A debate seems to be brewing over whether Sound Transit should be using public tax dollars to market their services to students in the classroom.

According to the Seattle Times, the agency is looking for consultants to help create educational outreach programs about the agency's services for kindergarten through 12th grade. It also wants the consultants to provide teacher training and outreach.

While Sound Transit spokesperson Geoff Patrick defended the idea as "good business practice," it's being criticized by others such as the Washington Policy Center and the Sound Politics blog as an agenda-promoting tactic.

"Sound Transit taxes are supposed to be used to build a regional mass-transit system, not to groom children as young as 5 to use a particular government service," says Mike Ennis, WPC transportation analyst.

Officials haven't yet decided what a K-12 program might cost. The initial short-term contract, to create a curriculum, would be less than $200,000, followed perhaps by a larger deal to do the actual outreach. Proposals are due May 10.

Sound Transit has a $1.1 billion budget this year to build, operate and administer lines in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. The communications department's share is $7.55 million, for goals that include demystifying "transit by involving youth in a three-year, K-12 initiative."

In case anybody is wondering, Sound Transit has been inside schools before, to teach students the importance of staying away from Link tracks. Remember this ad? Plus with its big budgets for marketing campaigns, Sound Transit works to change public opinion almost every day. But do kids really need to have public transit "demystified" for them? I mean, there's a bus/train and it takes you places—how hard is that to figure out? More important, should taxpayer money be used for this demystification? Taxpayers, whaddya say?