The Market:

Any teacher who has ever had a piece of direct market advertising land in their box knows that schools, and school teachers have a myriad of different corporations vying for their dollars. From colored chalk to SmartBoards, U.S expenditures on K-12 education in a single year often approach $300 billion (Cisco, 2002). In fact, marketers now have manuals on how to effectively market to schools. Everything from space advertising on billboards in the gym to educational web sites have been designed to sell products (Focus Marketing, 2002). It is no surprise then to see that the idea of having computers in schools has also fallen prey to the market impulse.

A recent article in Education Week highlighted the struggles that Apple Computers is having in "regaining it's share" of the "school market" (Trotter, 2002). The article highlighted a new "eMac" that has been created especially for schools. Described by the author of this article as an "enticing ... sleek desktop machine" (how's that for objectivity?), the emac is the latest in Apple Computer Inc.'s attempts to "vie with Dell Computer to be the individual leader in sales to schools." The article goes on to bemoan the fate of Apple, Inc. which, in the 1980s and 1990s, sold almost two out of every three computers that were in our schools. Apple's "share of the school computer market" has apparently dropped to around 26 percent of all school sales, according to research done by Scholastic, Inc. (Trotter, 2002). But the point is not Apple's sales. Instead, reading the articles makes it clear that selling computers to schools matters to these corporations, in a big way.

While the research on this subject is not complete, it is clear that brand loyalty plays a large part in the sales to schools. I am typing this paper on an Apple IMac, purchased through my school district two years ago. I have never been comfortable using Windows machines because I was taught to compute on Apple machines. Does this story sound familiar? I have heard it, or it's opposite (I will NEVER use a mac) many times. It does not take a giant leap of logic to understand that students who grow up using Apples, or Dells will want to purchase those computers, or computers that are similar to them, later on in life.

Further evidence of this emphasis on schools by technology corporations can been seen in the recent rejection by a federal district judge in Baltimore of Microsoft's "Technology-Giveaway" plan (Trotter, 2002). Microsoft had hoped to settle some of it's antitrust case by giving "$1 billion in money, software, services and training to about 12,500 underprivleged public schools." (Wilcox, 2002) While there are varying opinions about the viability of this settlement, what is interesting is the reaction of Apple, Inc. and other software companies. Instead of allowing or even encouraging Microsoft to make these donations to the neediest schools in America, the companies "vigorously opposed the plan, saying it would flood the schools with free Microsoft products, which would hurt sales" (Trotter, 2002). Apple even went so far as to argue "that its business would be harmed by the refurbished computers, because most of them would not be Apple machines." (Trotter, 2002)

It is not news that these companies are out to make a buck. What is interesting, however, is the defense that they make regarding the school market. If these corporations are truly concerned about placing computers in classrooms, why would they protest this settlement? If the point is to "change the world ... for the better" (Apple, Inc. 2002), why object so strenuously, and lobby so diligently against $1 billion dollars in free computers and software for schools? The answer is clear: these donations would "hurt sales" (Trotter, 2002). Something that is much more important, apparently, than the equitable distribution of computers to the country's neediest schools.

There are innumerable other examples of the bullseye that tech corporations have on the schools. From the new "e-learning" phenomenon, described by one market analyst as a $6 billion "vital, new revenue stream" (Adkins, 2002), to education on the internet, which has been described as the "next big killer application" by John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems (ATA, 2000). This new market is gigantic, and is only getting bigger. Recent research estimates that K-12 technology expenditures are currently over $8 billion per year (Cisco, 2002). It is clear that there is a huge market which has been created to sell technology to schools. It is also clear, though much harder to document, that this market has been designed and created by corporations like Apple, Inc. in order to sell more computers.


Recent, clumsy attempts

While Apple, Microsoft and Dell fight over their pieces of the $300 billion pie, other corporations have been busy using technology to advertise in our schools. Two recent examples illustrate the need for further reform and regulation in this area, but also demonstrate a certain brazen attitude amongst corporations regarding marketing to students.

Channel One has a long history as perhaps the most controversial corporation to ever to set up shop in our public schools. A subsidiary of Primedia (who brought us Teen Beat and Fly Fisherman, for example [Who Owns What, 2002]), Channel One is a company that offers free tvs, vcrs, a satellite dish and programming to schools in exchange for 12-13 minutes of uninterrupted access to the students in that school per day (Obligation.org, 2002). The problems with Channel One are numerous and beyond the scope of this paper to clearly explain (see Obligation.org for a thorough exploration of this subject). It is clear however, that Channel One programming (which, at 12-13 minutes a day adds up to a full week of instruction every year) is geared toward the selling of products. The company is not shy about advertising it's monopoly over student eyeballs, as the poster below and the downloadable video will both demonstrate:

Typical ad for ChannelOne, running in advertising journal (Adbusters, 2001):



Click Here to view an actual ChannelOne promotional video designed to increase its advertising customer base (Obligation.org, 2002).

This advertisement, and the video section above demonstrate that ChannelOne's purpose in schools is essentially to help corporations expand their market base to America's students. This kind of blatant advertising has drawn criticism from many different groups around the country, from Ralph Nader's "Commercial Alert" to Republican Senators like Richard Shelby from Alabama. There are an increasing number of lawsuits being filed across the country to ban ChannelOne from public schools (Halmowery.com, 2002), and there is little question that ChannelOne had an important role to play in the creation of the Student Privacy Protection Act, which passed both the Senate and the House in 2001.

The other corporation which served as the catalyst for that Act was ZapMe!, a company offering schools $90,000 of computers, maintenance and support, plus free Web access, in exchange for the school's agreement to use the computers at least four times a day (Golden, 2002). The catches, and there are many, include flashing advertisments in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, mandatory collection of the ages, genders and Zip codes of the students who use the machines, and an agreement by the schools to "distribute take-home material to students at least three times a year, such as a sponsor's advertising, or contests and promotions." (Golden, 2002) Critics of ZapMe! have claimed that the corporation is taking advantage of the misfortunes of underfunded schools in order to analyze the school's students for market research (Ruskin, 2000). Their cries were heard by legislators in various states, and in Washington, who used the overt marketing behavior of ZapMe! to help propel the passage of the Student Privacy Protection Act mentioned above.

While it is clear that ZapMe! and ChannelOne have little trouble acknowledging that they are in the schools for the money, there are also other organizations that are viewing America's public schools as marketplaces, and America's public education students as a consumer base to be manipulated. Advertisers are increasingly coming around to the idea of marketing to kids in school. As the recent industry insider Association of National Advertisers, Inc. laid out on their website, advertisers oppose:

... legislation that would restrict advertising and marketing in public schools. In addition, a proposal pending in Congress (The Student Privacy Protection Act) has the potential to impact general privacy legislation by requiring an opt-in approach, even for anonymous data collection. ANA, our member companies, and the Direct Marketing Association are working to implement strategies to oppose the legislation. (ANA, 2002)

In fact, advertisers are targeting schools more indirectly, but oftentimes more effectively, with what Consumer Reports calls a "a significant and growing threat to the integrity of education in America" (Captive Kids, 1998). These techniques include the creation and distribution of educational materials by corporations, introduction to the schools of branded products, coupons, sweepstakes, or outright advertisements, and increased school-business partnerships which allow businesses to take advantage of schools who are strapped for cash (Captive Kids, 1998). There is no question that as of this writing in the summer of 2002 corporations are making more and more inroads into our schools. It is clear that education market is huge, and companies are eager to take advantage of it through advertising, product placement and marketing research in the schools. With more and more school districts around the country facing budget cuts, it seems likely that more administrators will choose to turn to school-business partnerships to maintain their budgets.


Why?

It is fairly easy to analyze how corporations attempt to get a piece of the education market. It is even easier to criticize the unabashed techniques used by companies like ChannelOne or ZapMe! It is harder, however, to understand why our schools are finding themselves so vulnerable to corporate intrusion and, more to the point, why so many administrators, teachers, students and even parents are embracing corporate involvement in schools. Moreover, why are technology corporations so eager to give charity to America's Public Schools? As I mentioned before, no other corporate sector has had such success giving away its new and used products to the schools. Why technology, and why the schools?

The answers seems fairly straightforward. As our economy recedes, school districts across the country are finding themselves vulnerable to budget deficits, but also under-the-gun to make their schools "high-tech". It is clear that many of these districts are choosing to embrace corporate sponsorship of their computer labs, school events (and in some cases bathrooms), in order to fill the holes left by a lack of government spending. But why are there so many holes in the government spending?

While it must be conceded that corporations like Apple, Inc. or Microsoft have helped to create real education reform in our school over the last twenty years, it is also clear that these companies have profited greatly from the placement of their products into American schools. $8 billion a year in technology money from our public schools is hardly pocket change. It is, however, a dramatic change in the amount of money being spent on technology, as compared to the era before the computer revolution. Industry analysts have called Apple's share of the educational computer markets "core" to it's bottom line (Kawamoto, 1998), and Microsofts dominance of the PC (and educational) software marketplace is common knowledge. So what drives these corporations, and hundreds of others like them, to donate technology to America's schools?

Alex Molnar, who heads the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University, believes the motivations of these corporations go back to the fundamentals of education funding in America, mainly property taxes vs. corporate taxes. "I think a lot of this sympathy is based on a fairly straightforward calculus as: this is a way of reducing our (the corporation's) tax liability." Molnar stated in a 1997 interview with Stay Free magazine. He went on to add:

These market-based school reforms are gaining adherence because anybody who's taken a look at the demographics at all realizes that with public education setting record enrollments--and it will continue to increase for about the next eight years--the potential tax liability is enormous. So the question: is how do you contain the cost of that? If you look at the tax structure of most states, it doesn't take a genius to realize that corporations are going to have to pay more. Unless something gives, they gotta pay more because the people who had been footing the bill can't afford to anymore. (Huber, 1997)

Left wing paranoia? Perhaps, but the evidence points to a confusing set of circumstances in the commercialization of education today. With an $8 billion market to be exploited, students being viewed as a consumer base to be manipulated, and increases in corporate donations to schools like the failed Microsoft proposal, it is hard to understand what is going on. The schools are being attacked from all sides, and they are especially vulnerable because of their dwindling budgets. Advertisers and technology corporations have exploited this opportunity in both overt and subtle ways, and the tax burden for the funding of our schools continues to rest on the shoulders of the people who pay property taxes. Perhaps Molnar is right when he points out that the improper funding of our schools is not only helpful in getting advertisers in the door, but also in helping the corporate community avoid a greater tax burden. After all, if they stock schools with computers they are not only avoiding a realistic assessment of education funding in America, they are also creating new generations of Mac or Microsoft lovers. And that is something money just can't buy.

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