A student in a gifted program wrote this piercing analysis of the state tests he and his classmates just endured.
The tests he took had many brand names and registered trademarks. He realized this is product placement.
He wrote:
“Non-fictional passages in the test I took included an article about robots, where the brands IBM™, Lego®, FIFA® and Mindstorms™ popped up, each explained with a footnote. I cannot speak for all test takers, but I found the trademark references and their associated footnotes very distracting and troubling.
“According to Barbara Kolson, an intellectual property lawyer for Stuart Weitzman Shoes, “The fact that the brands did not pay Pearson for the ‘product placement’ does not mean that the use is not product placement.” To the test-takers subjected to hidden advertising, it made no difference whether or not it was paid for. The only conclusion they (and this test-taker) made is that they could not be coincidental.”
When I served on the NAEP governing board, there was. Flat prohibition on any reference to brand names. I studied the guidelines of every publisher a decade ago when writing “The Language Police,” and all of them specifically banned brand names.
What gives here? Why the marketing in the new Common Core tests?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s been a long day, but perhaps, next year NY state can include some real authentic texts in their tests. Things like letter, contracts, and emails. I’m thinking Walcott and Bloomberg, Pearson LLC and John King and who knows what else. Maybe even a FOIA request with a few questions tossed in. (Practical things they’ll need unless things change in NYC and NY) To think that parents go to great lengths to shield their children from ads and media at home; only to have it negated by an advertorial test. Well jeez. That’s priceless. (MasterCard TM)
LikeLike
Oh, I’m sorry to see the child leave the public schools. He could really educate a few people up in New York.
LikeLike
Try down south in “Race to the Top of an erupting volcano” also!!
LikeLike
Not quite pineapplegate… (Though I was rather pleased to see a reference to Mindstorms, with or without Papert.)
http://www.cicadamag.com/node/4468
“Look,” Aaron said, pointing.
Look. That one syllable crushed whatever confidence I had as I saw and understood. Sure, the table was clean; it was the lake beneath that was the problem. A nearly full cup of Mug root beer had tipped over on the brick floor. Aaron stood at my shoulder, apologizing to the elderly couple waiting for their table. Another wave of guilt–bigger than the first–slammed into me. I had so messed up.
Aaron glared.
“I’ll take care of it,” I muttered.
“Yes, you will,” he agreed.
With that motivating statement, Aaron turned, apologized once more to the couple, and stormed off to the front of the restaurant. Avoiding the older couple’s gaze, I dropped down to clean up the root beer.
LikeLike
If this was on the test, I am so worried for the future of America. My heart weeps.
LikeLike
This is about training poor children to work efficiently at McDonald’s znd Burger King. Nothing else.
LikeLike
Let’s also keep up this information so the media can no longer ignore it. Pearson makes huge errors in scoring. And schools that used Pearson test-prep guides had an unfair advantage since some of the practice passages were used on NYS’s ELA’s test.
Now here is another example of Pearson taking over the world–literally!! Pearson now operates private schools in 3rd world countries where the emphasis is on test prep and 50 students in a room so they can remain “profitable”. Compared to BRAC which is run by a non-profit organization and teachers run the schools. BRAC concentrates on the whole child and their needs–and in the long-run the students score well on standardized tests.
The NYTimes is running a 2- part series on both schools with today concentrating on BRAC.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/where-private-school-is-not-a-privilege/?hp
LikeLike
How about the “authentic” emails between John King, the Gates Foundation and inBloom Inc., and the incentives they offered to persuade him risk the private, personally identifiable data of more than five million students?
LikeLike
That would be too instructive, since not all corporations prefer educated consumers.
These sound like subliminal messages to me. I suspect this is all about marketing, since InBloom is collecting email addresses and plans to share private info with vendors. Parents should be alert to whether their kids start getting emails from companies like Mug root beer, Lego, etc.
If this isn’t illegal, it really should be. Where are all the outspoken lawmakers when you need them?.
LikeLike
I wonder if you’d have a case for illegal subliminal advertising if kids come home after taking the tests and start asking for the products/brands that were advertised,
LikeLike
Cosmic Tinker:
Advertising in schools of candy and soda is illegal in Maine, but unfortunately not in any other state.
LikeLike
Isaiah, Thanks for the info. I can understand about overt advertising, but what about subliminal advertising?
