And Now This: TV Commercials as ‘Educational’ Fare : Schools: TV commercials in the classroom? A packaged ‘news’ show would expose teens to more than 700 ads each year.

SACRAMENTO —  Television commercials are not usually considered educational fare, clever as may be the ways of hawking candy, potato chips and expensive running shoes.

But that could change.

The California Legislature is considering a bill--AB 4078, sponsored by Ross Johnson (R-La Habra) and Stan Statham (R-Oak Run)--that would give powerful interests access to captive student audiences during school time, through “Channel One,” a 12-minute news program geared toward teen-agers that includes two minutes of commercials. The bill would changing the state’s education code by defining commercials as an “educational activity.”

The bill, which cleared the Assembly Education Committee, did not receive enough votes last week in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, but it will be reconsidered shortly. The major education groups in this state are united in opposition to the legislation and to “Channel One.”

First, watching commercials is obviously not an educational activity, no matter what the Legislature calls it. While viewing a few commercials to investigate propaganda techniques could be deemed educational, watching more than 700 in the course of a school year would hardly be that--in any event, the last thing advertisers want is for students to critically analyze commercials.

Teen-agers are a giant force in the marketplace. They are impressionable and form brand loyalties. Parents entrust their children to our public schools. “Channel One” is a commercial transaction that violates this trust. We have no right-- legally or morally --to sell access to our students by converting the educational purpose of school to a commercial one, even if schools receive some benefit in return.

Second, while “Channel One” lends approximately $50,000 worth of equipment per school--including a satellite dish, TV monitors and VCRs--schools give up much more than they receive. Each school contracts that a guaranteed percentage of its students will watch the “Channel One” program at the same time every day, without any interruptions, regardless of what they may be studying at the time. The teacher cannot stop the tape to allow for discussion. “Channel One” must also be played to a majority of the student body. Schools may skip no more than one show per month. The contract also limits the schools’ access to other programming.

The two minutes for commercials add up to one full day of ads each year--time that should be spent reading, writing and computing. Two minutes of instructional time for all middle and high schools costs California taxpayers approximately $50 million per year. Under “Channel One,” schools would not receive anything close to our $50 million costs. The satellite dish that the schools get focuses on only one satellite: the one for that beams down “Channel One,” controlled by Whittle Communications. In addition, Whittle still owns the televisions and VCRs--when the contract expires, they must be returned.

A California Department of Education analysis shows that over a three-year contract our taxpayers will pay more than twice the amount that Whittle would pay for the schools’ hardware.

Channel One has another dangerous impact--it hands control of the curriculum to an outside party who is not primarily interested in educating students, but in selling advertisements. We take seriously the sanctity of what we teach and we cannot condone surrendering the curriculum for 12 minutes a day to a commercial interest.

Watching news programs in the classroom is a promising idea, but placing stringent controls on their viewing to guarantee that the students watch the commercials greatly diminishes the educational value. If teachers do not follow up on the stories being broadcast, the academic value is sorely diluted. If they do follow up, they are allowing Whittle to dictate the curriculum.

Further, most of these advertisements actually contradict the curriculum we are teaching. The junk-food advertisements fly in the face of good nutritional practices we try to instill in our children. The ads for expensive brand-name clothes, by urging students to succumb to peer pressure about their looks, defeat our efforts to enhance their self-esteem.

“Channel One” officials contend that we cannot afford news programming and equipment without them. However, even if we were to violate our principles and sell advertisers access to our students, why would we need a middleman? It would be far more lucrative to line up our students in front of commercials for two minutes at the end of each school day and collect directly from advertisers.

Luckily, non-commercial news programming alternatives are available. Cable News Network and the Discovery Channel are producing commercial-free news and instructional programs especially for students. Teachers determine when and how to integrate these shows into their classrooms.

There is no free lunch in public education. Every brick and blackboard, every minute and second of school time are all paid for by taxpayers.

But students aren’t commodities that can be bought or sold. Every school in America should turn off “Channel One.”