MA House Bill 489 - efforts to end school commercialism

Exciting news! The Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Health held a hearing two weeks ago, on May 30, 2007 on Massachusetts House Bill 489: An Act Relative to the Public Health Impact of Commercialism in Schools. This is ground breaking bill that would prohibit nearly all advertising on school grounds, as well as prohibit any and all promotional material and gifts that carry a brand name or mark (unless it's a primary product - for example, a bag of Doritos can keep the Doritos logo). This is the strongest anti-school commercialism legislation in the nation and would set a huge precedent if it were to pass. It would make Massachusetts schools K - 12 commercial-free spaces.

A number of people testified at the hearing in support of the bill, including Elle Goldberg (Massachusetts PTA), Diane Levin, Ph.D. (CCFC co-founder, Professor of Education at Wheelock College), Susan Linn, Ed.D. (CCFC co-founder, author of Consuming Kids), Juliet Schor (author of Born to Buy, Professor of Sociology, Boston College), Mary Ann Stewart (parent, Lexington, Massachusetts) and Lin Vickory (parent and activist against Channel One, Lunenberg, Massachusetts). All of their testimony is available in full text on the CCFC website (or by clicking on their name above).

And if you would like to read more about Stewards and Vickory, two Massachusetts parents supporting the bill, the Worcester Star-Telegram published an article about their efforts.

Also, a piece by Steve LeBlanc covered the story, including thoughts from some opposing the bill.

State Rep. Brad Jones, the House Republican leader, said it's unclear how far the ban would go, whether it would bar posters for colleges or the military or T-shirts with rock band logos. He also said the ban is unnecessary.

"It's like the thought police," said Jones, R-North Reading. "Any school district that has a problem can choose to ban ads anyway."

For my perspective, however, the bill is a statement by the state that advertising in schools is unacceptable, as well as a pledge to support schools in their efforts to combat commercialism and provide the highest level of education possible.

How it will all turn out is still to be seen, but I am reassured and encouraged that a bill like this exists at all. I think it’s a sign of change pushing in the right direction.

Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom

I watched a very interesting film the other day entitled Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom. It originally came out in 2003 from Media Education Foundation, but it's quite good and still very relevant. By way of brief summary:

For marketers who wish to reach the lucrative youth market, the relatively uncluttered medium of the school environment represents the final frontier -- access to a captive audience of millions of students. Meanwhile dwindling federal, state, and local funding for education has left many schools vulnerable to the advertiser's pitch. As a result, commercialism has steadily increased in America's public schools in recent years, often with little or no public awareness.

If you'd like the TAKE ACTION and watch the film, be aware that it can be difficult to get a hold of, in that it is not sold to the public, but only to institutions (at prices the average Joe or Joanne can't afford). But, sometimes local video stores that specialize in documentaries may have it. (For example, in Chicago, Facets Multimedia often has hard to find material.) Another option is that many colleges and universities have the video in their circulating collection for card holders. So find a university faculty, staff, or student, and hop to.

But, by way of a sample, here's the trailer:

Bus Radio taking over the airwaves

The marketing "brilliance" of Channel 1 is no longer reserved for classrooms, but now the company Bus Radio has taken the "captive audience" scheme to school buses. In exchange for providing buses with radio equipment (including GPS for emergencies), every hour of programmed music (primarily pop and r&b) contains eight minutes of advertising and two minutes of sponsored contests.

Bus Radio describes themselves saying,

“Every morning and every afternoon on their way to and from school, kids across the country will be listening to the dynamic programming of BusRadio providing advertiser’s with a unique and effective way to reach the highly sought after teen and tween market.”

According to their website, they “will take targeted student marketing to the next level.”

Comments from WFMU's Beware of the Blog said the following:

I've been to the website and I've heard the media clips. They are playing music that is cleaner than regular radio and they still have fewer commercials than regular radio. Who cares if the kids are seeing commercials? You can't turn on Saturday Morning cartoons without being bombarded. I think it's a better alternative and my kids love what they've heard so far. I just don't see what the big deal is.
Posted by: Sarah W. | December 14, 2006 at 04:18 PM

The big deal is that this amounts to compulsoary commercials that children cannot avoid (similar to channel one). In your home you control whether your children are or are not advertised to... that is a *CHOICE*. I've seen the promotional materials that channel one uses to attract advertisers and the pitch goes something like "Johnny doesnt like watching tv anymore and when he does he skips the commercials. He's on the internet and out w/ his friends so how can you guarantee he'll see your message? At school!" Perhaps the culture of "Urban Span"/"Ad Creep" has gotten to the point where people dont see this sort of thing as a problem but one would hope there are still at least a few lines that shouldnt be crossed when it comes to advertising and I would argue that mandatory viewing/listening of advertising at or on the way to school would fall into that category.
Posted by: doron | January 01, 2007 at 08:53 AM

While some don't really see it as a big deal, others are up in arms. Unlike the comment above, some citizens, like those at Obligation, Inc., are very concerned over radio content including song lyrics, band personas, "news" content, and so forth.

Yet others are concerned that kids have no commercial-free zones left. Bob Hill of the Louisville Courier-Journal says (with more than a little sarcasm),

It’s a grave national crisis. Our children can see and hear commercials aimed at them before school, after school and during school. Saturday mornings are a special treat for our little consumers with 30-minute commercials disguised as entertainment.

