Who are they kidding? The excuses of NY State Education Department and Pearson for the prominent trademarks in the ELA exam fall flat
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| American Girl Doll desk |
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| American Girl Doll made by Mattel |
Deborah Poppe, of West Hempstead, Long Island, said her eighth-grade son was similarly puzzled by a question, which drew complaints for a second straight year, about a busboy who failed to clean some spilled root beer — Mug Root Beer, to be exact, a registered trademark of PepsiCo.
'"Why are they trying to sell me something during the test?'" she quoted her son as saying. "He's bright enough to realize that it was almost like a commercial."
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"There are no product placement deals between us, Pearson or anyone else," said Tom Dunn, an Education Department spokesman. "No deals. No money. We use authentic texts. If the author chose to use a brand name in the original, we don't edit."
Pearson spokeswoman Stacy Skelly said neither the company nor the education department received any compensation for the mentions. And if any brand comes up in a passage, she said, "the trademark symbol is included in order to follow rights and permission laws and procedures." -- Karen Matthews, AP
The AP wire's story about the brand names of products appearing in this year's New York state 2014 ELA exams has been reprinted in hundreds of news outlets around the country and overseas. As a publishing professional, I have my own take on it.
This is the second year in a row of complaints about not just brand names appearing, but their appearance with (R) and (TM), the symbols for registered and unregistered trademarks. According to teachers, the following products had trademarks after their names, and also listed below the reading passages:
Life Savers, iPods, Nike, Mug root beer, Barbie, Singer sewing machines, IBM, and FIFA, trademark of the International Soccer Federation.
Mug Root beer, IBM, and FIFA and trademark symbols were in last year’s tests as well.
The statements from NYSED and Pearson are misleading. Passages published in a magazine, newspaper, or book would never have (R) or (TM) symbols after a brand NYC Public School Parents: Who are they kidding? The excuses of NY State Education Department and Pearson for the prominent trademarks in the ELA exam fall flat: