At
first glance the subject ofcommercializing activities in schools seems
less important and less central to publiceducation than other, more
obviously weighty topics such as racism, technology,economic
inequality, or academic standards. Certainly if you had told me when
Isat at the feet of Jim MacDonald as a wet-behind-the-ears doctoral
studenttrying to master the intricacies of curriculum theory that I
would one day bean expert on curricula such as Lysol’s "Germ Alert" I
would havelaughed. Yet here I am twenty-nine years later about to argue
in allseriousness that sponsored material such as General Mills
"Gushers"fruit snack curriculum and other commercial activities in the
schools areprofoundly altering the character of public education, and
that this commercialmakeover of America’s schools is being done with
virtually no seriousdiscussion of its consequences.
Icome
to my exotic expertise quite by accident. In the mid-1970’s, while
walkingthrough the exhibit hall at an Association for Supervision and
CurriculumDevelopment conference, I noticed something odd. McDonald’s
had set up a boothand was distributing a catalogue of it educational
publications. The catalogueitself was attractive. It was designed to
look like an old-fashionedcomposition book with a mottled black and
white cover. Inside, I discoveredthat McDonald’s was, among other
things, offering free curriculum materials onnutrition and the
environment. Nutrition and the environment! Think about it:children
learning about proper nutrition from a multi-national fast
foodcorporation whose food packaging materials were a major source of
pollution.The conflict of interest was obvious – yet there was the
catalogue beingdistributed at the meeting of an influential
professional association.
WhenI
returned to Milwaukee I asked graduate students in my
"CurriculumPlanning" class whether or not they had seen instructional
materials suchas those in the McDonald’s catalogue. Their answer was,
"All thetime." Over time my students brought in boxes of corporate
sponsoredmaterials. It was my idea that if such self-interested
corporate materials werecommon in my student’s schools it seemed to me
that the analysis of thesematerials should be part of our curriculum
class. Thus began my nowtwo-and-a-half decade-long interest in
schoolhouse commercialism.
Overthe
years I have developed a conceptual framework for thinking about
theprogressive impact of commercialism: marketing to schools, marketing
inschools, and marketing of schools. The first category, marketing toschools,
is uncontroversial. Schools need supplies of every sort,
includingpencils, desks, books, lunch trays, chalkboards, computers,
etc. Schoolsdetermine what they need and select vendors based on which
one the schoolbelieves provides the most value for the money available.
The fact that thevendor will make a profit on the transaction troubles
no one. This is a goodold fashioned arms-length business transaction.
Thesecond category, marketing in
schools, is problematic for severalreasons. No one, even the most
ardent capitalist would argue, for example, thatchildren in school are
idealized capitalist consumers operating in a freemarketplace. In
relation to marketers it can not be said that children possessan equal
amount of information, or an equal amount of power, or that they
arefree to enter or not enter into contracts as they choose. In other
words,children in school are a captive audience whose immaturity and
relative lack ofpower can be manipulated by advertisers to their
advantage. Further, since weencourage children to think that what they
are asked to do in school is intheir interest, whatever defenses they
may have against the manipulations ofmarketers are likely to be lowered
in a school setting, a concern supported bya 1993 study by Bradley
Greenberg and Jeffrey Brand that suggested that ChannelOne encouraged
the development of materialistic values. Greenberg and Brandfound that
children who watched Channel One were more likely than those who didnot
to agree with the statements "money is everything," "a nicecar is more
important than school," "designer labels make adifference," and
"wealthy people are happier than the poor."
Floridexamples
of so-called "sponsored educational materials" abound, e.g.,a spaghetti
sauce science lesson, a potato chip math lesson, a cosmetic
companyhuman relations lesson, etc., etc. It is tempting to dismiss
such materials asan inconsequential educational side show – goofy
aberrations not worthy ofserious consideration. I can assure you,
however, that these materials aredeadly serious business to marketers
who now claim to reach millions ofchildren and their parents through
such school-based marketing programs. WhenWillie Sutton the bank robber
was asked why he robbed banks he is said to havereplied, "because
that’s where the money is." If Willie Sutton werealive today there is a
good chance he would be in youth marketing. Advertisingto children is
now a multi-billion dollar industry.[2] In a
hyper-commercializedculture, schools are attractive to advertisers
because the kids are forced togather together in one spot for several
hours every day and they are, at leastrelatively speaking, free of
commercial clutter. In the words of James Twitchell,author of Adcult USA,
for advertisers, when it comes to schools,"It doesn’t get any better.
These people have not bought cars. They havenot chosen the kind of
toothpaste they will use. This audience is Valhalla.It’s the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow." [3]
Marketing
products and services isonly one type of marketing directed at schools.