Weekday afternoons and evenings children again are massaged with television and computer advertising. Yet there it was—that yawning, school-bus electronic chasm when young people without access to proper ear gear could be denied eight minutes of commercials per hour. All they would be left with were themselves, possibly opportunities for wider friendship, shared experiences and frank discussion.

Disgusting.

In response to the rise of advertising to children, 40 organizations and 64 children’s advocates jointly endorsed letters to the 100 leading national advertisers and the top 50 advertising agencies, asking that they commit themselves not to advertise with either Bus Radio or Channel One. To read the letter in its entirety as well as read the list of signees, click here.

If you are interested in TAKING ACTION, Commercial Alert offers the opportunity for you to email top officials in a number of large corporations, requesting that they stop advertising with Bus Radio and Channel One. There are also a number of additional activism options available through CCFC.

What now?! Is Channel One encouraging youth to smoke?

It seems that since Channel One was first introduced into classrooms it has been embroiled in controversy. Some things never change. Since its introduction into schools in 1989 nearly every major national organization concerned with education has come out with strong dissention against the news organization, including the following groups:

• American Association of School Administrators
• American Federation of Teachers
• National Association of State Boards of Education
• National Council for the Social Studies
• National Council of Teachers of English
• National Education Association (NEA)
• National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
• National School Boards Association
• National Association of Secondary School Principals
• National Association of Elementary School Principals

For those who may not know, the Channel One Network leases audio-visual equipment to schools in exchange for a guarenteed captive audience each school day. The Center for Commercial-Free Public Education provides a telling overview of many citizens qualms with Channel One. To give you an idea of Channel One's reach, the Center says,

Every school that shows Channel One signs a contract, essentially promising to deliver a "captive audience" - as Channel One promotional materials call students. Most schools must air Channel One on 90 percent of school days and in 80 percent of the classrooms.

Students and teachers cannot change the channel, turn off the program, or turn down the sound - an ideal environment from an advertiser's perspective. In exchange for this irresistible opportunity to market to a captive audience, Channel One can charge advertising rates of up to $195,000 per 30-second ad.

Channel One reaches 12,000 classrooms a day, which serve approximately 30% of American teenagers. Each broadcast is 12 minutes in length, and contains approximately 2 minutes of direct commercials. In addition, many lambast the network for airing fluffy material that serves to do little more than to advertise other products and materials in the guise of news.

And it's important to note that students watching Channel One on a regular basis are disproportionately poor and of color. The Center for Commercial-Free Public Education says:

But a University of Massachusetts-Amherst study found that schools that can afford to say no to Channel One do say no. The study found that the program is disproportionately shown in schools located in low-income communities and communities of color. Channel One is found where the least money is available for education, where the least amount is spent on textbooks and other academic materials.

This raises additional questions concerning lack of school funding and how many districts are turning to corporate contracts as a result.

In addition, in September 2005, Gary Ruskin, the executive director of Commercial Alert, published a report entitled Smoking Class: How Schools and Channel One Promote Tobacco to Students in which he showed that 60% of movies advertised on Channel One portray smoking and that research has shown that students who see a significant amount of smoking in films are three times more like to start the habit than students who see less smoking on the big screen.

Mind you, Channel One's own website features a testimonial from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, stating:

"Channel One is an important and valued ally of the Campaign... Thank you for standing with kids in demanding healthy lives."

That can make it difficult to know what to believe. So, look around and read stuff for yourself. Then decide.

If you decide you would like to TAKE ACTION, Commercial Alert offers an online letter than can be sent to your local governor and state legislators requesting that Channel One be pulled from schools due to their promotion of smoking with youth.

Bratz suck -- Tell Scholastic to get 'em out of our schools!

Over the past several years Scholastic have come under increasing attack for marketings commercial toys and media to children. (You remember Scholastic, right? They probably did all your book fairs and book orders in elementary school.) Most recently they are getting slammed for continuing to sell Bratz merchandise through their book orders and book fairs.

Josh Golin talks a bit about the situation in an article from the journal Mothering in Jan. 2007.

An increasing number of parents and educators are concerned about the products sold at fairs organized by Scholastic, Inc., the nation's leading book fair company. They note the presence of non-book items such as posters, key chains, toys, fashion accessories, and electronic media. It's a little hard to figure out how bracelets, videogames, or whoopee cushions (I'm not making that up) promote literacy.

Even the American Psychological Association have sited Bratz as a a source of "societal messages that contribute to the sexualization of girls" and harm both healthy self-image and development.

Especially as the Bratz movie prepares to come out this summer, it's important to work to get such sexualized images out of schools. (Bratz merchandise, in and out of schools, are being marketed to kids as young as four. Dude, six year olds don't need badded bras. Nor do they need books from a brand that says they do.)

To get a taste of what pissed off parents are saying, check out TheMomSquawkBlog.

And to TAKE ACTION, there is an email drive being hosted by CCFC. You can send an online letter to Scholastic asking them to stop selling Bratz merchandise to children.

Commercialism in Education Research Unit (Molnar online)

So, it's not the world's most exciting website, but Alex Molnar and his compatriots have a longstanding website working to collect data on school commercialism.

If you're looking for some serious data about commercialism in schools, this is the place to go. Check out their two annual reports: Trends in Schoolhouse Commercialism (which analyzes marketing trends aimed at children in school) and Profiles of For-Profit Education Management Organizations (which is a directory of for-profit EMOs, the work they're doing, and an analysis of the trends they're creating). Both reports were started in the late 90s and each year's final product is available online in pdf and/or Word format.

The site also has a great (though lengthy) links page that is well worth wandering through.

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.