Children A Captive Audience Industry Groups Mix Education, Marketing In Classroom Presentations

The man-sized carrot didn’t cut it, nor did the giant fish. The talking milk carton made the grade, though.

All were props created to get messages across to schoolchildren: A vegetarian diet is good, salmon recovery is crucial, dairy products are important.

In Spokane this fall, only the Dairy Farmers of Washington message made it to the classroom. The industry group knows that to reach schoolchildren these days usually takes a sophisticated package of information, intentionally matched to what the children are studying.

For Inland Northwest schools, information provided by special interest groups is a double-edged sword.

It’s free, it’s timely, it gets business people and others involved in education.

It also exposes a captive audience to products and perspectives that they may not be mature enough to judge, said critic Alex Molnar.

Molnar, a Wisconsin professor, is author of the new book “Giving Kids the Business: The Commercialization of America’s Schools.” In an interview, he used the dairy products program as an example.

“I’m prepared to believe that milk is a good thing. But it seems to me if you’re going to have a nutrition curriculum, that should be developed by disinterested parties.”

For those who argue that special interest programs offer accurate information, Molnar responds: “The best propaganda is not propaganda that lies. It doesn’t tell the whole story.”

Unlike ads kids see on TV, he said, commercial messages in the classroom can’t be switched off.

“Children are actually graded on this stuff. This is taking commercial interests and shoving it down their throats.”

Washington and Idaho educators say they try to filter out blatantly commercial or unbalanced messages, but admit they don’t always succeed. While some materials are screened at the district level, many decisions are made building-by-building, classroom-by-classroom.

“I’d like to say that I can stay on top of it, but that’s not true,” said Coeur d’Alene High School Principal Steve Casey, who relies heavily on the judgment of teachers.

The National Education Association advises teachers to be skeptical.

“The truth is, there’s a terrible need in classrooms for up-to-date material,” said spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons. “And there are occasions where business gets involved because business truly wants to help.”

Usually they want something in return, Lyons said.

“I get calls from business organizations saying ‘Do you have a list of schools in such and such a state? We want to send them a curriculum,’ and from public relations firms that want to pitch something to students through the teachers.”

She recalled how Campbell Soup wanted students to conduct an experiment to determine which spaghetti sauce was thicker, Prego or Ragu.

Name-brand product promotions usually are filtered out quickly. But when material deals with an entire industry, it’s more likely to get into the classroom.

For example, Principal Marilyn Highberg would never allow a particular brand of milk to be promoted at Spokane’s Moran Elementary. But as part of their science studies last week, third-graders there checked out a computerized mobile kiosk shaped like a milk carton.

Lessons taught by the 7-foot, interactive Cowosk include human nutrition, environmental stewardship on dairy farms, and famous cows in history.

In contrast, activists from People for Ethical Treatment of Animals were denied permission to distribute materials in schools or to speak at assemblies.

Cynthia Lambarth, associate superintendent for the Spokane School District, thought PETA’s message was too graphic for young children. So the mascot Cris P. Carrot resorted to standing on the sidewalk handing out pins that read: “Eat your veggies, not your friends.”

Schools also turned down an offer to have students visit Fin, a 25-foot fiberglass salmon that the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance was taking on a national tour.

“When we came here to Spokane, there were principals and teachers who declined because they thought it would be too controversial,” said environmentalist Samantha Mace. “We’re just talking about the habitat needs of salmon.”

They also were talking about the need for the Endangered Species Act.

Administrators know that parents are more likely to complain that children were exposed to such a hot political topic than they are to gripe about nutrition lessons sponsored by Tidyman’s.

Still, teachers are eager for information about natural resources.

After many of them went to Washington Water Power seeking materials about hydropower, and asking for tours of dams, WWP put together an elaborate teacher’s guide. It comes with free kits designed to teach “The Nature of Water Power,” now being used in 131 Washington and Idaho classrooms.

Larry Broderick, a Shaw Middle School teacher, was among educators who advised WWP on the materials.

“We tested everything as far as authenticity, usability. We were real pleased with the hands-on part of it,” he said.

Broderick knows that WWP wants its industry cast in a good light. The 100-page workbook includes one mention of the environmental drawbacks of hydropower, for example. It’s up to the teachers to discuss the impact of dams on regional salmon populations, Broderick said.

The Spokane School District’s new science curriculum for elementary schools will require teachers to get 25 percent of materials from outside sources, Broderick says.

“I just have to believe that teachers are going to be conscientious enough to present both sides.”

There are many more examples of special interest materials in local schools. Among them:

The Audubon Society provides newsletters, which Post Falls curriculum director Becky Ford calls “a godsend of supplemental materials.”

While it lobbies for environmental issues, Audubon’s approach to students is to give just-the-facts information about wildlife. “It’s really pretty clean,” Ford said.

“Project Learning Tree” has 400-page activity guides that teach children from preschool through high school about the timber industry. In Idaho alone, up to 500 teachers every year go through a workshop in order to earn one of the guides.

“The guiding principle is to teach children how to think, not what to think about complex environmental issues,” says Michelle Youngquist of the Idaho Forest Products Commission, which also gives teachers grants and sponsors essay contests.

The Northwest Natural Resources Institute - an annual workshop that gives up to 130 teachers hands-on science training - is heavily subsidized by timber, mining, hydropower and agriculture interests.

But when industry experts are invited to speak, they’re cautioned to teach, not preach.

“This is not the place to sing the company song. Your opinions and your biases are not allowed in there,” says Elaine Cullen, board president of the Spokane-based institute. “We’ve had to have a couple people removed.”

Newspaper in Education, sponsored locally by The Spokesman-Review, provides lesson plans that promote social awareness and improve reading skills. In return the newspaper cultivates future readers, and gets to build its circulation with papers sold half-price to schools.

Newspaper in Education has its roots in the 1930s, when New York teachers sought free papers for their classrooms. In the 1990s, educators are reaching out to businesses more than ever.

“I try to pursue partnerships with businesses in any way I can,” said Pam Pratt, principal of Fernan Elementary in Coeur d’Alene.

Last spring, representatives of Muzzy Oil Co. asked if they could visit Fernan. Using a slide presentation, they explained to a wiggly audience where gasoline comes from, and how it gets to the gas station. Talk turned to the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster.

“That was a bad deal,” said manager Bill Cole. “They never want that to happen again.”

Vice president Shaun Muzzy explained Chevron Oil, whose gas his company delivers, has a task force to deal with oil spills. He and Cole handed out Chevron stickers.

Then they learned a lesson of their own: That you can take a message to the kids, but you can’t always make kids get the message.

“What do you think that we think is the best kind of gas?” Cole prompted. “It starts with a ‘C.”’ An eager boy raised his hand and replied:

“Conoco!”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo