EDUCATION-US: Public Schools go Commercial

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kenneth Rapoza

BOSTON, Apr 7 1999 (IPS) - US commercial firms, forever hunting new markets, are moving more and more into the public schooling system in their eagerness to strike deals to increase revenues.

Lagging government financial support for public education is forcing many state schools to strike partnerships with private and companies to ease the economic burden of education costs.

Example: The telecommunications giant, US West, gave 1 million dollars and new technology to a district school authority in Colorado Springs last November in exchange for a market niche – the parents and friends pupils.

US West is the official phone company of the Colorado Springs area and to make money for the school – and the company -students now take home brochures with US West products like voice messaging systems, calling cards, and cell phones. For each 10 dollar phone card sold, the school gets 1.25 dollars.

“What we are trying to develop is non-intrusive,” said Abel Chavez, marketing manager for US West in Southern Colorado. “We didn’t want the sales to be generated by the students, but wanted to have them as sales leads. It’s a soft-sell. It benefits the schools.”

Or does it?

“It hasn’t brought in very much money,” admits school district spokesman, John Leavitt, who said January’s sales check was a mere 20 dollars. “we were anticipating 1,000 dollars and US West wants us to be more aggressive. They’ve given us memos on how to sell.”

But the schools earned more by allowing sales of soft drinks produced by the giant Coca-Cola corporation. The 39 elementary schools in the district each received 3,000 dollars in commissions while five high schools, with many more pupils, did even better. They received 25,000 dollars each for selling 70,000 cases of soft drinks.

Colorado Springs has a total of 32,000 students and, together with the families, form a sizable target but the free-wheeling in the education system has its critics.

“What use to be taboo in these deals, is no longer,” said Andrew Hagelshaw of the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education in Oakland, California.

“You have school buses with ads plastered on them…you have advertisements in the hallways. The envelope is getting pushed. And the pay-off is just not there.”

But schools who collect 12,000 dollars for allowing a company to advertise on five school buses and in school cafeterias are thankful for the extra revenue. “It means 2,000-3,000 for us and also means we can send our kids to California for the state choir tournament,” said one school principal.

The private-public partnerships focusing on advertising revenue in the United States began in 1989 with Channel One, a company that provided free television sets and satellite hook-ups to schools.

In exchange, the schools must provide time for students to 12 minutes of Channel One news shows each day – at least 90 percent of the school year. Two minutes of the broadcast are taken up with advertisements for movies, candy, video games and clothing.

It earned 51 million dollars in ad revenues in its first year.

Channel One now is in 48 percent of all US public schools and boasts that it has an audience 10 times bigger than a major network , such as ABC News, the Disney-owned TV channel. Channel One’s advertising rates of nearly 200,000 per commercial are similar to that charged for the US Super Bowl, the most-watched single event on US television screens.

Channel One also has its share of critics.

“First of all, it forces kids to watch advertising and Channel One admits this. The second part is that it’s a complete waste of time,” said Gary Ruskin of the DC-based Commercial Alert, which works with bipartisan groups opposing commercialism in schools.

Susan Tick, spokeswoman for Channel One in California, said there was no backlash, that “educators say we’re an important tool that puts kids in touch with the news.”

Ronald J. Hart, the principal of New Buffalo High School in Michigan said, “I think most of these kids enjoy it. No one has ever complained about the ads.”

Channel One covers global events, teen issues, celebrity, sport and offers a Pop Quiz to test students’ awareness of the news. They have eight reporters in 32 countries.

New York State does not allow commercial enterprises in schools. Wisconsin banned ads in schools this year while Massachusetts voted recently to allow ads on public school busses. Canada, so far, does not allow ads on its busses.

Channel One says the advantages come in taxes. “Most school districts don’t have extra money sitting around to buy expensive equipment,” says Susan Tick.

“No one has put a calculator to those claims yet,” counters Jim Metrock of Obligation, an Alabama group against ads in classrooms. “The time these kids spend in front of that TV watching advertising equates to 30 hours per year. That’s basically one week per student of wasted tax payer dollars.”

In Alabama, one of the five poorest US states, nine out 10 schools in poor areas has Channel One. In the richer areas it is two out of 10.

Channel One is owned by Primedia and licenses their product in Thailand and reportedly is eyeing a deal with the greatest market of all – China with its one billion population.

“Channel One’s sales departments have told me they would be in China this fall,” says Erika Shaker of the public education advocacy group, Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. “They already have the schools selected.”

Canada has been successful in keeping Youth News Network – a Channel One clone – out of their public schools since 1992.

Public education in North America is being forced into the marketplace, says Shaker. Though students claim not to pay much attention to corporate involvement, “it’s not just a relationship with the school; it’s with the community. For the companies, it makes perfect business sense.”

Oxfam International, which last month began a global education campaign to get all children throughout the world into school by 2015, said they had no position on private-public arrangements in the US and that school districts should decide what is best for their schools.

“If corporations want to be involved in saving public education, they can pay their taxes,” Shaker argues. “I think companies like Channel One do a great deal for education – bringing people’s attention to the rampant commercialism that’s being masqueraded as a remedy to failing public school systems!”