Colonizing Our Future: TheCommercial Transformation Of America’s Schools^*

John Dewey Memorial Lecture

Association for Supervisionand Curriculum Development Conference

New Orleans, Louisiana

By

Alex Molnar

Center for the Analysis of Commercialismin Education

School of Education

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

PO Box 413

Milwaukee WI 53201

414-229-2716

March 2000

CACE-00-01

Introduction: ThePropagandists

America’s schoolsare indeed haunted. The uneasy spirit of John Dewey, as Bill Doll suggests, in"Ghosts and the Curriculum" [1]wanders the corridors of public education watching and waiting for his ideasto, at long last, be made flesh in the daily life of schools. Doll dares tohope that the second millennium will belong to Dewey. I do not share Doll’soptimism. In my view, it is the spirits of Ivy Ledbetter Lee and Edward Bernaysthat are more likely to be happily at home in America’s schools and classroomsthis century than the spirit of John Dewey.

The namesLee and Bernays may be unfamiliar to you. They are not discussed in educationalhistory texts or curriculum guides, however, they are well known to students ofbusiness administration as the fathers of American public relations. A littlebit of historical background will help explain the nature of their impact onschools and school curriculum.

Ivy Lee, aformer newspaper reporter, made his mark early in the twentieth century workingfor the Rockefellers. He rose to prominence on the heels of a blood bath. OnApril 20, 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado, the state militia opened fire on a tentcity of striking miners and their families. Fifty-three people includingthirteen women and children were killed in the massacre. The events in"bloody Ludlow" aroused widespread public sympathy for the ColoradoFuel and Iron Company strikers and provoked outrage at the mine owners, theRockefeller family. In response to inflamed public opinion, the Rockefellershired Ivy Lee to change the public perception of their mining operation andtheir family.

To sellthe corporate story and discredit the strikers, Lee oversaw the production ofso-called "fact sheets," recruited prominent people to write widelycirculated letters in support of the mine owners, and heavily publicized tripsto the Colorado mine site by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Mr. Lee’s efforts helpedcreate modern public relations and did, in fact, to a large extent succeed inquelling public hostility toward the mining company. Mr. Lee may have been paidwell for his services but we can be fairly certain that whatever he was paid itwas certainly a good deal less than it might have cost the Rockefeller’s toraise wages, reduce the hours worked, or improve safety in the mines. [2]

After hissuccess in cleaning the stain of the Ludlow massacre off the Rockefeller imageLee was kept on the family payroll to transform the public view of John D.Rockefeller, Sr. In the early years of the twentieth century Rockefeller Sr.’spredatory business practices earned him a reputation as a callous villain.Wisconsin progressive Robert LaFollette, for example, had called him "thegreatest criminal of the age." To transform the public’s opinion of Mr.Rockefeller Lee saw to it that Rockefeller’s philanthropy was prominentlyshowcased and that newsreel footage showed him in appealing settings such ashanding out Christmas presents, joking with newsmen, singing with his family,and playing golf. By the time of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.’s death in 1937 histransformation from villain to civic benefactor in the public view wasvirtually complete. Lee was without question a master of the art of what hecalled "getting believed." [3]

A keenawareness of the importance in a democratic society of "gettingbelieved" animated the work of Edward Bernays. Bernays, whose mother wasSigmund Freud’s sister and whose father was Freud’s wife’s brother sought toharness social science research to the task he called "the engineering ofconsent." During World War I he worked for the Committee on PublicInformation helping the committee sell the Wilson administrations war policies.After the war Bernays signed on as "public relations counsel" to animpressive list of America’s most powerful corporations. The American TobaccoCompany, for example, hired him to increase cigarette smoking among women. Inorder to do so he persuaded socialites to march down Fifth Avenue in the 1929New York City Easter Parade proudly smoking cigarettes as "torches ofliberty" as a protest against women’s inequality. [4]

In hiscareer as a private "public relations counsel," and in a series ofbooks such as Crystallizing Public Opinion, [5] Propaganda, [6] TheEngineering of Consent, [7] and Biographyof an Idea: Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel [8] Bernays preached the gospel that public relations was essential ina democracy and the social science knowledge was essential to public relations.

Bernaysarticulated his views quite clearly in his 1928 book Propaganda. [9] He begins the book by arguing that, "Theconscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions ofthe masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulatethis unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which isthe true ruling power of our country." [10]He goes on to say that, "In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapestcommodities offered him on the market. In practice, if everyone when aroundpricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps orfabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would becomehopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have its choicenarrowed to ideas and objects brought to its attention by propaganda of allkinds. There is, consequently a vast and continuous effort going on to captureour minds in the interest of some policy or commodity or idea." [11]

InBernays’ view democratic civic life was a marketplace every bit as much aseconomic life. He took it as axiomatic that competing political interests wouldseek to put their views before the public just as competing economic interestswould seek to promote their products and services. Bernays did not considerthis an evil process nor did he regard propaganda as a dirty word. To him,propaganda was "a perfectly legitimate form of human activity." [12] He argued that, "Any society, whetherit be social, religious, or political, which is possessed of certain beliefs,and sets out to make them known, either by the spoken or written words, ispracticing propaganda." [13] Propagandawas, as he saw it, essential to keep the wheels of politics and commerceturning while preserving social stability.

The issue ofhow to have a democracy and at the same time restrain the mob and maintainsocial stability has occupied American political theorists throughout ourhistory. In his historical analysis Bernays expounded the view that"economic power tends to draw after it political power...[and that] theindustrial revolution shows how that power passed from the king and thearistocracy to the bourgeoisie. Universal suffrage and universal schoolingreinforced this tendency, and at last even the bourgeoisie stood in fear of thecommon people. For the masses promised to become king.

"To-day,however, a reaction has set in. The minority has discovered a powerful help ininfluencing majorities. It has been found possible so to mold the mind of themasses that they will throw their newly gained strength in the desireddirection." [14]

Bernayswould have us believe that public relations and advertising are progressivetools of democratic governance and the market economy. The conflation of marketchoice and the democratic political process is, however, problematic. Althoughthe advertising industry is very good at promoting the consumption of goods andservices, at its heart it is profoundly anti-democratic. A brief review of thehistorical development of modern marketing and the tools deployed by marketersto promote their client’s interests reveals the nature of the threat thatmodern mass marketing poses to democratic political institutions in general andpublic education in particular.

By the endof the nineteenth century American business and industry was, for the firsttime, able to produce more than American’s could consume. This did not meanthat poverty had been abolished. It meant that more goods and services wereavailable than American society as it was then structured could consume. Theproblem facing the American economic system was in large measure how to promoteand make possible mass consumption without threatening the position of theexisting political and economic elites.

