The COVID-19 pandemic has given the entire country a crash course in virtual education and digital education platforms. School leaders have been forced to consider a set of very imperfect options as they struggle to reopen their schools. This three-brief collection identifies key issues for school leaders to consider before adopting a digital…

There is a lot of money to be made from marketing to children. Children make spending decisions about their own cash, they influence their parents' spending decisions--and they have their whole purchasing lives ahead of them. For these reasons, marketers have, over the years, done everything they can to create a "360-degree" marketing…

Many states and communities are in chronic fiscal crisis. It is no surprise that beleaguered educators are ever more open to offers of corporate "partnerships" that might bring in additional money for their schools. Unfortunately, many school-business partnerships are little more than marketing arrangements that have few benefits for…

Over the past several decades, schools have faced increasing pressure to "partner" with businesses, both to be seen as responsive to the business community and out of the hope that partnerships would help make up budget shortfalls as states reduced public funding for education. Often, school-business partnerships are little more than…

This policy brief describes the growth of schoolhouse advertising and marketing activities in the last few decades, assesses the harms associated with commercial activities in schools, and provides advocates, policymakers, and educators with a policy framework and model legislative language designed to protect children and the integrity of…

In the context of the last two years' recession, parents, teachers and administrators seem to increasingly welcome school-business "partnerships" that they hope may help ward off program cuts. Businesses encourage such arrangements because school-based marketing and advertising programs are perfectly poised to "brand" children…

As part of their efforts to create a total advertising environment, companies continue to aggressively market in school to children and youth. Advertisers now routinely blur the boundaries between editorial content and advertising in an effort to thoroughly infuse childhood with marketing messages. The goal of creating a total advertising…

For the last 15 years, the Education Policy Studies Laboratory has studied trends in schoolhouse commercialism and has found that this practice is increasingly pervasive and diverse. The manifestations of marketing in public schools include incentive programs, such as Pizza Hut's "Book It!" program; contracts that grant soft drink and junk food…

Given the importance of educating for democratic citizenship, the involvement of individual business people with policymaking bodies and task forces is highly desirable. However, schools should limit business involvement to civic-minded contributions free of marketing or advertising hype. To do otherwise betrays the spirit of educational…

This report analyzes commercializing trends in America's schools and classrooms, using data from database searches in seven categories of schoolhouse commercialism in the period 1990-97. The number of citations relating to commercializing activities can provide only a rough approximation of the scope and development of the phenomenon. The number…

The Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Schools found that the number of press citations from 1990 to 2000 discussing seven types of commercializing activities (program sponsorship, exclusive agreements, incentive programs, appropriation of space, sponsored educational materials, electronic marketing, privatization, and fund raising)…

Schools have become integral to the marketing plans of a vast array of corporations as commercial interests--through advertising, sponsorship of curriculum and programs, marketing of consumer products, for-profit privatization, and fundraising tied to commercial entities--continue to influence public education. The trend persists despite growing…

Parents who are concerned that their children are listening to advertising messages, participating in marketing programs, or being taught with materials from a corporation must discuss their concerns with the PTA and the school principal. The article offers 10 issues to address during the discussion. (SM)

ZApME! Corporation provides computer labs and Internet access to K-12 schools in return for advertising or promotional access to students and their families. The free software and hardware may not be appropriate for realizing a school's instructional goals. Educational plans should not be shaped by corporations' business objectives. (Contains 25…

This paper focuses on how, by reinforcing and exploiting the emphasis on electronic technologies in school reform, marketers are integrating school children into the advertising and marketing system. The ZapMe! program is a for-profit venture that proposes to derive its profits from activities that link the academic activities of schools and the…