Picture, if you will, a fresh-faced kindergartner in light-up shoes and a stiff backpack excitedly hurrying around the playground of their new elementary school. For educators like us, this is the quintessential portrait of a bright, incorruptible student taking their first potential-filled public steps in the schooling realm. We are not the only ones looking on from a distance and feeling the future swell, however. Seen another way, the child, in their advertised shoes, carrying an advertised backpack, wearing advertised clothes, was dropped off from an advertised automobile, after they bathed using advertised products, and eaten a breakfast of advertised foods. The cast of Mad Men would likely see this as a triumph, and for better or worse, advertising and branding are inextricable from the free-market economy in which we live, bring up children, receive the benefits of a democratic society, and experience perhaps the greatest degree of personal freedom anywhere in the world. It may be the cost, but the author of "Why I Said No to Coca-Cola" wants to know: what's the price?
John Sheehan, said author and the former vice president of the school board of Douglas County, Colorado was, in the late 1990s, the lone dissenter in a vote to sanction "...one of the most lucrative beverage contracts in the nation..." (Sheehan 17). For Mr. Sheehan, the price of allowing the clout and machinations of one of the most effectively marketed brands to buy its way inside public schools was too high. How high? He makes it clear that the board, in ultimately welcoming the deal, were then, and probably are now indebted much more than the $27.7 million that Coke paid for the 3-school, 10-year contract. In his words:
I started out relatively supportive of the use of advertising in schools, as long as it was done "judiciously." But gradually, I changed my opinion. Now I can no longer accept the notion of our schools becoming brokers for advertising space, or worse yet, middlemen in the merchandising of products directly to our students. (17)
To summarize his concerns:
1. "There is no such thing as opening the floodgates just a little bit." (18)
2. Allowing behemoth brands into schools could potentially lead to a time when "...our educational goals might be influenced or even set by private companies targeting our students with their narrow messages." (17)
3. Granting Coca-Cola almost 30 million dollars worth of access to a captive, historically receptive audience is a "breach of...trust." (18)
4. "It sends the message to our voters and legislators that we can let them off the hook - " (18). Essentially, it tears a rent in the civic relationship between taxpayers and school populations. It shifts the financial responsibility off of the community and onto the mercurial whims of an infinitely wealthy deus ex machina.
Just a little sly Tom Waits humor from 1976's Small Change.
The last of the four comments is what scares me the most. Yes, allowing a huge company advertising space in a school can be dangerous for the influencing of students but it can be dangerous because it can start a reliease of pulic responcibility for the school. If the town feels enough money is coming from outside areanas then they will no longer be putting money in. In a few years, instead of a surplus to add computers and cover other supplies there could be no money because tax payers no longer put in and the contract with the advertisor was not renewed. The problem is schools do need the extra funding and teachers can not afford to make up all the difference. This reminds me of a teacher in California I heard about that sold space on his tests to local businesses for advertising so he could afford to buy paper.
ReplyDeleteThis is depressing. And I think it's something to be aware of when offering "free" Internet tools to our children as well. Many have advertisements on the side, and some simply are corporations that are collecting information about us for the purpose of building marketing profiles. (Some are free to do something small, but tempt you with tools you have to pay for if you want to do more.) I've had this discussion over use of Facebook in college, and people say, "but they see the ads anyway." So you want them next to your academic content? So just a few more won't hurt? As your author says, you can't open the floodgates a little bit. I wonder how many parents think it's just fine if there's a coke machine in your school (or Subway sandwiches in the cafeteria -- our high school and middle school have that) if it means their taxes won't go up. They'll gladly trade control for that tiny bit of extra cash. :(
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