I would say the answer is no. Children are a captive audience. It seems unethical to use the classroom to promote brand loyalty. The classroom should be a place to learn and ask questions and develop ones skills, abilities, and interests.
But this story in the New York Times says that big business is moving into schools, using teachers to promote their products. Teachers need the extra money and school supplies. What do you think?
“MAPLETON, N.D. — One of the tech-savviest teachers in the United States teaches third grade here at Mapleton Elementary, a public school with about 100 students in the sparsely populated plains west of Fargo.
“Her name is Kayla Delzer. Her third graders adore her. She teaches them to post daily on the class Twitter and Instagram accounts she set up. She remodeled her classroom based on Starbucks. And she uses apps like Seesaw, a student portfolio platform where teachers and parents may view and comment on a child’s schoolwork.
“Ms. Delzer also has a second calling. She is a schoolteacher with her own brand, Top Dog Teaching. Education start-ups like Seesaw give her their premium classroom technology as well as swag like T-shirts or freebies for the teachers who attend her workshops. She agrees to use their products in her classroom and give the companies feedback. And she recommends their wares to thousands of teachers who follow her on social media.
“I will embed it in my brand every day,” Ms. Delzer said of Seesaw. “I get to make it better.”
“Ms. Delzer is a member of a growing tribe of teacher influencers, many of whom promote classroom technology. They attract notice through their blogs, social media accounts and conference talks. And they are cultivated not only by start-ups like Seesaw, but by giants like Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, to influence which tools are used to teach American schoolchildren.
“Their ranks are growing as public schools increasingly adopt all manner of laptops, tablets, math teaching sites, quiz apps and parent-teacher messaging apps. The corporate courtship of these teachers brings with it profound new conflict-of-interest issues for the nation’s public schools.
“Moreover, there is little rigorous research showing whether or not the new technologies significantly improve student outcomes.
“More than two dozen education start-ups have enlisted teachers as brand ambassadors. Some give the teachers inexpensive gifts like free classroom technology or T-shirts. Last year, TenMarks, a math-teaching site owned by Amazon, offered Amazon gift cards to teachers who acted as company advisers, and an additional $80 gift card for writing a post on its blog, according to a TenMarks online forum.
“Teachers said that more established start-ups gave them pricier perks like travel expenses to industry-sponsored conferences attended by thousands of teachers. In exchange, teacher ambassadors often promote company products on social media or in their conference talks — sometimes without explicitly disclosing their relationships with their sponsors.
“Many public schools are facing tight budgets, and administrators, including the principal at Ms. Delzer’s school, said they welcomed potentially valuable free technology and product training. Even so, some education experts warned that company incentives might influence teachers to adopt promoted digital tools over rival products or even traditional approaches, like textbooks.
“Teachers can’t help but be seduced to make greater use of the technology, given these efforts by tech companies,” said Samuel E. Abrams, director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
“Public-school teachers who accept perks, meals or anything of value in exchange for using a company’s products in their classrooms could also run afoul of school district ethics policies or state laws regulating government employees.”
There are both ethical and legal concerns.
““Any time you are paying a public employee to promote a product in the public classroom without transparency, then that’s problematic,” said James E. Tierney, a former attorney general of Maine who is a lecturer at Harvard Law School. “Should attorneys general be concerned about this practice? The answer is yes.”
For the record, industries have always tried to place their promotional materials in the classroom to influence the views of children (the oil industry, the tobacco industry, and more). But this seems to be the first time that teachers have been hired to do their sales and marketing for them, while teaching.
Dr. Ravitch – on one hand, I completely agree with you about product promotions, and it does seem that in this case and others that the line between using and promoting is more than blurred. That being said – to me this points to a larger issue of uneven resources in schools across the nation – this article noted that in some cases teachers feel that joining these companies is one of the few ways they can get resources they need for their schools. Can you really blame these teachers for trying to get more resources for their classrooms?
Jls,
I get it. But if a woman who needed money–really needed it–should she sell her children or become a prostitute? Oops, there I go again, speaking my mind. To me, teaching is a sacred trust. And yes, the schools should be funded and teachers paid as professionals.
