Craigslea Community Kindergarten and Preschool in Brisbane, Australia thought they concocted a great plan to pay down their growing debt — packaging their students’ art into books and selling them back to their parents. The books would have been sold for $1,400 a pop.

One Queensland state leader called the idea “emotional blackmail.”

While you can commend the school’s administrators for “thinking outside the box,” charging parents thousands of dollars so you can pay your teachers isn’t just dumb, it’s evil.