CONTENTS

Index

Prologue

Summary

Commercial Pressures on Kids at School

Evaluations

How Great a Problem?

Recommendations

Guidelines for Evaluating SOCAP & IOCU Materials

Ratings Charts

Channel One vs. CNN

In 1990, Consumers Union called for making schools ad-free zones, where young people can pursue learning without commercial influences and pressures. We also called for higher standards for all promotions targeted to children, whether in the school or not. And we urged schools, teachers, and parents to actively educate children about the nature of commercial messages directed at them and build their ability to resist commercial pressures. The need to control the burgeoning phenomenon of in-school marketing is now even more urgent.

We therefore call on business leaders, educators, parents, and government to work together to embrace practical, responsible approaches that will protect the educational integrity of our school systems. Specifically, we recommend:

The corporate sector, including industry associations and other special interest groups, should:

• Acknowledge and respect that schools are not a marketplace for products, corporate images, or self-serving viewpoints, and declare that all forms of advertising in classrooms, from couponing and sampling to commercial SEMs and contests, are inappropriate and not an acceptable way of marketing to kids.
  
  
• Recognize that schools are under-financed and can benefit from the financial and other resources of the business community; and assist schools with programs whose objectives are empowering and educating youth, not selling to them.
  
  
• Publicly support proper funding of schools to eliminate their reliance on corporate sponsorship and advertising revenues.

The education community should:

• Support the idea that schools should be ad-free zones, and that classrooms should not be purveyors of commercial messages or influences.
  
  
• Adopt SOCAP or IOCU guidelines, and require sponsored programs and materials to undergo the same review procedures and meet the same standards as other curriculum materials.
  
  
• Reject the idea that allowing advertising in the school is an ethical way to acquire materials or finance education. Identify and pursue noncommercial partnerships with business.
  
  
• Educate children about the nature of propaganda and commercial messages by teaching consumer and media literacy, helping kids to analyze ads, demythologize products, evaluate sources of information, and clarify alternatives in the marketplace. This should begin in the elementary grades.

Parents should:

• Support the adoption and enforcement of SOCAP or IOCU guidelines to keep commercial sponsored programs out of the classroom.
  
  
• Teach children to evaluate commercial content in all of the materials they receive, including those in the schools. Regularly discuss purchasing and money-management decisions with children, and analyze advertising with them.
  
  
• Address the larger problem of the underfunding of our schools.

Government should:

• Ensure proper funding of schools to diminish their reliance on corporate sponsorship and advertising revenues.
  
  
• Eliminate tax benefits for corporate contributions to schools that carry a commercial message.
  
  
• Insist that corporations pay their fair share of school funding.

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