An impassioned open letter from United Teachers Los Angeles vice president Cecily Myart-Cruz is reigniting the debate over whether McTeacher's Nights—of which there are over 100 held across the country every year—as a practice should be allowed to continue.

Myart-Cruz is just the latest union voice to criticize the McTeacher’s Night, calling the practice a "predatory marketing of fast food to children” and an exploit of the trust between teachers and students to promote its junk food.”

Although McTeacher’s Nights appeal to teachers because they raise money for local schools, Myart-Cruz says that proceeds end up amounting to as little as $1 per student, rendering efforts useless.

She argues in her scathing critique of the practice that McTeacher's Nights exploit teachers’ need to use alternative methods to make ends meet due to typically low pay—a common critique of corporations that capitalize on teachers’ need to moonlight.

"It is wrong to exploit cash-strapped schools by essentially turning teachers into temp workers for McDonald’s—a corporation notorious for miring its own workers in poverty,” she writes.

Last year, McDonald’s spokesperson Lisa McComb countered criticism by arguing that since 2013, McTeacher's Nights have raised over $2.5 million for education.

McDonald's has also argued that cease and desist letters sent to the corporation are useless because McTeacher's Nights are community efforts set up typically after a parent-teacher organization contacts a McDonald's franchise owner.

Regardless, unions continue this year to ask the mega corporation to end the practice for the health benefit of school children.

We ask our readers again this year: End the McTeacher Night? Take our poll below.

Read Myart-Cruz's full letter here. 

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

9/28/2016