As StuartEwen writes in Captains of Consciousness, "It became a centralfunction of business to be able to define a social order which would feed andadhere to the demands of the productive process and at the same time absorb,neutralize and contain the transitional impulses of a working class emergingfrom the unrequited drudgery of nineteenth century industrialization." [15] Education was central to this process. Itwas, however, education of a very particular sort. Ewen quotes the Boston departmentstore merchant, Edward Filene, to make the point. Filene argued that,"Mass production demands the education of the masses." [16] And that in their education, "the masses must learn to behavelike human beings in a mass production world." [17] According to Ewen, Filene wanted to build an industrial and socialdemocracy based on what he termed "fact finding." To Filene thismeant that modern education should focus on "the ‘facts’ about what isbeing produced rather than questioning the social bases upon which those factslay" [18] It should, perhaps, not besurprising that it was Filene who founded and initially directed ConsumersUnion, [19] an organization devoted toproviding the "facts" about products and services to America’sconsumers.

Theessentially conservative character of Filene’s conception of education in anindustrial democracy is suggested in Otis Pease’s study of the development ofAmerican Advertising between 1920 ...1940. [20]In discussing the consumer movement’s response to advertising Pease maintainsthat "while the consumer movement was forced to attack advertising on theissue of its literal truthfulness, the advertising industry itself recognizedthat the question of literal truth or falsity was largely irrelevant, since theappeal of the advertisement lay not in the factual assertions of its contentsbut in the associations which it set up in the mind of the reader. Thispsychological factor to a great extent shifted the battle to a field where...the barrier between literal truth and literal falsity was obscured andwhere, in consequence, it lost much of its effectiveness. ...The practices ofthe advertising men merely confirmed the suspicion that there existed in theindustry no operating concept which would encourage the public to exercise freeor rational judgements as consumers." [21]

One mightadd to Pease’s comments the observation that a powerful privately controlledinstitution that systematically sets out to undermine the ability of people tomake rational judgements is inherently anti-democratic because it subverts theintellectual qualities and debases the civic relationships that make democraticlife imaginable. What is, therefore, promoted to the detriment of genuinedemocratic civic culture is mass consumerism in commerce and politics. AsStuart and Elizabeth Ewen argue in Channels of Desire, which waspublished during the military build-up of the Reagan administration’s earlyyears, "The goal of the advertising industry is to link the isolatedexperience of the spectator with the collectivized impulses and priorities ofthe corporation. ...If economic  consumerism tends to organizedisconnected individuals into coherent and predictable markets, it is political consumerism that defines the current state of western democracy seekingto create a vast patriotic unity ...a unity without solidarity." [22] In other words, a unity defined byconsumption rather than creation and participation.

In thefalse or virtual unity of consumer culture, the individual is thus more of amarketing icon than a social reality. Drawing on the work of Elizabeth Hurlock,the Ewens argue that although market research techniques "may be seen asways of trying to understand how ‘paralyze the critical powers of an individualwith the result that he or she follows the lead, whatever that lead may be,’fashion merchandisers attempted to surround the actual sales process with anaura of individuality." [23] For theEwens the individual in contemporary American society lives "in a visualspace consumed by the imagery of commerce, a society organized around thepurchase....The ‘constant rapidity’ with which we are encouraged to tire ofconsumable objects, of our elusive pleasures, is generalized as an axiom forexistence. To buy is to succeed." [24]

What thiscultural value might it portend for democratic institutions was described by anadvertising executive writing anonymously in The Nation over forty yearsago, "Social scientists in the past have paid attention to the irrationalpatterns of human behavior because they wish to locate their social origins andthus be able to suggest changes that would result in more rational conduct.They now study irrationality ...and other aspects of human behavior ...togather data that may be used by salesmen to manipulate consumers." [25] One outcome is no doubt the creation ofwhat David Riesman termed the "lonely crowd" ¾ a crowd thatrepresents the negation of both the individual genuine community. [26] Members of Riesman’s lonely crowd define themselves by theirpossessions and express their individuality by looking, smelling, and thinkinglike everyone else.

Educativevs. Mis-Educative Experiences

The viewsof Bernays are profoundly different from John Dewey’s conception of science springingout of and inseparable from an engaged democratic community built on rationalinteractions. Indeed, in every aspect advertising ideology is the enemy ofDewey’s philosophy. There is no room in the thinking and practice of Bernaysand his public relations offspring for either Dewey’s conception of democracyor his conception of an educative experience. Indeed, the edifice of Americanmass marketing is built on what, in Experience and Education, Deweytermed mis-educative experiences. Sophisticated marketing techniques concealbut cannot alter the reality that the purpose of mass marketing is tomanipulate the many for the benefit of the few. It is, as Dewey characterizedtraditional education, imposition from above and from the outside. [27]

Ifadvertising is, as I believe, the twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week,three hundred and sixty-five day a year curriculum of our culture thenAmericans young and old are being relentlessly mis-educated and, as aconsequence, our society is correspondingly less democratic.

In Experienceand Education Dewey wrote, "Any experience is mis-educative that hasthe effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience. Anexperience may be such as to engender callousness; it may produce lack ofsensitivity and of responsiveness. Then the possibilities of having richerexperience in the future are restricted." [28] He goes on to explain that mis-educative experiences can land aperson in a rut and limit further experience. Moreover, although mis-educativeexperiences may be pleasurable or exciting in the moment, because they are notlinked cumulatively they simply dissipate energy.

Mis-educativeexperiences, according to Dewey, "may be lively, vivid, and ‘interesting,’and yet their disconnectedness may artificially generate dispersive,disintegrated, centrifugal habits. The consequence of formation of such habitsis the inability to control future experiences. They are then taken, either byway of enjoyment or of discontent and revolt, just as they come. Under suchcircumstances, it is idle to talk of self-control." [29] In Dewey’s view, "It may be a loss rather than a gain toescape from the control of another person only to find one’s conduct dictatedby immediate whim and caprice, that is, at the mercy of impulses into whoformation intelligent judgement has not entered. A person whose conduct iscontrolled in this way has at most only the illusion of freedom. Actually he isdirected by forces over which he has no command." [30] Thus, he held that an "[o]veremphasis upon activity as anend, instead of upon intelligent  activity, leads to identificationof freedom with immediate execution of impulses and desires." [31] Modern mass advertising turns Dewey’sphilosophy inside out. In the name of freedom and individuality, advertisingencourages individuals to give in to their impulses so that they may becontrolled more easily by others.

