the minority.

[MicroBalrog]

It's naturally their right to exclude homeschoolers.

It's also the right of people to not buy their sandwiches now.

[41magsnub]

Those that can do, those that can't, teach.

And those who can't teach, administrate.

I thought the expression was those who can't teach teach teachers.

[S. Williamson]

Those that can do, those that can't, teach.

I would love for you, the person you first heard this from, and everyone else who's parroted this useless line come to my school and say that in front of every single instructor I have.

Just once.

[wmenorr67]

I have said numerous times in front of teachers.

But it usually works better in settings such as the military and in college settings.

I have found that most college level instructors couldn't make it in the real world.

[MicroBalrog]

I have found that most college level instructors couldn't make it in the real world.

Happily, it's not their purpose.

And I don't know what the 'real world' is.

[41magsnub]

I've said it multiple times as well in front of some of the more useless instructors I've had just to piss them off.  There were some real doosies in high school, college, and professionally who if taken as a group, make the argument against tenure and teachers unions.  There were also a lot of great ones who I have nothing but the utmost respect for.

[Dntsycnt]

At least in college level science, the teachers most certainly "do".

English/Literature, on the other hand...

[HankB]

From what I understand, most education majors are also some of the easiest majors at most colleges and tend to attract students who can't cut it in other disciplines. Sure, there are some who are very talented and just there because they love teaching, but I think they're in the minority.

Thinking back to my high school days, I'd say about 10% of the teachers in my (Chicago) public high school were truly competent and dedicated. Another 10% had no business being anywhere NEAR a school, unless it was as a remedial student. (A good example would be the English teacher I had during my Freshman year who introduced herself by telling us her name and continuing with ". . . and ah's a gunna learn alla youz ta read an' write better dis year." She wasn't trying to be funny.)

The majority were just there for a paycheck - nothing more - and I strongly suspect would have been in some difficulty teaching the subject without a teacher's guide provided by the textbook publisher.

[Regolith]

I actually had quite a few good teachers while in HS.  Only one was incompetent - she was trying to teach calculus even though she barely understood it herself (our previous calculus teacher, who knew what he was doing, left the year before to go back to Louisiana and work for his parent's company).

College, on the other hand, is a bit hit and miss.  I've got one professor who thinks Interactive Multimedia = Art.  I had a math professor who seemed to think he was doing his job if he flunked 80% of the class.  And one of my programming professors thought it would be fun to make his tests so hard that no one could pass them.  I also took a film studies course for gen ed that the professor thought was really a Gender/Race studies class in disguise (she was big in to the whole "white man guilt" thing...).   

[Balog]

In my admittedly limited experience the higher one climbs up the educational ladder the higher the ratio of those either incompetent at the subject matter or just bad at teaching becomes.

[BlueStarLizzard]

in my experiance, the really good teachers are the ones who have a tendancy to get in trouble with the admin. they also tend to be the ones who have a strong following among a certain subset of the student body, and everyone else hates them. this is because the ones that like them understand, and appreiciate the diffrence between being nice to students and getting the subject down.

and its not the lit/english teachers. its the philosoghy profs that are real wackos. i tool Eastern Religion one summer and loved it. LOTS of notes and long tests, but man did i learn. so i decided to take Eastern Thought. BIG mistake. the prof was really big on herself and the fact that once SHE meet the Dahla Llama and SHE was writting a philosophy book for elemetary aged kids. then, after listing to her talk about herself for the first hour we went outside to meditate. 

so much for learning about another culture.