Dr. Ravitch – as for the woman needing money and becoming a prostitute, I would guess that some women have done exactly that because of desperation – that they feel they don’t have any other choice.
I agree that teaching is a sacred trust. I am wondering if you have an issue with teachers who will post projects on Donor’s Choose or similar sites to crowd source and raise funds…and that in some cases groups like Gates or others will offer to match donations for those projects…
To me it is not as cut and dry as you would make it out to be. I have been in classrooms without resources and have reached out before to companies to get such resources. I did it for the betterment of my students.
I have literally raised thousands of dollars with bake sales and barbecues. I require that all food sold be made by my students with their parents/guardians “with care for your school.” Parents love to make food with their kids for the school. Friends love to buy each other’s dishes (paper plates). Bake sales not bombs! Bake sales not Big Data!
And barbecues or bake sales work at all economic levels. It’s the real crowd sourcing.
There is a much better way to get resources for students: demand that the government stop slashing public school funding. This is a false choice–to either do without or sell your students out for the benefit of corporations. I hope that the NEA and AFT will speak out publicly against this kind of cynical self-promotion in the classroom.
That too.
I really do not agree about the bake sales. These do not work at all economic levels. Also, many schools have policies against homebaked goods because of food allergies. As a peanut gallery sufferer, I’m thankful for that.
I’m a peanut gallery sufferer too. (Big smiles for autocorrect tech — not so correct.) I have to endure all kinds of meddling in my classroom by the tech peanut gallery. And I’m not even getting paid to advertise for them. They do it anyway. Nuts!
I have said before: I would like to see more NGOs get involved in publicly-operated education. I am certain that service clubs, and other such organizations would be delighted to help provide for students and teachers. I have no problem with corporations providing equipment and support to teachers/students.
““Any time you are paying a public employee to promote a product in the public classroom without transparency, then that’s problematic,” said James E. Tierney, a former attorney general of Maine who is a lecturer at Harvard Law School. “Should attorneys general be concerned about this practice? The answer is yes.”
Nothing I could say would be as clear and cogent. It bears repeating. Again and again. Thank you, Diane.
For years soda companies have given schools for special needs students free refrigerators for soda rewards for good student behavior. Only one brand of soda is featured. These soda stores also carry books that students can buy with their good behavior points, but this just provides cover for the soda. It’s nothing new forK 12 schools to be building brand loyalty in children.
Totally unethical, in my opinion. If corporations really want to help schools, they could give money to the state in the form of taxes, the very taxes that they often avoid.
Instead, corporations, and their bought and paid for politicians, fund “scholarships” in the form of tax credits, to religious schools, and pay no taxes, but instead, write off their “scholarship.” Correct, if corporations cared about the kids, they’d pay their taxes, and stop the nonsense.
Good point.
When I read this article in the Times, I was physically repulsed for hours afterward. It’s coming back again now. A teacher is a public official. How can you be a public official if you’re accepting money from private interests? Conflict of interest? Outright bribery? How can you need electronic gadgets and doodads so badly you need to accept money from private interests? How can you teach children to appreciate the meaningfulness of literature if Twitter is paying you to instead spend your class time reading @DonaldTrump? The teacher in the article was teaching tweeting. Really? Tweeting? Really? Really, the teacher was “teaching” her students to do what Trump does, to tweet, to reach for Donald level intelligence. Donald does not read books! Really.
That’s just it. You DON’T need all this technological mumbo-jumbo. Don’t get me wrong–I use technology a fair amount. But I’m starting to go more old-school in a lot of my teaching, BECAUSE the kids are so invested in constant technology. It’s hard to get through to them because of the busy-ness and constant sights and sounds all around them. We need to slow it down and give our students a chance to be kids. We can do that with white boards and erasers, pencils and paper. And when the power goes out, I can still teach.
I can’t get over her getting free clothes. That is just absurd to me.
Me too! I’m very concerned that neither teacher highlighted in the article, nor the building principal, saw any potential problems with their product endorsements and saw no potential conflicts with the private part time consulting…maybe selective blindness!
To those who defend product placement, answer this:
If teacher is paid by the XY corporation to sell its software, but corporation AB has a better product, what will teacher do?