The lastthing in the world that advertisers want is for a target audience to have selfcontrol. For Dewey, in contrast, freedom is expressed through the control ofimpulse in the service of intelligent purposes. To his mind, "The onlyfreedom that is of enduring importance is freedom of intelligence, that is tosay, freedom of observation and of judgement exercised in behalf of purposesthat are intrinsically worth while." [32]

In Experienceand Education Dewey described an educative experience as being part of acontinuity of experiences that promote individual and community growth.Continuity of experience is, as he saw it, necessary both to provide contextand meaning to immediate experiences and to shape subsequent experiences in theservice of individual purposes. In his words, "when and only whendevelopment in a particular line conduces to continuing growth does it answerto the criterion of education as growing." [33] To Dewey, "Every experience is a moving force. Its value canbe judged only on the ground of what it moves toward and into." [34] Furthermore, he explained, "Noexperience is educative that does not tend both to knowledge of more facts andentertaining of more ideas and to a better, a more orderly, arrangement ofthem." [35]

Dewey’seducational philosophy is rooted based in the belief that individuals areactive members of real communities which shape and, in turn, are shaped bythem. In his words, "Every genuine experience has an active side whichchanges in some degree the objective experiences under which experiences arehad." [36] In contrast, advertisingdeploys a variety of non-rational appeals and attempts to createpseudo-communities based on consumption or the uncritical acceptance of aparticular policy or point of view.

Educativeexperiences are the result of the interaction of the internal (or personal) andthe external (or objective) in what Dewey termed a "situation." It iswithin the "situation" that the continuity of experience is mademanifest, the individual and community changed, and the avenues of futuregrowth created. Through this process the individual advances in knowledge,self-control, and freedom, and the democratic community is progressivelyimproved. Dewey explained, what is "learned in the way of knowledge andskill in one situation becomes an instrument of understanding and dealingeffectively with the situations that follow. The process goes on as long aslife and learning continue. ...A fully integrated personality ...exists onlywhen successive experiences are integrated with one another. It can be built uponly as a world of related objects is constructed. Continuity and interactionin their active union with each other provide the measure of the educativesignificance and value of an experience." [37] Where Dewey seeks the integrative experiences in the service ofthe individual and the community, advertising seeks to destroy continuity,fragment experience, and encourages us to give into our irrational impulses forthe purpose of manipulating our behavior.

The scopeof modern advertising is almost impossible to quantify. It might well be easierto identify those areas where advertising is not present (there won’t be many)than to document the volume of advertising unleashed on the American public. In1994 Leslie Savan estimated that television watching American’s see about onehundred commercials a day. Add other commercial venues such as billboards,shopping cards, clothing labels, and city buses, and the number of ads thatclamor for attention form each American reaches 16,000 a day. [38] One need only consider the explosive growth of web based marketingover the past five years to realize that by now the number is likely to be muchhigher. There is little doubt that contemporary Americans live in anadvertising-saturated environment and lead what Savan termed "sponsoredlives."

The impactof advertising on our personal lives and our communal relationships has beenexplored in a number of recent books such as Stiffed: The Betrayal of theAmerican Man, [39] Luxury Fever: Why MoneyFails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess, [40]Deadly Persuasion: Why Women and Girls Must Fight the Addictive Power ofAdvertising, [41] and The OverspentAmerican: Upscaling, Downshifting, and the New Consumer. [42] The nature and impact of marketing in schools has been taken up inGiving Kids the Business: The Commercialization of America’s Schools [43] and American Education and Corporations:The Free Market Goes to School. [44]Other recent books such as Harvesting Minds: How TV Commercials Control Kids,[45] and KinderCulture: The CorporateConstruction of Childhood [46] haveaddressed advertising’s impact on children.

If themethods of modern mass marketing to adults threaten the happiness ofindividuals and undermine the well being of our society, deploying them againstchildren colonizes our future. No one can seriously suggest that childrenrepresent the rational consumer of market ideology; that is, children can in nosense be considered to have the same power, information, and freedom thatadults are said to have to freely enter into contracts for goods and services inthe idealized market place. Advertising to children is then a kind of immoralwar on childhood, waged for the profit of adults who should be childhood’sguardians. Furthermore, when advertising is conducted in schools the immoralityis compounded because the power of the state is twisted to the service ofspecial interests, the ethical standing of educators compromised, andorientation of the school shifted toward mis-educative experiences.

Schoolhouse Commercialism:Historical Background

     Schoolhouse commercialism is not new. Itsdevelopment parallels that of the public relations industry as a whole. Asearly as 1929, the National Education Association’s Committee on Propaganda inthe Schools surveyed school officials to determine what sponsored materials hadbeen received and what policies or other mechanisms were in place to deal withthem. The committee also conducted a review of state education departments’laws or policies governing the use of such materials, interview sessions withgroups of teachers, school visits, and an examination of advertisements forsponsored materials.

     In 1953, the Association for Supervisionand Curriculum Development issued "Using Free Materials in theClassroom." In 1955, the American Association of School Administrators followesuit with a similar pamphlet, "Choosing Free Materials for Use in theSchools." Both publications were written to assist teachers in the use ofsponsored materials in their classrooms. Both guides warned teachers againstuncritical acceptance of sponsored materials, but also recommended that theynot reject such offerings outright.

In her1979 book Hucksters in the Classroom, Sheila Harty described the resultsof four questions related to teachers’ use of "industry [-sponsored]materials" in the 1976-77 annual Membership Survey of the NationalEducation Association. The responses of 1,250 teachers suggested thatapproximately half of U.S. teachers used sponsored materials, and indicatedthat a wide variety of commercial interests were represented, including banks,utilities, manufacturers, and food processors.

Huckstersin the Classroom included an examination of many sponsorededucational materials, a review of state education departments’ policies, asurvey of teachers, and a review of advertisements for sponsored materialsappearing in education-related publications. In addition to discussing theethical dilemmas inherent in sponsored materials, Harty also described indetail many examples showing bias, racial prejudice and sexism, inaccuracies, andincomplete or outdated information.

