may be doing more harm than good
Over
the past 20 years, educatorshave increasingly turned to corporations to
raise money by participating in avariety of activities. Some of the
projects are laudable, but many are not. Oneof the most disturbing
trends is schools attempting to raise money by engagingin activities
that undermine their curricular message and, in some instances,promote
unhealthy student lifestyles.
Exclusive Agreements
Shortly
after the 1998 school yearbegan, a district administrator in Colorado
Springs, Colorado, sent a memo toall principals in the district. The
subject: how to encourage students to drinkmore Coca-Cola. If that
sounds like an unusual priority, consider that theadministrator was
responsible for the district's signing an exclusive contractwith
Coca-Cola.
The administrator's memo, whichattracted the attention of the Denver Post, Harper's Magazine, TheWashington Post, and The New York Times,
pointed out that, under theterms of the contract, in which the district
agreed to allow only the sale ofCoca-Cola products in its schools,
students would need to consume 70,000 casesof those products for the
district to receive the full benefit of the agreement.
The
memo urged principals to"allow students to purchase and consume vended
products throughout theday," and to "locate machines where they are
accessible to thestudents all day." The administrator even offered to
provide schools withadditional electrical outlets if necessary.
Enclosed with the memo was a listof Coca-Cola products and a calendar
of events intended to help promote them.
The
exclusive contract withCoca-Cola is representative of one of the
fastest growing areas of schoolhouse commercialism.According to the
Center for Commercial-Free Public Education, in April 1998there were 46
exclusive agreements between school districts and soft- drinkbottlers
in 16 states. By July 1999, a little over a year later, there were
150such agreements with school districts in 29 states—and the numbers
continue torise.
These
contracts can producesituations like that which occurred two years ago
at Greenbrier High School inEvans, Georgia, when Principal Gloria
Hamilton made international headlines bysuspending senior Mike Cameron.
He was with a group of 1,200 classmates wholined up in the school
parking lot to spell out the word "Coke." Itwas to be the highlight of
Greenbrier's "Coke in Education Day,"during which about 20 Coca-Cola
executives were on hand to lecture oneconomics, assist home economics
students in baking a "Coke cake,"and help chemistry students analyze
the sugar content of Coca-Cola.Photographers using a crane were
prepared to capture the defining moment on film—whenCameron exposed a
shirt that boldly spelled out "Pepsi."
According
to Cameron, he not onlyreceived a dressing down from the principal in
her office, but was told that hewas being suspended for disrespect—and
for possibly costing the school $10,000in prize money offered by Coke
to the winning high school in a nationalmarketing campaign.
Newspaper
reports of the incidentwere hardly flattering. Under the headline,
"Student's Act of ColaDefiance Was Refreshing," the Norfolk, Virginia, Virginian-Piloteditorialized,
"Enlightened, responsible corporate investment of time andmoney can be
of significant help to hard-strapped schools everywhere; but tomake the
boosting of a business a part of the day's curriculum
iscounterproductive."
Incentive Programs
Close
kin to exclusive marketingdeals are marketing incentive programs that
enlist schools to steer studentsand their families to certain brands.
These programs have long been a staple ofcorporate marketing efforts in
schools. For example, Campbell's Soup's Labelsfor Education program,
launched in 1973, now reaches 50 million schoolchildren,while Pizza
Hut's Book It! reading incentive program, launched in 1984, is in53,000
schools. The popularity of these and other incentive programs, such
asGeneral Mills' Box Tops for Education, Giant Foods' Apples for the
Students,and AT&T's Learning Points has led to a number of
variations. In 1996,Blockbuster video stores launched a program in
Hawaii called Viewing CanReward. In this program, districts received
video cassette recorders when theirstudents or family members turned in
punch cards showing that a combined totalof 5,000 movies or video games
had been rented. Also in 1996, Pepsi-Colainitiated a School Caps
program in 110 schools. Students were asked to collectblue bottle caps
from select Pepsi products and turn them into their school,which then
received five cents for each cap.
But
while schools may receive somemoney from such programs, it is the
marketers who reap the lion's share of thefinancial rewards. In 1997
the Boston Globe reported that General Millshad "... managed to
switch thousands of Special K eaters over tomarshmallow-laced Lucky
Charms by giving cash to students." The story wenton to explain that
students at one elementary school had collected 27,000General Mills box
tops (117 per student) as a result of a General Millspromotion that
paid 15 cents per box to the school.
Incentive
programs are at bestconsidered by some a type of "cause-related"
marketing; by purchasinga product or service, customers can promote a
worthy cause. For example, PizzaHut's Book It! program rewards
schoolchildren who meet reading goals with PizzaHut products. The idea
is to associate the company's pizza with the desirablesocial goal of
literacy—and at the same time promote its consumption.
| Seven Categories of Schoolhouse Commercialism The
Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education has identified
seven sometimes-overlapping categories of commercial activity in
schools: 1. Sponsorship of Programs and Activities.