For example, if a 3rd grader who had never had Mug root beer before came home after testing and starting asking for some, and an inquiry of why he was asking for that led nowhere, but an 8th grade neighbor explained about the advertising on the test, I would think that, for the less savvy 3rd grader, it had been a matter of subliminal advertising. Is that legal anywhere?
LikeLike
The student author of this piece is an 8th grader from the Ossining, NY public schools. Although he is in many ways a gifted young man, he is a member of our general education population. The Anne M. Dormer Middle School has several advanced or honors classes but does not have a gifted program. We are all incredibly proud of him.
LikeLike
What a great, ethical young man.
LikeLike
Thank you, Ms. Arbitrio!
LikeLike
GENERAL EDUCATION POPULATION??????
To call a student a MEMBER of the General Education Population is such a profound insult that if I were the child’s parents…you would be in court next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When are you people going to realize that SMART does not just include Book Academia SMART..
When are you going to stop these insulting remarks to a so-called General Population which demeans the character and the talents of this young man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talents which are as Important as any so-called gifted academic student..
Talents which ,in reality, are necessary to run this world.
Talents which are not be tested as they are not a part of the Common Core Clowns agenda.
I hope all have seen DIlberts Cartoon on Education today..
TEACHER TO STUDENTS:
For a fair selection everybody has to take the same exam:
STUDENTS CONSISTS OF
a Monkey, Penguin, Elephant, Fish , Dog etc
THE TEST
Please Climb that Tree
Your remark will not be tolerated once it is heard around this world..
You can not possibly be educating students and referring to them as the General Population.
Your remark is arrogant, haughty, and TEST-DRIVEN!
Please do not say you teach teachers!!
LikeLike
So you are inferring that since this young man is not a so-called Member of the Academically Gifted that his remarks are not to be taken seriously.
You have, from this remark, confirmed the educational disaster that is now in progress.
No one needs to hear the words we are “incredibly proud of him” inferring (though he is not one of our academically gifted and therefore his words mean nothing)..
No true educator would say this..
This can not be for real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LikeLike
I think what she meant is that the general run of the mill students in that school are so very, very good that practically any eighth grader from that population could have written the piece. She is boasting of how good Ossining’s “normal” eighth graders are, not diminishing their abilities.
What impressed me about Schrader’s essay, however, is what a good little liberal he already is, even in eighth grade.
LikeLike
We heard NY State has decided to embrace product placement on exams. http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2013/04/this-test-brought-to-you-by.html (hehehe)
LikeLike
My take–I am a professional copy editor and proofreader. It’s troubling that brand names appeared in the New York state tests in the first place. Yes, brand names do appear in children’s books. But it should be easy enough to edit them out for the tests.
What’s also puzzling is that “TM” and “R” symbols are generally only to be used in promotional material or packaging (cereal boxes, candy wrappers,
toy packaging, etc.). The original story from Cicada didn’t use a symbol.–nor did it use a footnote. So Pearson had to have put them into the story for the ELA test. They had to have been paid–or perhaps the fee to use the story would have been higher unless they agreed to put the symbols in. I wonder how much they had to pay.
The “bible” for copy editors is The Chicago Manual of Style, by University of Chicago Press. In the 16th ed., 8.152, p. 446:
“Although the symbols “R” and “TM”…often accompany trademark names on product packaging and in promotional material, there is no legal requirement to use these symbols, and they should be omitted wherever possible.”
LikeLike
They had to have been paid
Why? Maybe their intellectual property lawyers don’t use the Chicago Manual of Style.
Here’s wikipedia (as an alternative, not comparable):
“The proper manner to display these symbols is immediately following the mark, and is commonly in superscript style but is not legally required.”
Perhaps the trademark symbols are more common in technical writing. It did strike me as out of place in (when added to) the narrative work.
LikeLike
Why should we think Pearson, or individuals working there, do not get paid for this? If it’s not illegal I would expect some bright new MBA graduate to have thought it up. Bear in mind the whole standardized testing program is a scam to transfer money from the public schools to private corporations. Of course they’re in it to maximize profits.
LikeLike
Why marketing on the tests? Simple. This is the one place where the marketers/privatizers/edupreneurs/whatevers have absolute control. The student can’t turn off the test, change channels, tune to a different stations, skip the track, fast-forward, or avoid the commercials in any of the usual ways. Truly a captive audience. Wait till fast-food chains catch on to this. We’ll have Hamburgergate, where students are made to answer questions about an informational essay that describes fast-food meals as nutritionally balanced…
LikeLike