ChannelOne, the 12-minute current events program which carries two minutes ofcommercials, was launched in 1990, and is widely considered the bellwether ofthe recent expansion of commercial influences in the schools. As such, it hasbeen the subject of several studies on the extent of its use, its educationalefficacy, and the financial value of the service and equipment provided.Critiques of Channel One’s content include Fox, [47] Miller, [48] and Rank. [49] "Channel One in the Public Schools:Widening the Gaps" found that showed that schools with high concentrationsof poor students are almost twice as likely to use Channel One as schools servingmore wealthy students. [50] Greenberg andBrand found that students who watched Channel One were more likely to expressmaterialist values such as "Money is everything," or "A nice caris more important than school." [51]

"CaptiveKids: A Report on Commercial Pressures on Kids at School," produced byConsumers Union Education Services in 1995, outlined various commercializingactivities in schools. "Captive Kids" provided reviews and ratings ofover 100 sponsored materials and contests and included a listing of nationaleducation organizations and their positions on school commercialism, andprovided a comparison of Channel One and CNN classroom news programs.

The Growthof Schoolhouse Commercialism in the Nineties

For thepast two years (1998 and 1999) I have conducted an annual analysis ofadvertising trends in the schools by tracking the number of citations relatingto each of seven areas of schoolhouse commercialism. In doing my analyses I conductedsearches of four media databases, the popular press, the business press, themarketing press, through Lexis-Nexis, and the education press, throughEducation Index. Press citations were used to attempt to understand the scopeand the development of marketing activities directed at schools because primarydata are largely unavailable. Firms engaged in school-based commercialactivities may, at different times, have an interest in making exaggeratedclaims about the number of children reached (in order to attract clients);remaining silent (to shield market research and product introductioninformation from competitors); or minimizing the size of their efforts (tolessen the possibility of a negative public reaction). In addition, the variedand particular purposes for which organizations gather data on school-focusedcommercializing activities results in information that is fragmentary and oftennot comparable, and, therefore, not reliable as a basis for identifying overalltrends.

The sevenareas of schoolhouse commercialism I have identified are:

1) Sponsorshipof Programs and Activities. Corporations paying for or subsidizing schoolevents and/or one-time activities in return for the right to associate theirname with the events and activities. This may also include school contests. Thenumber of citations related to sponsorship of programs and activities increased250% between 1990 and 1998-99.

2) ExclusiveAgreements. Agreements between schools and corporations that givecorporations the exclusive right to sell and promote their goods and/orservices in the school or school district. In return the district or schoolreceives a percentage of the profits derived from the arrangement. Exclusiveagreements may also entail granting a corporation the right to be the solesupplier of a product or service and thus associate its products withactivities such as high school basketball programs. The number of citationsrelated to exclusive agreements increased 1,668% between 1990 and 1998-99.

3) IncentivePrograms. Corporate programs that provide money, goods, or services to aschool or school district when its students, parents, or staff engage in aspecified activity, such as collecting particular product labels or cashregister receipts from particular stores. The number of citations related toincentive programs increased 83% between 1990 and 1998-99.

4) Appropriationof Space. The allocation of school space such as scoreboards, rooftops,bulletin boards, walls, and textbooks on which corporations may place corporatelogos and/or advertising messages. The number of citations related toappropriation of space increased 270% between 1990 and 1998-99.

5) SponsoredEducational Materials. Materials supplied by corporations and/or tradeassociations that claim to have an instructional content. The number ofcitations related to sponsored educational materials increased 963% between1990 and 1998-99.

6) ElectronicMarketing. The provision of electronic programming and/or equipment inreturn for the right to advertise to students and/or their families andcommunity members in school or when they contact the school or district. Thenumber of citations related to electronic marketing increased 106% between 1990and 1998-99.

7) Privatization.Management of schools or school programs by private for-profit corporations orother non-public entities. The number of citations related to privatizationincreased 2,000% between 1990 and 1998-99.

Overall, between1990 and 1999 the number of press citations related to schoolhousecommercialism increased 303 percent. Between 1997-98 and 1998-99 the increasewas 11 percent. Graphs 1 and 2 and Figure 1 illustrate the overall trends inschoolhouse commercialism in the nineties and the relative size of each area ofcommercialism tracked.

EthicalConflicts

Storiesdescribing advertising activities in schools on occasion helped to highlightthe inherent ethical conflict faced by educators who jump on the school marketingbandwagon as well as the dangers that advertising poses to the children intheir charge. Two types of schoolhouse commercialism, exclusive soft drinkcontracts and sponsored educational materials, help illustrate the ethicalproblems created as well as the mis-educative character of advertising inschools.

ExclusiveSoft Drink Contracts

OnSeptember 23, 1998, John Bushey, the executive director of school leadershipfor Colorado Springs School District 11, sent a memo to district principals.Normally, a memo from a school administrator’s office outlining expectationsfor the coming year would not merit press attention. John Bushey’s memo,however, attracted the attention of the Denver Post, [52] Harper’s Magazine, [53] the Washington Post, [54]and the New York Times. [55] Mr.Bushey, who oversees Colorado Springs’ exclusive contract with Coca-Cola, isthe district’s self-proclaimed "Coke Dude." In his memo Mr. Busheypointed out that District 11 students needed to consume 70,000 cases of Cokeproducts if the district was to receive the full financial benefit of itsexclusive sales agreement with the company. In order to better promote theconsumption of Coke products, Mr. Bushey offered school principals tips suchas: "Allow students to purchase and consume vended products throughout theday," and, "Locate machines where they are accessible to the studentsall day." He also offered to provide their schools with additionalelectrical outlets if necessary and enclosed a list of Coke products and acalendar of promotional events intended to help advertise them.

Mr.Bushey’s zeal may in part be explained by his tardy realization that thedistrict’s exclusive agreement with Coke counted only vending machine salestoward the system’s annual quota; Coca-Cola products sold at cafeteriafountains wouldn’t count. In March 1999, Mr. Bushey told the Washington Postthat the district might not meet its contractual goals. In May he told the NewYork Times, "Quite honestly, they were smarter than us."

