Captive Kids: A Report on Commercial Pressures on Kids at School

What this Report Contains
Captive Kids first identifies some of the different forms that in-school commercialism takes — from outright advertising in school hallways to sponsored educational materials that don’t necessarily contain ads but often contain brand-name plugs and biased messages.
It examines the reasons why corporations and other commercial organizations are interested in marketing to kids in the classroom, and how they do so. Most significant among these reasons is the corporate interest in capturing the attention and loyalty of today’s growing population of youngsters, who are not reachable at home during school hours.
Second, Captive Kids explores the problems that in-school commercialism can create, the arguments for and against allowing such commercialism into schools, and the efforts to control it.
It evaluates and rates a wide selection of sponsored educational materials, in-school contests, and incentive programs that have achieved access to children at school. And it describes numerous other forms of ad-bearing materials that are entering the schools, including sponsored television and radio, ad-bearing publications, and fund-raising programs.
Finally it offers Consumers Unions’ recommendations on how the corporate sector, the education community, parents, and government can and should work together to make schools ad-free zones where young people can learn without commercial influences and pressures.

Why We Conducted the Study
Captive Kids is a follow-up to our earlier report, Selling America’s Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90’s1.
In preparing that study Consumers Union found that America’s children are targeted by corporations and other organizations with more than 30,000 commercial messages per year.
We found that thousands of corporations were targeting school children or their teachers with marketing activities ranging from teaching videos, guidebooks, and posters to contests, product giveaways, and coupons.
We also found that many of these programs had self-serving objectives, or contained misleading, incomplete, or incorrect information.
We became convinced then that a focused study of commercialism in the schools was needed. We therefore began this project in late 1993.
We believe that requiring kids to view paid commercials on classroom TV or in classroom magazines; to fill the classroom with teaching aids that sport corporate logos or self-serving information; to expose kids to radio commercials or billboards or vending machines that push fat- and sugar-laden brand-name products; or to enlist whole student bodies in contests that promise a reward in exchange for brand-name recognition violates the integrity of education.
In-school commercialism is at its worst, we believe, when it masquerades as educational materials or programs and offers half-truths or misstatements that favor the sponsor of the materials. It may be difficult if not impossible for most teachers to correctly judge the objectivity and accuracy of such materials. In Captive Kids we describe many examples of this.
The more blatant forms of in-school commercialism add to the growing din of advertising aimed at kids in the home, on the bus, and in the malls. We do not believe that any advertisements, coupons, and sweepstakes have a rightful place in our institutions of learning.
Wide variations in resources among our nation’s school districts put many schools in a position of need, with little negotiating power when it comes to the content of commercial materials. When sorely needed equipment or teaching materials come only with an agreement to promote the donor’s products to kids and their parents, it may be hard to say no.
Unfortunately, a teacher’s use of a sponsor’s materials or products implies an endorsement, and any benefits of such use may come at the cost of teaching children to scrutinize marketing messages objectively.
We believe the impact that commercialism can have on the education of our young citizens and consumers in training should be a matter of great concern to all who cherish children. It is a matter of immediate concern to school administrators, teachers, parents, educational overseers, and the private corporations who will rely on today’s youth to populate tomorrow’s government and industry.
We believe that parents and educators must unite to make schools ad-free zones, where young people can pursue learning free of commercial influences and pressures. We applaud corporations that recognize that it is in their own long-range interest to provide relevant work experience to school kids and to donate basic equipment and financial resources to schools — but that attempts to peddle merchandise, services, or self-serving ideas are inappropriate.
Protecting school children from in-school commercialism requires that schools and school districts treat sponsored materials the same way they treat other curriculum materials: subject them to committee reviews and adopt and enforce guidelines insuring their objectivity and freedom from commercialism. Suggested guidelines are included in the section of this report called Recommendations.