I’ll take a stab…if the teacher js ethical enough I would hope he or she would decide to not continue supporting product XY – or even better discuss ways XY could become a better product than what it already is
I should add I am not defending product placement in all cases – and I am guessing those against it here are also against it in movies, television or any setting. I am supporting teachers who without sufficient funds reach out and try to find any way to support their students and their classroom
The issue at hand is teachers being used as marketing tools. Advertising in classrooms is a different subject than reaching out for assistance, perhaps applying for grants (of which there are many, by the way, and the only strings attached to them is that the benefactor be associated with helping someone). There are many good ways for a teacher to reach out for funds. Becoming a Microsoft PowerPoint Ambassador isn’t one of them. (Remember PowerPoint? Waste of class time if ever there was one. Beginning teachers taught to ‘disrupt’, bless their hearts, haven’t seen all the tech come and go.) Hey, there are public grants too.
This started in medical offices with Pharmaceutical representatives hocking the latest and greatest of expensive designer (renamed/rebranded) drugs. What started out as Reps providing free lunches or pens and sample drugs for patients, turned into a very seedy business of hiring/buying physicians to work for the pharmaceutical company. It did not bode well for patients, but the physicians got lots of perks and extra cash. Buyer Beware.
Horrible! Shame on those teachers. I don’t care what their justification is. Ignorance is not an excuse. Greed is not an excuse. Oh, that helps me get the supplies I need for my classroom, is not an excuse.
Once they let the wolf (the corporations) in the classroom, that wolf will demand more and more without end.
Look what that same thing has done to medical care as doctors are wined and dined by salesmen from drug companies, and then the doctors prescribe those drugs needlessly causing a dangerous epidemic of drug use in the U.S.
National Geographic Magazine has run a number of pieces on this issue.
For instance, Drugs, Inc. Pill Nation
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/drugs-inc/episodes/pill-nation/
Unfortunately this “wolf-at-the-door” has been unleashed not only by the start-up and giant tech companies but also by the publishers and their affiliated testing entities!
No, I wouldn’t be a brand teacher.
I would rather have these corporations give a donation in monies to the school directly so supplies for the classroom can be purchased. I would rather have the state fund education at 100% rather than the 25% they presently do. (and not to private or charters)
NO! Being USED again and again.
Teachers taking incentives from corporations to use the corporations’ products with students in their classes is a similar action to doctors who prescribe drugs of manufacturers who offer a financial incentive to the doctors. Obvious conflict of interest. Remove the incentives and the conflict of interest disappears.
Teachers are not in a school to represent any commercial products. They are public employees paid to do a non-commercial job.
But representing commercial products is exactly what this teacher is doing and what this article is promoting.
Commercialism is not new. Go to any teacher conference and you will see publishers and product-makers who pay big bucks for a conference display booth. The vendors give away samples, get teachers to sign up for catalogs or apps, and free trials, or they are given raffle tickets for “freebies.” On and off the record, vendors may sponsor happy hours, or closed meetings with sales reps. Some teachers become sales reps without or without publicizing their commissions for sales.
Corporations are developing “free” curriculum materials to market ideas and products, some with a soft-sell approach others more blatantly. I think that the Starbucks example is over the line. Same for McDonald’s.
But there are much more insidious forms of commercialism. If people are interested, I suggest that this report is a good start. There are reports from prior years as well.
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/schoolhouse-commercialism-2017
Laura,
Marketing products to teachers at conferences–usually in booths alongside competitors–is not the same as the teacher being paid to sell product to her students
Free TV’s in exchange for showing morning news with commercials. Soda machine in exchange for a share of the profits. McDonald’s etc… In the school cafeteria. All examples of corporate attempts to influence in the school building. Wondering if there would be restrictions on Burger King K-8 Charter Schools?
Channel One tried that first. They gave away “free” television sets to schools but the schools had to show a few minutes of commercials. Anderson Cooper got his start on Channel One. It was started by Chris Whittle, who went on to found the Edison Project.
I really loved Channel One when I was in elementary and middle school.