One of themost often expressed concerns is the negative health impact of consuming largeamounts of soft drinks. The Washington Post reports that, according tothe Beverage Marketing Corporation, annual consumption per capita of soda hasincreased from 22.4 gallons in 1970 to 56.1 gallons in 1998. [56] The Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a quarterof the teenage boys who drink soda drink more than two 12-ounce cans per dayand five percent drink more than 5 cans. Girls, although they drink about athird less than boys, face potentially more serious health consequences. Withsoda pushing milk out of their diets, an increasing number of girls may becandidates for osteoporosis. [57] Withchildhood obesity rates soaring (up 100% in twenty years), William Dietz,director of the division of nutrition at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control andPrevention (CDC) suggests that, "If the schools must have vendingmachines, they should concentrate on healthy choices like bottled water." [58] Richard Troiano, a National CancerInstitute senior scientist, says the data on soda consumption suggest thatthere may be link between childhood obesity and soda consumption. According toTroiano, overweight kids tended to take in more calories from soda than kidswho were not overweight. [59]

The UnitedStates Department of Agriculture (USDA) classifies soft drinks as a "foodof minimal nutritional value" and prohibits their sale during lunchperiods. In 1995 the USDA issued model regulations aimed at elementary schoolsthat would bar soft drinks (and other non-nutritive foods) from school groundsentirely from the start of classes until the end of the lunch period. Secondaryschools, the agency pointed out, have the authority to completely ban the saleof foods of minimal nutritional value. Guidelines similar to those proposed bythe USDA have been adopted in Kentucky and Florida. [60]

Not allschool districts and administrators share Colorado Springs’ devotion toexclusive agreements. Middleton and Swansea, Mass., have, for example, turneddown contracts with soft drink bottlers. [61]Pat Ratesic, principal of Penn-Trafford High School in eastern Pennsylvania,told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "I think we’re going to try andhold off on those kinds of things as long as we can, as long as the budgetallows." However, he added, "Down the road, who knows? Everythingseems to be going commercial nowadays. Money talks, I guess." [62]

SponsoredEducational Materials

Sponsorededucational materials have been around much longer than exclusive soft drinkcontracts. The magazine Marketing Tools has traced corporate sponsorededucational materials as far back as 1890 when a paint company developed ahandout on primary and secondary colors intended to be distributed in schoolart classes. The handout also contained a plug for the company’s products. [63] Despite some occasionally harsh criticismsof the practice, over the years sponsored educational materials have become astaple of marketers who want to put a corporate message in the school. In its1995 publication Captive Kids, Consumers Union evaluated over 100 of thesponsored materials provided by corporations, trade groups, and others andfound the vast majority were highly commercial, educationally trivial, or both.[64]

Producersof sponsored materials include Enterprise for Education, Learning Enrichment,Inc., Lifetime Learning Systems, The Mazer Corporation, Modern EducationServices (formerly Modern Talking Picture Service), and Scholastic, Inc.Together these firms claim to put their clients’ materials in the hands ofmillions of teachers, kindergarten through college, a year. As an elementaryschool principal in Washington commented to The New York Times, "Weget them every day." According to Dominic Kinsley, president of LifetimeLearning, the number of curriculum projects the firm worked on in 1997 was fourtimes greater than a decade earlier. [65]

It is nothard to find examples of sponsored educational materials. The Life and HealthInsurance Foundation has a high school education program; [66] Merrill Lynch offers "Money Matters in the Millennium,"a "financial literacy" curriculum, and Young Entrepreneur Kits toteach students how to start their own business; [67] and the Archery Manufacturers and Merchants Organization offersmiddle schools a kit called "Archery Alley." [68] Lifetime Learning Systems developed the "Quality Comes InWriting" program for the BIC pen company to promote "strong writingskills" in fourth to sixth graders, [69]and MasterCard International wanted to help students learn money managementskills. [70]

     The efforts by credit card companies toteach "money management skills" illustrate the contradiction ofhaving self-interested corporations take on the role of protecting childrenfrom their own advertising campaigns. In 1999 the Consumer Federation ofAmerica released a study documenting the severe pressure credit card debt isputting on students and criticizing the marketing efforts of credit cardcompanies aimed at college-age youths. Also in 1999, the American Associationof University Women report "Gaining a Foothold" suggested that creditcard debt presented an obstacle to pursuing or continuing a college education.It is at least possible, therefore, that the most effective method of promotinggood money management skills among young adults would be for credit cardcompanies to stop the seductive advertising campaigns aimed at college-ageyouths they currently fund.

When andwhere so-called learning materials turn up is based on a corporate need that usuallyhas nothing to do with curriculum improvement. To get around this problem,companies frequently bill their creations as "supplements" to theteachers’ regular lessons. They encourage teachers to fit in some or all of thematerials whenever and wherever they can. Some clever marketers try to makethis into a virtue by claiming that the material is therefore controlled by theteacher, who can tailor it to fit the school’s program. However, even a briefexamination of most sponsored materials would prove to most people that it iscreated to benefit its sponsor, not the teachers or the children.

     Corporations try to put materials inschools for a number of reasons. They may simply want to sell something to thekids. Companies that sell snack food, candy, clothing, and personal careproducts are often in this category. Other companies may want to develop aconsumer base for their products down the line. These include computermanufacturers, credit card companies, and even car manufacturers.

     Since the marketing firms that createsponsored materials have to keep their corporate customers satisfied, theirmaterial is judged, first and foremost, by the extent to which it meets theobjectives of their clients. The emphasis is not on providing the fullest and mostaccurate presentation of information to students. The fundamental differencebetween marketers and teachers distorts teaching as surely as a funhouse mirrordistorts the image of anyone who looks into it. When teachers use productsdeveloped by marketing firms, instead of lessons taught to benefit students,the curriculum promotes the objectives of a third party whose interests maywell conflict with those of the children, their families, and the country.Bernays might approve. Dewey would not.

     If America’s capacity to renew itsdemocracy rests on an educated citizenry making well-informed public policydecisions, every American is poorly served when public schools turn theircurricula into an educational flea market open to anyone who has the money to setup a table. Yet that is precisely what the relentless assault on funding forpublic education and repeated calls for "cooperation" with thebusiness community are pushing schools to do.

What MakesSchools So Attractive to Advertisers?

Schools areattractive venues for marketing activities for several reasons. The UnitedStates and much of the rest of the industrial world are saturated withadvertisements. By some estimates, the average American views a full hour ofcommercials a day. [71] In attempting toreach children with advertising messages, advertisers must overcome advertising"clutter" to make their messages stand out. Another major problem foradvertisers is that children, particularly teenagers, represent a notoriouslyfragmented and thus difficult to reach market. For example, television ads maybe a good way to reach the over-50 crowd — they watch an average of 5.5 hoursof television a day. In contrast, children between the ages of 12-18, accordingto the "Teen Fact Book" put out by Channel One, watch television only3.1 hours per day. [72] Advertising inschools can help solve the difficulties presented by clutter and fragmentation.Schools are one of advertising’s last frontiers. Apart from places of worship,schools are perhaps the most uncluttered ad environment in our society. And,since children are required to attend, school-based ad campaigns play to acaptive audience.

