NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Robert Weissman and Elizabeth Ben-Ishai (503) 235-8012
For Immediate Release: December 5th, 2011
Commercial Alert Urges Lodi Unified School District not to Allow Commercial Advertising in Schools
Today, Commercial Alert sent a letter to the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education President, George Neely, urging the Board not to move forward with plans to allow commercial advertising on school properties. Commercial Alert is a project of Public Citizen, a consumer protection organization based in Washington, D.C., with more than 225,000 members and supporters.
The text of the letter follows:
Dear Mr. Neely,
Commercial Alert is a project of Public Citizen, a consumer protection organization based in Washington, D.C., with more than 225,000 members and supporters. We aim to keep commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.
We understand that the Lodi Unified School District trustees have recently hired Education Funding Partners to sell advertising on school sites and naming rights to District assets. We write to urge the trustees not to move forward with these plans. We understand that the financial pressures your school district currently faces make you eager to identify non-traditional sources of funding. We know your primary concern is to avoid shortchanging students as a result of budget cuts. However, subjecting children to even greater amounts of advertising is the wrong response. It will raise little revenue while undermining Lodi Unified’s educational and child development mission. Educational institutions should promote civic virtue and the public good, not commercial values.
As you know, childhood and adolescence are crucial periods for young pupils to develop their identities. Corporations exploit these developmental challenges, and convey through sophisticated marketing strategies that children should build their identities and judge their peers based on what they have, rather than on who they are. In the process, children end up with a damaged sense of self, superficial worldview, and a diminished sense of social responsibility. There is no need to overstate the case; certainly, many children navigate the world of hyper-marketing successfully. But it is nonetheless a negative influence – one that schools, of all places, should not be promoting. Children are already surrounded by near-constant advertising that promotes consumerism and commercial values. But the ubiquity of advertising is not a reason for allowing corporate naming rights and in-school advertising to persist – it is a reason why children need a sanctuary from a world where everything seems to be for sale.
Some advocates of granting corporate naming rights and in-school advertising believe that setting appropriate guidelines for these practices can curb potential harms. But more often than not, these guidelines offer virtually no protection to students. Corporations that sell harmful products to children will be among those most interested in targeting them by pursuing advertising opportunities. In school districts across the country that permit advertising, district guidelines have not prevented companies selling fast food, soda, and other unhealthful products from purchasing advertisements that target students.
But it is not only the presence of corporations selling unhealthy or morally questionable products in schools that raises concerns. Corporate advertisers advance values inconsonant with those schools stand for. Education should empower students to think critically and independently. Students should be encouraged to form their own beliefs, to question established ideas, and to develop intellectual curiosity. Marketing and advertising contravene these goals. Commercialism teaches students that everything has a price. In-school advertising and marketing schemes convey market rather than civic values and impede the ability of schools to function as open spaces where ideas are freely exchanged and the next generation of public-minded, conscientious, and virtuous students can grow.
Weighted against the real harms of school commercialism, the financial benefits of such a scheme are minuscule. Reports indicate that Education Funding Partners (EFP), the company Lodi has partnered with for its advertising program, estimates up to $100,000 in revenues from such a program (Record, 11/16/2011). This amounts to less than 0.05 percent of the District’s total expenditures budget for the 2011-2012 school year. These relatively insignificant revenues generated from commercial advertising in your schools will not make a significant dent in Lodi Unified’s budget woes. Moreover, EFP, a private company, stands to take a 20 percent cut of the revenues generated from this potentially harmful program.
We urge you to reconsider your decision to partner with EFP and ask that you not move forward with the sale of advertising on Lodi Unified School District’s properties and the sale of naming rights to school assets. We look forward to your response, and would be pleased to discuss these matters with you further.
Sincerely,
Robert Weissman
President
Public Citizen
Elizabeth Ben-Ishai
Campaign Coordinator
Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert