NEWS RELEASE
For More Information Contact: Elizabeth Ben-Ishai (202) 588-7746
For Immediate Release: November 14th, 2011

Commercial Alert Urges Upper Moreland School Board to Reconsider Selling Naming Rights

Today, Public Citizen’s Commercial Alert sent a letter to the President of the Upper Moreland School Board, Dr. David Hakes, asking that the Board reconsider its decision to allow the sale of naming rights to school assets.  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.

Following is the text of the letter:

Dear Dr. Hakes,

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 write to urge the Upper Moreland School Board to reconsider its decisions permitting the sale of naming rights to School District assets. 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 Upper Moreland’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 allowing in-school advertising believe that setting appropriate guidelines for these practices can curb potential harms. Such guidelines do not address the most fundamental problems with school advertising. On September 28th, 2011, the Upper Moreland school board adopted a set of guidelines to be used in evaluating those who wish to purchase naming rights to school properties. These guidelines offer virtually no protection to students. The board’s guidelines merely call for naming rights purchasers to have a “stated purpose [that] is consistent with the mission of the district and whose activities are not contrary to the mission or the values of the community.” No specification of the mission and values to which the Board refers is offered, and there is reason to worry whether such general terms would address the most serious potential problems. Corporations that sell harmful products to children will be among those most interested in targeting them by pursuing naming rights opportunities. Upper Moreland permitted a fast food company, Sonic, to purchase interactive whiteboards last year. Boards bearing the Sonic logo were then placed in classrooms. Given the national epidemic of childhood obesity, why would the district invite a fast food company into the classroom? Yet, it is unclear that the new guidelines will offer children any further protection from similar harmful advertising.

But it is not only the presence of corporations selling unhealthy or morally questionable products in schools that raises concerns. Even if the school board were to offer clearer and more specific guidelines, 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. School advertising programs rarely bring in significant funds, and the small revenues often barely offset the administrative cost and burden of putting them in place.

We urge you to seriously reconsider your decision to allow the sale of naming rights to Upper Moreland School District 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