May 29th, 2005
Sex Ed, Provided By Old Spice
By Marek Fuchs
The New York Times
How best to advise fifth graders on sweating is debatable. But when the adviser is a consumer-product behemoth trading educational material for access to a captive audience, well, that occasions second thoughts.
‘’It’s just wrong to use compulsory-attendance laws to compel students to review ads,’’ said Gary Ruskin, the executive director of Commercial Alert, a watchdog group based in Portland, Ore. ‘’A school’s mission is to teach children to read, write, add and think. Not to shop.’’