Classroom commercialism

Pediatrics for Parents, June, 2003 by Rosemary Iconis

With increasing frequency, schools are forming partnerships with large corporations. Widespread advertising, vending machines, and even market research specialists conducting taste tests and opinion polls have invaded a growing number of public and private schools in exchange for needed funds and resources.

Virtually every Fortune 500 company is involved in a school partnership. The companies provide a significant amount of money as well as equipment, such as televisions, VCRs, and computers to school systems across the nation, many of which are trying to function with inadequate public funds and increasing enrollments.

Why is corporate America involved in education, beginning with pre-kindergarten? Perhaps part of the reason is a 1983 Federal Government report that linked declining schools with America's economic future. However, aside from a possible philanthropic motivation, many public school advocates and parents are concerned that commercialism for self-interest is their dominant motivation.

Not a New Idea

It is not that classroom commercialism is a new concept. As far back as the 1920s, a time of emerging consumer goods, Ivory Soap sponsored school soap-carving competitions. Today, children's spending power is stronger than ever and they have a major effect on many of their parents' purchasing decisions. Companies have become bolder than ever in an effort to bring commercial messages into the schools. "The Chocolate Dream Machine" is a video and curriculum guide sponsored by the Hershey Foods Corporation. It combines lessons on geography, nutrition, and science with product references to Hershey's chocolate. In the video, four youngsters use a computer to learn how chocolate is made. A few vocabulary, math, geography and science lessons are scattered along the way, along with segments featuring Hershey products.

This is an example of what is known as "sponsored educational material." Such materials, provided to schools at no cost, contain advertising. Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, each of which contain advertising, publish special free classroom versions of their newspapers for secondary schools.

Several years ago, schools were being sent the "Prego Thickness Experiment." Sponsored by the Campbell Soup Company, the classroom kit, which included a Prego poster, described a scientific method for students to use to prove that Prego sauce was thicker than Ragu. "Tootsie Roll: The Sweet Taste of Success" is a lesson plan provided to teachers of children from kindergarten to third grade. It includes, among other things, lessons in simple math (counting Tootsie rolls) and writing (creating a story from a poster history of Tootsie rolls).

Each school term, textbook covers and tattoos, advertising everything from Calvin Klein to Nike, are distributed to tens of thousands of schools across the country.

Corporate clients typically pay over $100,000 per million book covers for one term's exposure. Like all major advertisers, companies that target school children use demographics to focus in on their most profitable markets. Nike, for example, distributes to inner-city schools while Lego goes to middle-income areas.

More than 12,000 middle schools and high schools contract with Channel One. The communications company that produces Channel One provides each contracted school with a 19-inch television set in every classroom, 2 VCRs, and a fixed satellite dish.

The schools accept this free equipment on the condition that they air a ten minute news segment and two minutes of advertising each day. Channel One lures its advertisers by offering them the undivided attention of millions of teenagers for twelve minutes a day.

Similar to Channel One, another company called Zap Me? will supply computers and a satellite hookup to any school that agrees to use the machines, which offer constant on-screen advertising, for at least four hours a day. In addition, they monitor which sites kids visit. According to a 1995 report, 200 schools in about a dozen states had partnered with Zap Me?

In an elementary school in Lansing, Michigan students, during class time, have taken taste tests and answered opinion polls which have earned from $2,000 to $4,000 a year for the school.

In an elementary school in Lynnfield, MA, students spent a couple of days testing cereal and answering an opinion poll that included questions about where they got their news and which television shows they liked.

The principal compared the cereal taste test for which the school received $500, to conducting a science-class experiment.

As public funds shrink, many schools are actively pursuing corporate partnerships.

New York City's Board of Education signed contracts with companies that will advertise on the side of school buses. The Board hopes to generate $53 million from this partnership over nine years.

Hillsborough County school district with 145,000 students in the Tampa, Florida, area signed an agreement with Adopt-a-School Inc. The district agreed to place logo-bearing posters in the halls of its 160 schools within the year. In return, the schools will receive 50 percent of the revenues. The advertisers produce what we might see as "student-type consumer products." It is possible that the posters could eventually generate $450,000 a year for the district.