HIGH LIFE : A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Class Commercials Get Poor Reception

State schools Supt. Bill Honig issued a negative report card last week to Channel One, a controversial, satellite-delivered television show that introduces commercials to the classroom.

“Our students’ minds aren’t for sale,” Honig said in Anaheim as he announced that public schools would not be allowed to collect state money for time that students spend watching the program.

In March, Tennessee-based Whittle Communications introduced Channel One’s pilot project in five high schools and one junior high throughout the nation, including Gahr High School in Cerritos. The five-week program ended last month. Whittle planned to expand the program to 8,000 schools nationally if it proved successful.

Honig said, however, that his department has examined the legal and ethical merits of Channel One and decided that it constitutes “forced commercialization in school.”

He said Channel One does not qualify as an “educational activity” and therefore is inconsistent “with the purpose for which schools are established.”

“On the whole, it’s a bad deal for kids, a bad deal for education, and it sets a terrible precedent,” Honig said.

If California public schools choose to take the program, Honig said, they would be docked state money commensurate with the total number of hours that students view the show.

Whittle Communications’ 12-minute program, viewed daily in the pilot project, was an international news show with enthusiastic young announcers. It was the two minutes of commercials--for products such as Snickers candy bars, Levi’s jeans and Gillette razors--that concerned educators.