Ideas and point of view arealso marketed. In an age less besotted with
commercialism these activities weredescribed as propaganda. In 1929 the
"Report of the Committee onPropaganda in the Schools" was presented at
the National EducationAssociation meeting in Atlanta.[4]
By the mid-fifties inAssociation for Supervision and Curriculum
Development and the AmericanAssociation of School Administrators
reports "propaganda" had become"free materials." [5] By the 1970’s, as Sheila Hartynoted in Hucksters in the Classroom, [6] "freematerials"
had become "sponsored educational materials." By the1990’s any company
or industry that had a problem or that wanted to establishbrand
recognition and promote long-term loyalty to its products was likely
tohave a program directed at schools. Two reports issued by Consumers
Union, SellingAmerica’s Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90’s (1990) [7]and Captive Kids: Commercial Pressure on Kids at School (1995),
Providing
sponsored educationalmaterials is one of several mechanisms used by
corporations to market inschools. I direct the Center for the Analysis
of Commercialism in Education atthe University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CACE).In each of the past two years we have released an annual report oncommercializing trends in American schools. [11]
The reports track seven types ofschoolhouse commercializing activity:
The seventh area of commercialism,privatization, moves us to the third category of commercialism in my scheme,i.e., the selling of
schools themselves as a product. This is arelatively new phenomenon
that first drew widespread public notice in 1992 whenEducational
Alternatives, Inc. (EAI) signed a contract to run nine BaltimorePublic
Schools. EAI (now the TesseracT Group) was subsequently forced out
ofdistrict by allegations of over-billing and under-performing. Chris
Whittlelaunched EAI’s principal competitor, the Edison Project (now
Edison Schools) in1991. Originally Whittle’s idea was to open a chain
of 200 private for-profit schoolsby 1996. After spending about $45
million and two years trying unsuccessfullyto get his brainchild off
the ground, Whittle switched gears and focused onrunning public
schools. [12] At the moment Edison claims tomanage 79 schools. [13]
The company has yet to turn a profitand its educational performance is
most accurately described as mediocre.Nevertheless, the number of firms
attempting to find profit in the K-12 publiceducation system is
growing. In large measure this growth is being propelled bypermissive
state charter school legislation and the continuing and
well-fundedcampaign to promote educational vouchers.
The
implications of the commercialtransformation of American public
education are important for a number ofreasons. Commercialism erodes
the democratic political values that have guidedpublic education in
this country since its inception. In their place are marketvalues,
i.e., the values of spending and getting. Thus, instead of
publiceducation guided by a vision of political equality and social
justice we have avision of the marketplace in which school processes
are corrupted and schoolsthemselves may be purchased like other
consumer products. This, of course,excludes the majority of citizens
who do not have children in schools from anyrole (except for paying
taxes) in shaping the institution.
It
is not surprising that thereshould be pressure to absorb public schools
into the marketplace. At themoment, the market appears to be sweeping
all non-market values andinstitutions before it. Even a casual look at
the architecture of the age helpsmakes the point. No one who has
visited Europe could come away, after havingseen the magnificent
cathedrals constructed during the middle ages andrenaissance, without
understanding that it was religious ideas that dominatedEuropean
thought during that period. No one who has visited Washington, D.C.,or
many of the state capitols constructed during the 19th
century,could fail to understand that it was political ideas that
animated the earlyAmerican republic. And no one who views the
contemporary architecturallandscape would miss the point that shopping
centers, conference facilities,and office towers devoted to trade are
now the dominant form. If I read myarchitecture accurately, it will
take a cultural transformation to protect andextend the public and
democratic character of public education. Contemporaryculture is
dominated by the ethic of consumption.
This
has consequences for the wayin which children and childhood are
understood both in and out of school. Inthe marketplace children are
just another market segment to be studied so thatthey can be
manipulated into thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that lead tothe
inevitable decision to consume something. The market takes all
humandesires such as love and transforms them into products that can be
bought andsold. Lonely? Buy a candy bar. Feel ugly? Buy herbal shampoo.
Feel powerless?Buy a convertible. All of this leads, I think, to a sort
of cascading quietismthat might be compared to the effect that
television viewing seems evoke, i.e.,an agitated passiveness. This is
the death of the public sphere. It is also,from my standpoint
profoundly immoral.
At
a time when it is estimatedthat almost a third of the vegetables eaten
by American children are in theform of french fries or potato chips, [14]
how can we defendteaching children to eat low fat, low sugar, low salt
diets in our curriculawhile promoting the consumption of soft drinks,
candy, and fast food in thepolicies we implement and programs we accept
in our schools and classrooms. Howcan we have serious conversations
about academic standards when more and moreschool time is devoted to
activities that are designed not to increase studentknowledge of
important subjects but to promote the consumption of this productor
that. It is not too strong, I think, to suggest that our children are
nowroutinely, albeit tacitly, viewed as a cash crop to be harvested by
adults.
The
commercialism engulfing ourschools is part of a much larger and long
term process. Our market-drivenculture is steadily hollowing out humane
values and placing mercantile valuesinside their shell. The principal
desire is for more – more televisions, moretoys, bigger cars, more
clothes and in the end more alienation, moreloneliness, and less
freedom. David Riesman covered this territory in TheLonely Crowd [15] as did Vance Packard in The HiddenPersuaders. [16] More recently Sut Jhally has doneoutstanding work. His video "Advertising and the End of the World"
I
wish that I could leave you witha hopeful thought. However, in all
honesty, I think it unlikely that thecommercializing wave will crest
soon. For the moment we would do well to informourselves, to advocate
policies that help protect schools from commercialpressure, and to
support political initiatives that show promise for limitingthe reach
of mercantile activities directed against children.
Footnotes: