Introducing Our New Senior Program Director

Since March, Emily Heath has been serving as the Center’s Senior Program Director. Emily was formerly a community organizer with ACORN in Jersey City, and before that helped lead a campaign against Coke as a student at the University of Kansas at Lawrence.

Emily says that she enjoys working with people on a grassroots level. “Many local communities are losing control over their schools to international corporations. The work we do here is crucial!”

In what many view as a public relations move, Coke’s new position includes encouraging non-exclusive contracts, producing special logo-free vending machines for schools, and offering students the option of nutritious “vitamin-enriched” beverages.

Andrew Hagelshaw, the Center for Commercial-Free Public Education’s Executive Director doesn’t put much faith in Coke’s new strategy. “Everywhere that Coke has been pushed out, they have left kicking and screaming,” said Hagelshaw. “They want us to think that this is an educational-based decision, but we know that this is a business move forced by the bottom line.”

Four years ago, Coke and Pepsi started brokering exclusive contracts with cash-strapped school districts across the country. Since then, 240 school districts in 31 states have entered into these agreements. Exclusive marketing contracts guarantee the companies a captive audience in a competition-free environment, with an implied product endorsement from the school administration.

Meanwhile, schools are finding that the multimillion-dollar promises are falling short of balancing ailing budgets. Last year in Seattle, the district’s Coke deal yielded less than $14 per student. “Coke deals just are not worth it,” said Seattle educator and anti-commercialism activist Brita Butler-Wall “One result of advertising in our schools is growing student cynicism. Teachers and schools lose the community’s respect and self-confidence.”

Coke Forced To Announce Changes In Schools

Across the Country, Coke Locked Out

World's Largest Teachers' Union Joins the Fight

Center Portrait: New Youth Advisory Board Members Declare: 'YOUTH AREN'T FOR SALE!'

Center Releases Sample Policies on Advertising in Schools

Scholastic Drops Golden Marble Sponsorship After National Protest

School Policy Battle Won in Seatle

Local Victories: Actions Against Classroom Advertising

Seven Ways to Fight Commercialism in Your District

Special Feature: Victories & Actions Map 2001 (1.6MB Adobe PDF)

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