Talk about your school fundraising projects: facing a $70,000 budget shortfall, one poor school in Eugene, OR had parents lining up to sell plasma—literally giving their life's blood for the educational cause. But with ongoing taxpayer “revolts” and cuts to public education, more often the solution to economic woes has been corporations, which provide the funds and equipment that school districts are missing. As Jill Sharpe's perceptive documentary Corporations in the Classroom points out, what might initially seem innocuous (such as gifts of Colgate toothpaste) can take on a whole different dimension in a service like Channel One, which beams news and commercials to a captive audience of seven million students a day, totaling one week of class time given over to advertisements each year. “I wish education was funded to a level where we wouldn't have to do these things,” laments one superintendent, while others cheerfully embrace private sponsorships (“the library is still for sale at $100,000,” chirps an administrator at an upscale Massachusetts high school, although some Massachusetts parents have pushed back against commercial radio on buses). Arguing that influential marketing is a major factor in obesity rates, youth violence, and materialism, Corporations in the Classroom presents a solid critical look at a two billion dollar industry. What's alarming is that thanks to the current recession, more of these “public-private partnerships” are likely to appear in schools. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Reagan)
Corporations in the Classroom
(2007) 45 min. DVD: $250. National Film Board of Canada. PPR. Volume 24, Issue 3
Corporations in the Classroom
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