The driveto reach children is fueled by the prospect of an enormous financial payoff.Although estimates of the size of the children’s market vary, everyone agreesit is huge. By some estimates, elementary-age children influence almost $15billion in annual spending. [73] America’s approximately31 million teens spent $144 billion in 1998. [74]James U. McNeal, author of Kids As Consumers: A Handbook of Marketing toChildren, says each year children in the United States spend $24 billion oftheir own money and directly or indirectly influence $488 billion worth ofpurchases. [75]

Accordingto the Channel One study "A Day in the Life of a Teen’s Appetite,"cited in the Chicago Sun-Times, "Teens are veritable eatingmachines, generating more than 36 billion eating and drinking occasions eachyear." This represents a rate of consumption that, according to thereport, translates into $90 billion in direct and indirect sales including $5.2billion on after-school snacks, $12.7 billion in fast food restaurants, $1.8billion at convenience and food stores and $1 billion on vending machines."The whole vending thing is absolutely huge," commented Tim Nichols,Channel One’s executive vice president for research. [76] In the words of James Twitchell, author of ADCULT USA, foradvertisers, when it comes to schools, "It doesn’t get any better. Thesepeople have not bought cars. They have not chosen the kind of toothpaste theywill use. This audience is Valhalla. It’s the pot of gold at the end of therainbow." [77] It is small wonder thatcommercializing activities in schools are proliferating so rapidly.

If theadvertisers are in it for the money, so it seems are many schools. One ofearliest "Corporate Partnership" programs in the country was launchedby Colorado Springs District 11 in 1993 to raise money for musical instruments,computers, and staff training. In 1996-97, the program, coordinated by DDMarketing of Pueblo, Colo., raised $140,000 for the district by sellingadvertising space on the side of school buses and in school hallways to 29companies. Asked whether Colorado Springs had gone too far, June Million,director of public information at the National Association of Elementary SchoolPrincipals commented, "I think it’s going too far. But it’s difficult forme to point a finger at schools and say that it’s wrong because they don’t havethe budgets." [78] Christine Smith,director of community partnerships and enterprise activity for the DenverPublic Schools was more blunt, "I got tired of begging for money all thetime." [79]

Thejustification schools use for entering into marketing relationships withcorporations is financial need, however, the monetary reward is often verymodest. The San Antonio Express-News reports that school districts inthe San Antonio area that had permitted advertising on their school buses didnot realize the revenue they had anticipated. [80] Even $140,000 in advertising revenue isn’t very much. In adistrict the size of Colorado Springs 11 (32,000 students), [81] it represents approximately $4.35 per student, hardly enough tomake a dent in the $4.8 million District 11 announced it had to trim from itsbudget in March of 1999. [82]

The Spreadof Schoolhouse Commercialism Outside of the United States

American-styleschoolhouse marketing is spreading to the rest of the world. German schools nowfeature ads from companies such as Coca-Cola, Columbia TriStar, L’Oreal andothers. Spread Blue Media Group, which holds the largest market share in Germanin-school advertising, is going after the $20 billion in purchasing power thatit estimates German students have. [83]Austria made it easier to advertise in schools two years ago and theNetherlands has allowed schoolhouse advertising for eight years, according tothe Christian Science Monitor. [84]

The (London)FinancialTimes reported that a firm called Imagination for School Media Marketingplanned to pay 300 secondary schools 5,000 pounds a year (approximately $7,900 US)to put up advertising posters in school hallways, gyms, and dining halls. [85] The Campbell’s Labels for Educationprogram, launched in 1973 in the U.S., [86]introduced plans spread to Canada during the 1998-99 school year. To helplaunch the program in Canada, Campbell’s sponsored "Campbell’s Race to theFinish Line Contest." The Canadian school that submitted the most labelswon a "digital multimedia production suite" or a "schoolyardpalace." Beaverlodge Elementary School of Winnipeg, Manitoba, won thecontest, turning in 27,999 labels — almost 100 labels per student, [87] a lot of soup by anyone’s standard. Also inCanada, Youth News Network (YNN), a daily 12 ½-minute current events programwith commercials that was modeled on Channel One, plans to debut in a few dozenschools in the fall of 1999. [88]

Primedia,Channel One’s corporate parent, announced a Latin American development programin 1998. [89] One of the most extremeexamples of school commercialism was reported by The Daily News  ofNew Plymouth, New Zealand. According to its June 18, 1999, story, an Aucklandschool planned to sell naming rights to each of its six classrooms for $3,000per year. For $15,000 a sponsor could buy the rights to the school’s name, andall sponsors would be guaranteed product exclusivity and advertising rights atschool events and in school publications. [90]

Opposition to SchoolhouseCommercialism

In aSeptember 1997 Marketing Tools  article, Matthew Klein warnedadvertisers that as far as school-based marketing programs go, "When acommunity feels a company has overstepped its bounds ...no one is immune from thebacklash." He went on to cite several examples: the backlash Campbell’sexperienced for sponsoring a phony science lesson designed to demonstrate thatCampbell’s Prego brand spaghetti sauce was thicker than its competitor’s; theban on sponsored textbook covers in a Staten Island school because of afather’s outrage when his daughter came home with a temporary tattoo featuringa Calvin Klein logo; the reexamination of all Seattle school districtadvertising as a result of efforts by the district administration to solicitpaid advertising for its middle and high schools.[91]

Mr.Klein’s concerns may be well founded. Although the trend toward increasedcommercialism in the schools shows no signs of abating, there are indications thatconcern about commercializing schools is growing. According to Anne Bryant,executive director of the National School Boards Association, "This[commercialism] has become a very important topic of conversation in manyschools, and we’re concerned about it. The number of kids under 18 years oldand their purchasing power is astronomical. Companies are going directly afterthat target market any way they can." [92]

In 1998,for example, the Berkley, Calif., school board voted to ban advertisements inschools. [93] Des Plaines, Ill., SchoolDistrict 62 decided against using Channel One and announced plans to implementadvertising and sponsorship guidelines modeled after those proposed by theNational Parent Teachers Association. [94]Wisconsin State Representative Marlin Schneider proposed a total ban onadvertising in schools in 1997. [95] Facedwith strong opposition from educators as well as corporations, Schneider thenproposed a less expansive bill that would have barred schools from signingexclusive agreements with soft drink bottlers. [96] Although neither version of the 1997 bill was adopted, in 1999Schneider introduced new legislation that would prohibit school boards fromentering into exclusive advertising contracts or contracts fortelecommunications goods or services that require students to be exposed toadvertising. [97]

In 1999,California State Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni introduced two bills on the topicof commercialism in schools. Assembly Bill 116, which was signed into law thatSeptember, bans in textbooks any "materials, including illustrations, thatprovide unnecessary exposure to a commercial brand name, product, or corporateor company logo." Mazzoni’s second bill (AB 117) would have prohibitedschool districts from entering into exclusive contracts with beverage companiesor with ad-bearing electronic services such as Channel One. AB 117 encountereda great deal of industry opposition and was ultimately modified so as torequire only that the contract be debated and entered into at a noticed publichearing. The bill passed in its revised form in fall 1999. [98]