Corporations pay for or subsidize school events and/or one-time
activities in return for the right to associate their names with these
activities. 2. Exclusive Agreements. Schools
agree to give corporations exclusive rights to sell and promote their
goods and/or their services in a school or district. In return, the
school or district receives a percentage of the profits derived from
the arrangement. Exclusive agreements may also entail granting a
corporation the right to be a sole supplier of a product or service. 3. Incentive Programs.
These are corporate programs that provide money, goods, or services to
a school or district when students, parents, or staff engage in a
specified activity, such as collecting product labels or cash register
receipts. 4. Appropriation of Space.
Corporations pay for the right to place corporate logos and/or
advertising messages on school scoreboards, rooftops, bulletin boards,
walls, and book covers. 5. Sponsored Educational Materials. These are instructional materials supplied to schools by corporations and/or trade associations. 6. Electronic Marketing.
Corporations provide electronic programming and/or equipment in return
for the right to advertise online to students, families, or community
members. 7. Privatization. The management of schools or school programs by private for-profit corporations or other non-public organizations. |
The Downside
Despite
their appeal, incentiveprograms have a social and economic downside, as
General Mills found out whenthe Catholic Diocese of Gary, Indiana,
ordered Box Tops for Education out ofits schools because the General
Mills Foundation had awarded a grant to PlannedParenthood of Minnesota.
(In response, the foundation "phased out"the grant.)
Exclusive
agreements also carry aheavy price. Health experts have become
increasingly concerned about the risingamounts of soft drinks young
people consume, and the consequent harm done totheir health. In a
period of slightly less than 30 years, the annual consumptionper capita
of soda more than doubled, from 22.4 gallons in 1970 to 56.1 gallonsin
1998. The Center for Science in the Public Interest found that a
quarter ofthe teenage boys who drink soda consume more than two
12-ounce cans per day,and that 5 percent drink more than 5 cans. Girls,
although they drink about athird less soda than boys, face potentially
more serious health consequences.With soda pushing milk out of their
diets, an increasing number of girls may beearly candidates for
osteoporosis.
Richard
Troiano, a National CancerInstitute senior scientist, says that data on
soda consumption suggests a linkwith childhood obesity. According to
Troiano, overweight children tend to take inmore calories from soda
than those who are not overweight. With childhoodobesity rates soaring
up to 100 percent in 20 years, William Dietz, director ofthe nutrition
division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention,suggests, "If the schools must have vending machines, they
shouldconcentrate on healthy choices, like bottled water."
Rather
than promoting healthychoices, though, it appears that exclusive
agreements put pressure on schooldistricts to increase the number of
vending machines in schools in order toincrease sales of soft drinks.
Colorado Springs is just one example. Last year,Daniel Michaud,
business administrator for the Edison, New Jersey, publicschools, told The Washington Post
that, prior to signing an exclusivecontract with Coca-Cola, few of the
district's schools had vending machines.After signing the contract,
most district high schools had four machines,middle schools had three,
and elementary schools one.
As a student at a Rhode Islandhigh school with an exclusive contract commented, "There's really nothingelse to drink."
A High-Stakes Game
It
is unlikely that the trendtoward exclusive agreements with soft-drink
bottlers will abate in the nearfuture. According to G. David Van
Houten, Jr., Coca-Cola Enterprises seniorvice president: "Schools...are
important to everyone, and it has recentlybecome a high-stakes game for
that very reason. How much is that [school]business worth? I doubt
we'll ever be able to answer that question fully. Butwe're going to
continue to be very aggressive and proactive in getting ourshare of the
school business."
The
American people are poorlyserved when our public schools become
educational flea markets open to anyonewho has the money to set up a
table. But that is precisely what the relentlessassault on funding for
public education and repeated calls for"cooperation" with the business
community are pushing schools to do.
The
effort to integrate theschoolhouse into corporate marketing plans by
securing control of school-basedadvertising media may well be the trend
to watch over the next decade. If so,we can expect schools to serve as
launchpads for marketing campaigns withmultiple tie-ins for a variety
of products and services aimed at children andtheir families. Yet,
despite the pervasiveness and rapid growth of schoolhousecommercialism,
educators and the education press have been largely silent aboutor,
worse, cheerleaders for this fundraising approach.
The
failure of the educationcommunity to critically assess the impact of
commercial activities on thecharacter and quality of schools and their
programs reveals an ethicalblindness not worthy of a profession that
seeks to serve the best interests ofchildren.
For More Information
The
Center for the Analysis of Commercialismin Education will release its
1999-2000 report on commercializing trends inmid-September. Visit the
center's Web site at www.schoolcommercialism.org.