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Commercialization
of Schools
Arnold F. Fege, President
Public
Advocacy for Kids
The phenomenon
of commercialization and marketing in the classroom is
not a new one. Over the years, public schools have
allowed businesses access to the school audience,
confident that selling a few advertisements or rolls of
wrapping paper would not compromise the school’s mission
or its financial structure.
Since those
beginning days, a pattern of commercial aggressiveness
and opportunism has emerged. Starting in the 1960’s,
in-school commercialism started being documented when
Sheila Harty published her book “Hucksters in the
Classroom.” Most people remember the four food groups
curricula sponsored by the meat and dairy board which
told students to eat even amounts of meat, dairy,
bread/grain and vegetables/fruits. Subsequently a lot
of money has been spent on re-educating adults that a
healthy diet involves a food pyramid where grain is
eaten more often than meat and dairy foods.
And in the
last decade, the quantity, quality and sophistication of
marketing activities have grown enormously. This growth
can be attributed to a number of factors, which
collectively constitute the elements of a “perfect
storm” for companies hell-bent on invading the public
space of schools where children are required to be as a
result of compulsory attendance laws. Consider this
scenario: children and youth have more money to spend
than ever before, coupled with public schools that are
facing a growing gap between the cost of educating
students and the money available to do so, and companies
who take advantage of this breach by offering schools
supplementary funds in exchange for gaining marketing
and advertising access to a captive audience. State and
local budget shortfalls and the increasing unwillingness
of communities to increase school funding means that
public schools will be under increasing pressure to find
alternative sources of financial support, and often this
will come through enticing and disingenuous in-school
marketing schemes that that tie funding to
commercialization and captive students to advertising
propaganda.
With the 1990 introduction of
Channel One, an in-school television “news” and
advertising program, school marketing reached a new
level. Channel One requires that schools provide a
guarantee that students will watch the show in return
for loaned televisions and a VCR. This meant that, for
the first time, students were required — as part of the
mandated school day — to watch advertising. Channel
One opened the door to a whole new wave of in-school
advertising that now take four main forms:
Direct advertising in schools
Direct
advertising in schools includes advertising in
textbooks, on school buses, on interior and exterior
school walls, gymnasiums, or at athletic events. Much of
the advertising in these areas is for food products,
e.g. soda and candy, which is not in the nutritional
best interest of school-aged children. In addition,
thousands of schools provide students with free text
book covers bearing ads from companies like Nike,
McDonald’s and Hershey that use the covers as an
opportunity to pitch sneakers, food, and other products
to elementary, junior high and high school students.
Direct advertising through
classroom materials and programs
Advertising
directly in classroom textbooks and magazines, or
directly in programs is one of the most dangerous forms
of in-school commercialism because it mixes educational
content with marketing. Even on commercial television
aimed at children, there are regulations separating
content from advertising, but in classrooms around the
U.S. , no regulations exist. In 1995, McGraw-Hill
published the first edition of “Mathematics:
Applications and Connections,” a math series for 6th-8th
grade, which includes logo advertising or companies such
as Nike, Kellogg’s, and McDonalds right in the story
problem content of the book. “Will is saving his
allowance to buy a pair of Nike shoes that cost $68.25.
If Will earns $3.25 per week, how many weeks will Will
need to save?” asks one problem, as a full color
illustration of the pair of shoes looks up from the
page.
Sponsored educational
materials
Trade associations and corporations send teachers
directly free, glossy materials such as multimedia kits,
videos, software, books, posters, reproducible activity
sheets and other teaching aides. While teachers often
welcome these materials because they augment older
textbooks, analysis has found that a majority of these
programs provide incomplete and biased information as
well as outright promotions for a company or its
product. A few examples of sponsored educational
materials:
- The
“Nike: Air to earth” kit that teaches students about
how environment friendly the shoe production process
is, and asks students to spend a week of class time
assembling a Nike shoe as a craft project;
- Young
children learning about nutrition through materials
provided by M&M Mars, prominently featuring
chocolate as part of a healthy daily diet;
- An Exxon
video that teaches students that the Valdez spill
really wasn’t such a bad event, and the cleanup that
followed was an exemplary case of disaster
management.
Corporate-sponsored contests
and incentive programs
In order to obtain free demographic data on students,
many companies are now turning to contests and incentive
programs. Through the school, students send in box tops
with their families’ name, address, school year, etc.,
and in return, are able to get free goodies for their
schools. Contests are often sent home by the teacher
through the student so that parents will participate as
well. Such practices raise serious privacy issues; in
many cases parents do not know these contests are
optional. Another recent trend involves exclusive
contracts that require schools to advertise the product.
These exclusive contracts, most notably with Coke and
Pepsi, offer schools cash incentives for exclusive
contracts that serve to increase students’ consumption
of the product, or place the brand image on prominent
students, such as student athletes. These deals are
often linked to direct advertising on school grounds
(e.g. billboards and score boards on athletic fields).
Need For
State and School District Policies
In order to
protect the integrity of the learning environment,,
public schools should oppose all marketing schemes, and
especially ones that have blatant commercial intent.
Frequently, schools have not considered the issues
associated with commercial contracts, and are thus
unprepared to have a complete debate when an offer is on
the table. This also leads to a situation where the
entire community is not included in the debate about how
to proceed, which leads to a general undermining of the
local democratic process. Parents, teachers and students
are often completely unaware of the problems that may be
associated with in-school advertising. This is why every
school site should be prepared with a set of policies
regarding commercialism in schools.
There
are a few exceptions. At least five communities,
including Berkeley (CA) Unified School District,
Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose (MN) Independent School
District #877, Central Okanagan-Kelowna (British
Colombia) School District #23 , Los Angeles (CA) Unified
Public School District and San Francisco (CA) Unified
School District, have developed comprehensive policies
during the last two years.
Lastly, making
sure that commercial interests are not allowed to take
precedence over the schools’ responsibilities to their
students will require a combined effort from all:
parents, teachers, school administrators, community
leaders and businesses themselves. If schools all pull
together, and if policy makers at all levels provide the
necessary resources for ALL public schools, we can
provide schools with more bargaining power that can
balance the roles of children as students and students
as consumers.
Arnold Fege
(public-ed-afege@msn.com) is founder and president of
Public Advocacy for Kids, a non-profit consulting firm
devoted to strengthening grassroots advocacy and
promoting increased public engagement on behalf of
children and youth through policy and legislation. He is
also Director of Public Engagement and Advocacy for the
Public Education Network, an organization representing
over 80 local education funds located in low income
communities devoted to advocating for quality education
for all children.
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