At thefederal level, legislation was introduced in the House and Senate to prohibitcompanies from using a legal loophole to distribute soft drinks and othernon-nutritive snacks during school lunch periods. [99]

Oppositionto schoolhouse commercialism is not limited to the U.S. In May, MarketingWeek reported that because of the explosion of marketing activity inBritish schools, Great Britain’s Department of Education and the NationalConsumer Council were meeting to discuss the issue of advertising and corporatesponsorship. [100] Quebec EducationMinister Francois Legault has prohibited school boards in the province fromsigning contracts to broadcast Youth News Network ...a 12 ½-minute currentevents television program that contains commercials. According to Legault, theprogram would constitute "without a shadow of doubt commercialsolicitation that is contrary to the mission of the school." [101] These actions, and the Norwegian andSwedish bans on all advertising to children under the age of 12, in or out ofschool, indicate what is possible given the political will. [102]

Whetherthe legislative initiatives over the last two years in Wisconsin and Californiaare the start of a trend toward the regulation of commercializing activities inschools remains to be seen.

Conclusion

Commercialactivities now shape the structure of the school day, influence the content ofthe school curriculum, and determine whether children have access to a varietyof technologies. Moreover, it appears from a number of citations that there isan emerging trend for marketers to attempt to bundle together advertising andmarketing programs in schools across a variety of media and thus gain adominant position in the schoolhouse market. A leader in this trend isPrimedia, which owns Cover Concepts, Seventeen magazine, and ChannelOne, among other media properties that have an advertising impact on schoolsand classrooms. Seventeen and Cover Concepts have, for example, launched acoordinated product sampling campaign aimed at adolescent girls. [103] And Channel One has signed on as content provider for America OnLine’s teen web site. [104]

The effortto more fully integrate the schoolhouse into corporate marketing plans bysecuring control over as many school-based advertising media as possible maywell be the trend to watch over the next decade. If so, we can expect schoolsto serve as launch pads for marketing campaigns that resemble high profilemovie releases complete with multiple tie-ins for a variety of products andservices aimed at children and their families.

As ameasure of how far short the professional education community is of Dewey’sideals, it is telling that, despite the pervasiveness of schoolhousecommercialism and its rapid growth in the nineties, the education presshas had very little to say about the issue. At a time when commercialism inschools and classrooms is increasing dramatically, educators have been largelysilent or, worse, cheerleaders for the trend. The failure of the educationcommunity to critically describe and attempt to understand and assess theimpact of commercial activities on the character and quality of schools andtheir programs is not worthy of a profession that would lay claim to the legacyof John Dewey.

