Adults may be reconsidering corporate school sponsorship.

The debate over in-school sponsorship and advertising has moved from whether or not it's a good idea to the question of how it can best be managed. That's the conclusion drawn from a survey on behalf of HotChalk, which is introducing a system that will provide schools with wireless networks sponsored by major advertisers.

The HotChalk Learning Environment is a Web-based software package for high school teachers, students and parents. The software automates curriculum management; lesson plan development; secure e-mail; assignment distribution, collection and grading.

It's being offered to schools as a hosted service, along with a campus wide wireless network and up to 10 laptop computers for teachers at no cost to the school.

It is funded by online advertising, which schools can control by using the HotChalk Community Standards Engine.

A HotChalk study, conducted by Harris Interactive, finds that adults are nearly twice as likely to accept advertising in schools if certain controls are in place.

More than half of adults (54%) in the study agree that in-school advertising is acceptable if schools and local officials determine which ads are displayed or if ads are limited to after-school hours only.

But only 22% think that it is acceptable to show ads inside the classroom, while a quarter of adults (24%) say that ads are acceptable when shown during school hours. Adults are nearly four times as likely to support advertising targeted at secondary school-aged students than ...