Ads on ‘Teaching Aids’ Only Promote Consumerism

As president of the LAUSD Adopt-a-School council, which represents the nation’s largest local educational partnership program, with 1,200 business, agency and nonprofit partners, Denise Gellene’s “Consumer Education” [Advertising, June 4], from my perspective, gave examples of programs that crossed over the line of propriety and good sense.

Companies that target students to reach specific sales objectives don’t get it. Using schoolchildren to reach bottom-line objectives is the wrong approach!

The way to work with schools is for businesspeople to work with schools cooperatively in support of eduction objectives. Companies with their school partners then develop programs that enhance and support student achievement.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, partnerships provide important resources, mainly people power, for our schools--more than $15 million in direct and in-kind services annually. But these services are provided to assist students, not to sell products.

Companies or other organizations wishing to work with schools appropriately can contact the district’s Partnership Adopt-a-School office or the National Assn. of Partners in Education in Alexandria, Va. Or businesses can attend the NAPE national symposium in Los Angeles in October.

WALTER S. ZEISL

President

Adopt-a-School Program Council

Los Angeles

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Commercial messages do not belong in public school classrooms. It’s sad to see educators rationalizing use of the posters that 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Co., Vans and other corporate advertisers use as marketing vehicles to target schoolchildren.

Yes, voluntary reading needs to be encouraged, but if corporate marketers are so intent on reaching children on the school grounds, let them endow libraries or sponsor essay contests.

Teachers such as those reported in the article who use classroom time to quiz students on the contents of corporate-generated advertisements only promote the development of a consumerist mentality.

We have in large part lost our will to fund schools with taxes, though we pay lip service to the need to provide our children with the tools they need to compete.

Recognizing an opportunity when it sees one, the private sector now routinely donates computers and other educational materials in return for good public relations or still more tangible benefits.

Each gift must be judged on its individual merits, however, and these posters are a Trojan horse. We have enough consumerist sheep in this country; let’s look for ways to continue nurturing independent-thinking and creative spirits.

L.J. HOWELL

Rancho Cucamonga