'Reading First' comes under investigation

In late April, the Washington Post printed an article titled "Key Initiative Of 'No Child' Under Federal Investigation: Officials Profited From Reading First Program." As you can imagine, that's not a good thing. Now lots of folks have been against NCLB for a long, long time and for a lot of reasons (Alfie Kohn, one of my progressive education super heroes, had a very biting article published in USA Today recently about the evils of NCLB if you would like to review some of the Act's downfalls.), but the focus of this investigation isjust another example our schools and our children being used for profit in the name of education. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of it all is that it is being carried out at the level of the federal government. The highest officials in the land are making decisions that put money before children's education.

As you can imagine, the response to all this hasn't exactly been a welcoming cheer. Just as a taste, some of the comments that came into the WaPo include:

This only confirms what has seemed apparent ever since government started micromanaging education. Here...do this...and to what seems irrelevant to educators as a help, becomes mandatory and all these relatives and friends of the government officials doing the mandating get hired and paid big bucks. Does this help children learn? No. In fact, all the rules insitituted by No Child Left Behind keeps teachers and administrators so busy filling out paperwork that less time on task is actually available. Once again, children are the ones neglected. But..hey! Stick an Ipod in their ear while the teacher fills out the paperwork and call it technical education.
By coolfuzzybreeze | Apr 21, 2007 3:08:13 AM

I cant believe that a program sponsered by this administration has been used to enrich loyal Bushies. This must be some kind of mistake. Its probably just some more liberal propoganda...
By vwallen1007 | Apr 21, 2007 7:25:30 AM

If you are interested in reading the audit report of Reading First, which kinda got this whole ball rolling, it's available online in both pdf and Word document. And Education Week blogger Alexander Russo did a nice job of summarizing the big points of the hearings, concluding with a pretty telling statement. He said:

It's still hard to imagine this story breaking through to the political or massive media coverage level, given everything else that's going on. But the comparisons to Gonzalez-gate continue to emerge...

It is an extremely valid point. This stuff isn't making the main stream news. And even though the ramifications are huge, we aren't hearing about it. The story istn't talked about, unless you're in the right circles. But it's happening. And the consequences are pretty dire. As quoted in Kathleen Kennedy Manzo's Education Week article,

In an interview after the hearing, Mr. [George] Miller [Rep. D-Calif. & commitee chairman] said: “This hearing made it pretty clear that there was a very incestuous relationship among a small group of people in the Education Department and among contractors. They were very clearly using this program … for profit.”

Getting started: a basic, basic overview

A little while back I read the book School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity (2005), in which author Alex Molnar outlines eight primary categories of school commercialism. Probably most everything that we look at will fall into one of these general categories, so here they are with examples when possible:

1. sponsorship of programs and activities – This is when corporations pay money or subsidize activities or events in schools in exchange for associating their name with the activity. Corporate sponsored scholarships are also in this category. (Examples include The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation sponsors several schools in Dayton. Also, Coca-Cola offers a number of $20,000 and $10,000 scholarships to graduating seniors.)
   
2. exclusive agreements – This is when schools and corporations make an agreement that gives a company exclusive rights to sell and promote their products within a school or district and the school gets a portion of the profits. (A basic, well-known example is when school district sign exclusive contracts to sell only Coca-Cola or Pepsi products.)
3. incentive programs – Corporations offer money, products, or services to schools in exchange for student, family, or faculty involvement in a designated activity. (Examples include Pizza Hut’s Book It program.)
4. appropriation of space – Corporations pay to advertise on school owned property – buildings, bulletin boards, buses, etc. (Example: Adcompany is a Dallas/Fort Worth company that puts ads on school buses.)
   
5. sponsored educational materials – These are educational materials, generally provided for free, that include “educational content” but are produced and provided by corporations. (Example: Dole's 5 a Day program offers free lesson plans and curriculum material for teachers.)
   
6. electronic marketing – Corporations provide electronic equipment or programming in exchange for the right to advertise to students. The best known example is Channel One.
7. privatization – This is when school programs, or entire schools, are managed by private, for-profit companies. (Example: Edison Schools run a number of individual schools and entire districts around the nation.)
   
8. fundraising – Corporations run programs that allow students, parents, or other members of the school community to sell products or services to raise money for the schools. (Example: SchoolFundraisers.com is a pretty typical fundraising company. I don't know about you, but I sold all sorts of wrapping paper, magazine subscriptions, and oranges as a kid...)
   

Being totally straight up, I don't think all school commercialism is bad (I'd take $20,000 if Coke offered it, wouldn't you?), but I do think that a lot of it is pushing very dangerous ethical boundaries in our schools. As we get going, we'll look at examples more closely.