Commercialism in Schools: No Windfall For Districts and Students Pay a Huge Price - NEA Today:
Commercialism in Schools: No Windfall For Districts and Students Pay a Huge Price
Last month, educators, parents and community members mobilized against “McTeacher Night,” an event at which educators sit behind the counter at local McDonald’s franchises and serve up hamburgers, french fries and soda to their students. McDonald’s bills it as a “popular and successful school fundraiser.” Teacher and parent Mark Noltner sees a blatant attempt to market fast food to children.
“It’s hard enough helping my daughter navigate the minefield of unhealthy marketing; the last thing she needs is her teachers hawking junk food. And as a teacher myself, it infuriates me that McDonald’s would manipulate the trust that teachers develop with their students,” said Noltner, who complained to the principal of his daughter’s school and reached out to other educators to create awareness about the event.
A flyer advertising McDonald’s “McTeacher’s Night”
“We’re fighting a major national health crisis in childhood obesity, and schools across the nation are doing amazing work to help kids learn about healthy foods,” said Jim Bender, executive director of
NEA Healthy Futures. “The practice of exploiting educators and jeopardizing children’s health for the sake of corporate profits is unconscionable.”
The infiltration of public schools by corporate marketing doesn’t begin or end with McTeacher’s Night. Students have been exposed to commercialism in schools for decades and through a variety of methods. Product advertising adorns school hallways, lockers and buses. Teachers use corporate-sponsored materials in their classrooms. Schools enter into exclusive agreements with soda companies to sell their products on school grounds. Corporations often subsidize school events. And yet, these practices – “McTeacher Night” notwithstanding – have generally not registered so much as a blip on the public’s radar screen.
“I think people tend to underestimate the risks and the downsides of these types of activities in schools,” says Faith Boninger, a researcher at the University of Colorado and co-author with Alex Molnar of the new book,
“Sold Out: How Marketing in Schools Threatens Student Well-being and Undermines Their Education.” “Advertising is such a big part of our culture, so people just shrug and figure, ‘Well, kids are inundated by commercials in their lives anyway, so what’s the big deal?’
A Captive Audience
Students, like many adults, probably believe that advertising doesn’t influence their attitudes and behavior. But it does, which is why corporations are more than happy to shell out billions of dollars on it annually, although exact figures are hard to pinpoint. In a 2006 report, however, Boninger and Molnar estimated that roughly 83 percent of district public schools had advertising by corporations in schools and
Commercialism in Schools: No Windfall For Districts and Students Pay a Huge Price - NEA Today:
