Local Highlights: Actions Against Classroom Advertising
This example is taken from McGraw-Hill’s 1999 edition of Mathematics: Applications and Connections.

Here comes ZapMe, the computer version of Channel One

Extra! Extra! Advertising in Schools Makes Headlines!

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Setting the Record Straight: Channel One… One Savvy Lobbyist

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Wyoming

Community activists in Buffalo, Wyoming are fighting to get Channel One out of their schools. Community member David Romtvedt is working with local PTA members and others to bring pressure to their school board. They have had numerous articles written about their efforts in the Buffalo Bulletin, the local paper. A recent community meeting in the Buffalo Public library went well, and actions against Channel One will continue.

California

The Center is happy to report that the one of the two state bills put forward in the California legislature to curb commercialism has taken a giant step towards becoming a law! As we reported in our last newsletter, California Assemblymember Kerry Mazzoni, head of the Assembly Education Committee, authored the bills this past January. AB 116, designed to stop commercial images in school textbooks, passed the Assembly on April 7th. Center staff and volunteers went to Sacramento and testified convincingly before the Assembly Education Committee. McGraw-Hill, the publisher of the now infamous math book that started the controversy, stopped their lobbying efforts against the bill after the Center succeeded in generating a flood of publicity – including a front page article in the New York Times!

Oregon

A great success story comes out of Portland, Oregon regarding Coke/Pepsi. Recently, a request for Coke/Pepsi proposals (an RFP) was issued by Portland public schools. In response, a student named Troy Pickard helped form a student club in his high school named Students for Commercial-free Classrooms (SCC). They began a petition effort in the local community to call attention to the possible cola contract. In response to the attention, the school rescinded the RFP! Though their work is far from finished (many schools in the Portland area are continuing to consider and sign cola contracts), this serves as another example of the power of community action.

Michigan

Teachers in Alpena, Michigan are fed up with Channel One and want it out. The Center is working with a school counselor who is leading the call against advertising in his school. This is how little the Alpena teachers think of Channel One as a teaching tool: when a school principal told the teachers at a recent meeting that getting rid of Channel One might mean losing their television sets, the teachers broke out in applause!

Canada

Unfortunately, a Channel One clone is on the move in Canada. YNN, Youth News Network, is approaching schools north of the border to sign them up to the same old tired scheme of “free” televisions in exchange for advertising to a captive audience of students. Several school districts in Canada are in contact with the Center and requesting information about Channel One in order to fight off the intrusion of YNN into their communities.

Recently the Center provided materials for a community meeting of activists who are fighting to get YNN out of Meadowvail Secondary School in Ontario. Meadowvail is the YNN pilot school for Canada. Our materials were a hit, and are being used by activists along with information from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives. The Center is also in touch with students activists from the pilot school, who are bravely risking suspensions to publicly protest their opposition to YNN.

Alabama

The state based children’s rights organization, Obligation, Inc., contacted the Center seeking help to remove Channel One from schools throughout the state. The issue was brought to the attention of Obligation’s president, Jim Metrock, by a long time Center member and community activist. As a result of Obligation and the Center’s efforts Channel One was removed from all schools in Shelby County.

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