- WASHINGTON (AP) _ It has been nearly a decade since an entrepreneur named
Chris Whittle threw some educators and parents into a tizzy with a plan
to put news programming and advertisements in American classrooms. Although
commercialism in schools wasn't new in 1989, critics considered Whittle's
idea a brazen quid pro quo. Schools got to use audiovisual equipment in
return for showing a daily news program and two minutes of commercials.
But today, those Channel One ads for snacks and shampoo are likely to be
just a portion of the commercials schoolchildren see each day. Andrew Hagelshaw
regards Channel One in hindsight as the camel's nose under the tent. Since
its 1990 debut, ads and corporate promotions have increased inside schools
and out _ to ads on school buses in Colorado and a Dr. Pepper ad on the
roof of a school building in Texas. ``We feel in some ways Channel One
started this trend,'' Hagelshaw said Wednesday at a forum for supporters
and critics of corporate involvement in public schools. Hagelshaw's Oakland,
Calif.-based Center for Commercial-Free Public Education was formed in
part to oppose Whittle and Channel One. Whittle no longer owns Channel
One, which is now part of Primedia Inc. Paul Folkemer heard all this before,
when he was a high school principal in a New Jersey district that was an
early partner with Channel One, and now that he is executive vice president
of the programming company. ``There are some people in the room who are
going to tell me I sold out _ that I sold my kids,'' Folkemer said at the
same forum, sponsored by the nonpartisan Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development.
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- No one in his school district believes
that, Folkemer said. ``It is ridiculous to put our heads in the sand and
believe that we can have a zero tolerance for advertising in the schools,''
especially when children wear a shopping mall's worth of brands and logos
on their own clothing, Folkemer said. Alex Molnar, author of ``Giving Kids
the Business: The Commercialization of America's Schools,'' believes almost
any corporate presence in the classroom is ``unethical and immoral.'' ``It
says to children, your value to us is what we can extract from you,'' Molnar
said.
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- He is a longtime critic of Channel One
and of deals or partnerships that schools have made with athletic shoe
firms, fast food chains and soft drink companies. The Channel One news
show is taped daily in Los Angeles and sent via satellite to more than
12,000 schools nationwide. It reaches an audience estimated at 8.4 million
_ primarily middle and high school students from 12 to 18, and it has become
the largest single source of news for teens. But Dan Fowler, a lobbyist
for the National School Boards Association, said Channel One has not opened
any floodgates for ads in schools. To the degree the gates are open, financial
pressures are more responsible, he said.
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- ``It's more a response of the local board
and the local community making the decision that this is the way to help
schools make up the gap'' between school needs and budgets, Fowler said.
In Colorado Springs, Colo., School District 11 said no to Channel One,
but it does have deals for ads on school buses and in school hallways.
The district also signed one of the largest school contracts with a soft
drink company. Over 10 years, the school district expects to bring in between
$8.1 million and $11 million from vending machine sales of Coca-Cola, juice,
water and other drinks distributed by a Coca-Cola bottler. How much the
district gets will depend on how many bottles and cans are bought from
its machines.
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- A school district official who helped
set up the Coke contract two years ago, John Bushey is now point man for
District 11 as it explains the deal to parents and outsiders. Bushey likes
to poke gentle fun at his critics. ``We're pouring it down their throats
with funnels! You turn on the water fountains and out comes Coca-Cola!''
Bushey joked. District 11 is not pushing Coke, Bushey insisted. Instead,
it made a smart deal to pool the buying power of individual schools that
already had separate contracts with soft drink companies or distributors,
Bushey said. Schools get money up front each year and Coke gets exclusive
vending rights. ``It was our hope that schools would not have to go out
and sell chocolate or peanut brittle or candles so they could send kinds
on band trips or buy new uniforms,'' Bushey said.
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