In response to pressure from parents, educators and grassroots advocates, Scholastic Inc. will drastically limit its practice of partnering with corporations to produce classroom material, the company announced last week.
The publisher had been under fire since May, when it was forced to stop distributing a fourth-grade curriculum called “The United States of Energy” that had been paid for by the coal industry and distributed to classrooms across the country. Boston nonprofit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood had called on Scholastic to drop the curriculum, and after achieving success, expanded its campaign -- in concert with online social action platform Change.org -- to lobby for sweeping reforms to Scholastic’s controversial “InSchool Marketing” division.
Last Thursday, Scholastic emailed Change.org to notify them of major changes to the “InSchool Marketing” Program, including:
- A projected 40% overall decrease in the InSchool Marketing program, with significantly deeper cuts to corporate partnerships
- The creation of a Partner Review Board consisting of a curriculum editor, a teacher, a school administrator, a child psychologist, and a parenting expert to evaluate potential partners and review the content of sponsored programs
- Requiring approval for all sponsored curriculum by the Partner Review Board
The changes were highlighted in today's edition of The New York Times.
Supporters sent more than 57,000 emails to Scholastic via CCFC’s online Change.org petition to Scholastic. Change.org and CCFC members participated in a Facebook “rally” on Scholastic’s Facebook page and overloaded Scholastic’s voicemail in a Call-In Day to the company headquarters. CCFC had also created a draft partnership policy for Scholastic, signed by noted
academics and children's advocates.
The CCFC hailed Scholastic’s announcement as a major step forward in the movement to reduce corporate advertising’s influence in the lives of children.
“We appreciate the significant steps Scholastic is taking to restore the trust of parents and educators,” said Dr. Susan Linn, Director of the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood. “As a result of this decision, students will be exposed to less commercialism in classrooms this fall. It’s an important victory for children and anyone who believes that students deserve a commercial-free education.”
CCFC also thanked Change.org for its help as a social action platform that can help anyone, anywhere start and win campaigns. “This victory would not have happened without Change.org’s platform and its passionate and dedicated members,” Dr. Linn said.
Scholastic’s “InSchool Marketing” program has been used to market everything from ice cream to Hollywood movies in children’s classrooms. Clients have included McDonald’s, Cartoon Network, Shell, SunnyD, Nestle, Disney and the corporate-funded Chamber of Commerce. According to Scholastic, the program is designed “to promote client objectives” and “make a difference by influencing attitudes and behaviors.”
“We’re happy to see that the tens of thousands of Change.org members who took action on this campaign had a real-world impact,” said Carol Scott, Senior Organizer for Education for Change.org. “The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is meeting a vital need in our society, and we were happy that Change.org could amplify their reach.”
Full statement from Scholastic, released to Change.org July 28, 2011:
At Scholastic, we recognize that teachers, parents and students have extremely high expectations for all materials we distribute in schools. We take that responsibility seriously, not only for the hundreds of millions of pages we produce through our Education division and Classroom Magazines, but also for the far smaller number of sponsored supplemental materials produced with partners through our InSchool business. Several months ago, we announced that we were reviewing our policies and procedures for sponsored materials to ensure that we only produce the very best quality supplemental educational materials that teachers can choose to use to enrich their teaching. To date, Scholastic has taken the following steps regarding the InSchool business:
First, we are focusing on working only with a carefully selected list of non-profit, corporate and government partners, each of whom who will be vetted by a newly formed Partner Review Board. This reduction primarily in the pool of corporate partners will likely result in about 40% fewer programs this year; Second, we are appointing a Partner Review Board consisting of a curriculum editor, a teacher, a school administrator, a child psychologist, and a parenting expert to evaluate potential partners and review the content of sponsored programs; Third, we are strengthening the editorial review of sponsored supplemental educational content and putting additional checks in place to ensure the accuracy and impartiality of the content, including final approval by the Partner Review Board.
These actions are being taken following the withdrawal of “Shedding Light on Energy,” a supplemental program sponsored by the American Coal Foundation. We acknowledged problems with that program and conducted a thorough review of all of our recent sponsored materials. It is noteworthy that feedback from educators on an array of different programs was overwhelmingly complimentary and pointed out to us that these programs provide valuable information for teachers and students that is not otherwise available.
It is our firm belief that education today needs support from all sectors -- public and private -- and we welcome the opportunity to make curriculum-aligned, free content available to our nation’s teachers. Partner programs enable schools to receive quality, free supplemental educational materials for teachers, schools and students; tens of thousands of free books and millions of dollars in scholarship and grants. This is one small part of what Scholastic does. The overwhelming amount of our business is focused on helping students learn to read and love to read – critical parts of 21st Century literacy. Our commitment is to ensure the highest standard of excellence in all of our materials for use in the classroom and beyond – a commitment that, over the last 90 years of hard work by our committed staff, has built our reputation as “the most trusted name in learning.”
Photo credit: Read Every Day. Live A Better Life via Flickr
Posted: 2011-08-01 10:27:00
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