Endnotes

[1] Doll, William E."Ghosts and the Curriculum." In Curriculum Visions, edited by WilliamE. Doll and Noel Gough. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, forthcoming.
[2] George McGovern makes this point in aninterview with Bill Moyers in "The Image Makers," A Walk Through the20th Century with Bill Moyers, Corporation for Entertainment & Learning,1984. Distributed by PBS.
[3] The overall discussion of Lee's work isdrawn from "The Image Makers," A Walk Through the 20th Century withBill Moyers, Corporation for Entertainment & Learning, 1984. Distributed byPBS.
[4] Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals:American Culture in the Age of Academe, New York: The Noonday Press, 1989, p38.
[5] Edward L. Bernays, Crystallizing PublicOpinion, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1923.
[6] Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda, New York:Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1928
[7] Edward L. Bernays, ed., The Engineering ofConsent, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1955
[8] Edward L. Bernays, Biography of an Idea:Memoirs of Public Relations Counsel, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965
[9] Bernays, Propaganda
[10] Bernays, Propaganda, p. 9
[11] Bernays, Propaganda, p. 11
[12] Bernays, Propaganda, p. 11
[13] Bernays, Propaganda, p. 11
[14] Bernays, Propaganda, p. 19
[15] Ewen, Stuart, Captains of Consciousnes:Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture, New York:McGraw-Hill, 1977, p. 52
[16] Ewen, The Captains of Consciousness,p.54
[17] Ewen, The Captains of Consciousness, p54
[18] Ewen, The Captains of Consciousness, p.55
[19] Ewen, The Captains of Consciousness, p.97
[20] Pease, Otis, The Responsibilities ofAmerican Advertising: Private Control and Public Influence, 1920-1940, NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1958
[21] Pease, The Responsibilities of AmericanAdvertising, p. 201-202
[22] Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen, Channelsof Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness, New York:McGraw-Hill, 1982. P. 263 and p. 266
[23] Ewen and Ewen, Channels of Desire, p.229
[24] Ewen and Ewen, Channels of Desire, pp.74-75
[25] Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders,New York: Pocket Books, 1963, p. 223
[26] David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and ReuelDenney, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of Changing American Character, Garden City,N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955
[27] John Dewey, Experience and Education,New York: Collier Books, 1965, p. 18.
[28] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.25.
[29] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.26
[30] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.64-65
[31] John Dewey, Experience and Education, pp.68-69
[32] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.61
[33] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.36
[34] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.39
[35] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.82
[36] John Dewey, Experience and Education, p.39
[37] John Dewey, Experience and Education,pp. 44-45
[38] Leslie Savan, The Sponsored Life: Ads,TV, and American Culture, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994, p. 1
[39] Susan Faludi. (New York: William Morrowand Co., 1999).
[40] Robert H. Frank. (New York: The FreePress, 1999).
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[58] Marc Kaufman, "Pop Culture: HealthAdvocates Sound Alarm as Schools Strike Deals with Coke and Pepsi,"Washington Post, 23 March 1999, Z12.
[59] Marc Kaufman, "Pop Culture: HealthAdvocates Sound Alarm as Schools Strike Deals with Coke and Pepsi,"Washington Post, 23 March 1999, Z12.
[60] Richard Salit and Celeste Tarricone,"Soda Wars: Coke, Pepsi Pay Big for Sole Rights to Sell Soft Drinks inSchools," Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin, 14 March 1999, 1A.
[61] Richard Salit and Celeste Tarricone,"Soda Wars: Coke, Pepsi Pay Big for Sole Rights to Sell Soft Drinks inSchools," Providence (R.I.) Journal-Bulletin, 14 March 1999, 1A.
[62] Roger Stuart and Diana Block,"Advertising in Education," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 14 April 1999,E1.
[63] Matthew Klein, "School Daze,"Marketing Tools, September 1997, 16.
[64] Consumers Union, Captive Kids:Commercial Pressures on Kids at School (Yonkers, NY: Consumers Union EducationServices, 1995), 12-16.
[65] Deborah Stead (New York Times NewsService), "Cash-poor Schools Open Doors to Commercialism," (Memphis)Commercial Appeal, 5 January 1997, News sec., p. 6A, Final Edition.
[66] David F. Woods, "LIFE's AlreadyDoing It," National Underwriter, 7 June 1999, 43.
[67] Merrill Lynch corporate press release,"Merrill Lynch Announces International Saving Month, Marking Global Expansionof Six-Year U.S. Initiative," PR Newswire, 5 April 1999.
[68] Carolee Boyles, "Involve Yourselfin a Worthwhile Program; Programs of Archery Associations," ShootingIndustry, November 1998.
[69] BIC, Quality Comes in Writing [lessonplan] (Lifetime Learning Systems, 1999 [cited 16 July 1999]); available fromhttp://www.qualitycomesinwriting.com.
[70] MasterCard International, Master YourFuture [lesson plan] (Video Placement Worldwide, 1999 [cited 16 July 1999]);available from http://www.vpw.com/.
[71] Center for Science in the PublicInterest, "Get the Message? Growing Up in a Commercial Culture," inLiving in a Material World: Lessons on Commercialism, Consumption, andEnvironment.
[72] Dina Bunn, "Teen Spenders WieldGreat Power," Rocky Mountain News, 15 November 1998, 4G.
[73] Erika Rasmusson, "Courting theClassroom: Advertising in Schools," Sales & Marketing Management,September 1997, 20.
[74] Renee Wijnen, "Cataloger, Co-opProgram Vie for Slice of Teen Market," DM News, 14 September 1998.
[75] Kent Steinriede, "SponsorshipScorecard 1999," Beverage Industry, January 1999, 8.
[76] Leslie Baldacci, "Study RevealsSurprises About Teen Eating Habits," Sun-Times, 7 October 1998, 1.
[77] Dan Carden, "Schools Find SoftDrink Cash Refreshing," The (Bloomington, Ill.) Pantagraph, 19 July 1998,A3.
[78] Erika Rasmusson, "Courting theClassroom: Advertising in Schools," Sales & Marketing Management,September 1997, 20.
[79] Pete Lewis, "Corporate SponsorsHelp with Financing; Funding for Denver, Colorado Public Schools," DenverBusiness Journal, 20 November 1998, 6B.
[80] Chuck McCollough, "Bus Ad Bucks NotGrowing," San Antonio Express-News, 27 January 1999, 1H.
[81] Telephone communication with ChuckPhipps, Director of Enrollment and Audit for Colorado Springs School District11, 26 July 1999.
[82] Erin Emery, "Colorado SpringsSchools Face Cuts to Budget; District 11 Proposes Slicing $4.8 Million,"Denver Post, 16 March 1999, B04.
[83] Pete Lewis, "Corporate SponsorsHelp with Financing; Funding for Denver, Colorado Public Schools," DenverBusiness Journal, 20 November 1998, 6B.
[84] Omar Sacirbey, "To Pay Bills,Schools in Europe Allow Ads," Christian Science Monitor, 19 March 1999, 1.
[85] Helen Jones, "Brands Enter theClassroom," (London) Financial Times, 1 September 1997, 13.
[86] Campbell's, History: 1970's [chronology](Campbell's, [cited 26 July 1999]); available fromhttp://campbellsoup.com/center/history/1970.html.
[87] Campbell's corporate press release,"On Your Mark! Get Set! Go!," Canada NewsWire, 24 June 1999.
[88] Ruth Walker, "Canada Tunes In to TV-- and Ads -- in the Classroom," Christian Science Monitor, 22 June 1999,14.
[89] Primedia corporate press release,"PRIMEDIA Announces Latin American Development Program," BusinessWire, 29 September 1998.
[90] Sarah Gault, "Principals See Meritin Ad Plan," The (New Plymouth, New Zealand) Daily News, 18 June 1999, 1.
[91] Matthew Klein, "School Daze," MarketingTools, September 1997, 16.
[92] Rene Sanchez, "A Corporate Seat inPublic Classrooms; Marketing Efforts Bring Revenue, Opposition,"Washington Post, 9 March 1998, A1.
[93] Olszewski, Lori, "Berkeley TonesDown Advertising in Schools; Board's new policy limits logos, deals," SanFrancisco Chronicle, 2 April 1998, A17.
[94] Dwayne T. Wong, "District 62Cancels Television Service for Junior High," Chicago Daily Herald, 30 April1998, 4.
[95] Wisconsin Legislature, 1997 IntroducedProposals: AB 685 [proposed legislation] (1997 [cited 5 September 1999]);available from http://folio.legis.state.wi.us.
[96] Rene Sanchez, "A Corporate Seat inPublic Classrooms; Marketing Efforts Bring Revenue, Opposition,"Washington Post, 9 March 1998, A1.
[97] Wisconsin Legislature, Assembly Bill 103[proposed legislation] (1999 [cited 5 September 1999]); available from http://www.legis.state.wi.us/1999/data/AB103.pdf.
[98] California Legislature, AB 117 -Enrolled [legislation] (1999 [cited 5 September 1999]); available fromhttp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/asm/ab_0101-0150/ab_117_bill_19990902_enrolled.html.
[99] Staff, "Congress May Ban Soda fromSchool Lunch Programs," Food & Drink Weekly, 17 May 1999, 2.
[100] Julia Day, "Business in SchoolsFaces a Testing Time," Marketing Week, 3 December 1998, 20.
[101] Staff, Quebec Zaps YNN in SchoolsThroughout Province; Says Commercial Solicitation Contravenes Education Act[article] (Flipside, 1999 [cited 13 July 1999]); available fromhttp://www.flipside.org/.
[102] Consumers International, A Spoonfulof Sugar: Television Food Advertising Aimed at Children, an InternationalComparative Survey [report] (Consumers International, [cited 26 July 1999]);available from http://193.128.6.150/consumers/campaigns/tvads/index.html.
[103] Primedia corporate press release,"Primedia's Seventeen Magazine and Channel One Marketing Services LaunchNew Teen Sampling Program," Business Wire, 8 September 1998.
[104] Primedia corporate press release,"Primedia's Channel One Inks Content Deal with AOL; Channel One to BecomeAnchor Tenant on AOL Teen Channel," Business Wire, 14 April 1999.