Chris Whittle went on to a series of massive business failures. Read Samuel Abrams’ “Education and the Commercial Mindset,” which tells the story of Whittle and the Edison Project.
Lisa Ling!!!!!!
I was teaching when that started. Schools had so few funds that they were desperate to get their hands on 21 inch TV sets. Imagine that. Mine got broken each morning when Whittle “news” came on; funny how the sound never worked.
Now schools are desperate for laptops and iPads. Plus que ça change, plus que c’est la même chose.
Here in metro WashDC, the subway/public transport system has a huge operating deficit. (It is a government operation). The metro transit authority is considering selling the names of the stations to corporations. see
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/tripping/wp/2017/07/10/metro-proposal-to-sell-naming-rights-to-stations-is-just-wrong/?utm_term=.c3889bd72305
How about George Washington/Amazon elementary school? Or John F. Kennedy/T-Mobile High School?
In NYC, the subways were created by for-profit corporations. When they couldn’t make a profit, the corporations gave the subways to the city and state.
Gross
Huh, I think we’ve been down this road before. Let’s look at how well that’s worked in medicine.
Peter Greene’s take: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-classroom-of-tomorrow.html#comment-form
Everyone should just admit that these companies are producing and selling product, and stop hyping them as some kind of philanthropic program.
Just don’t fall for the hype. Accept that these are products and the people making them are selling them. They’re not magic or “revolutionary” or miraculous.
I’m comfortable with ed tech companies as long as we’re all clear that they are businesses- they’re not, actually, in the business of “helping children”- they’re in the business of selling their products.
Treat them like any other product and you won’t get bamboozled.
“Everyone should just admit that these companies are producing and selling product, and stop hyping them as some kind of philanthropic program.”
Exactly. Rich people and corporations should have only one way of contributing directly to education: give with no strings attached (preferably anonymously).
For indirect giving, they can start paying a lot more taxes.
However much I like to go to Starbucks (to waste my money on expensive coffee), it’s unacceptable that our kids get influenced in their classroom by a company to use their product. Microsoft has been doing this for decades: most schools, universities use Windows and MS Office.
This not only sucks for the kids but it also kills the competition, so it has ramifications in the market as well.
There is a list in the Torah that describes the levels of charity. One is to give to someone and they thank you. At the top of the list is giving anonymously, not knowing who will receive your charity, and them not knowing who gave it.
These product placements are no form of charity. They are commercialism, using schools, teachers, and students to build brand loyalty.
Here is the list for different levels of Tzedakah.
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-levels-of-tzedakah-in-judaism-2076095
Teachers doing this is small potatoes. It’s top-level administrators cozying up with testing companies that presents an obvious conflict of interest and causes the greatest harm.
Here’s a story of a particularly egregious case involving a Virginia superintendent, Pam Moran of Albemarle Co, and SchoolNet, a division of Pearson. The article is a few years old but it’s really well-researched and speaks to the present topic. Read it and weep for the millions of dollars of wasted money.
http://www.readthehook.com/100248/no-school-administrator-left-behind
It’s top-level administrators cozying up with testing companies that presents an obvious conflict of interest and causes the greatest harm.
Indeed.
The Central Virginia school superintendent identified above is STILL shielding 268 SchoolNet-related emails from any public scrutiny and the school board has backed her.
Meanwhile, the school board and superintendent have turned all of the county’s high schools into STEM “academies.” When the process began, the superintendent was asked for the research that supported such a move. She couldn’t cite any. Instead, she pawned the task off on then-director of the county math and science academy (who is now ensconced in central office). He couldn’t cite any either. The reason is that the research shows a GLUT of STEM workers, not any kind of “shortage.”
This county – one of the most affluent in the state of Virginia – created what it called a “competitive market” to determine pay levels for teachers, and stacked it with poorer and much poorer localities, thus skewing significantly downward what it pays teachers. Meanwhile, it has funneled millions and millions of dollars into technology and STEM academies.
The superintendent and the school board say that their “strategic priorities” make the school division “innovative” and “cutting edge.” That’s laughable.
Interestingly, the “data” the division touts first on its website are SAT scores and Advanced Placement score sequences. As I’ve noted any number of times on this blog, SAT scores are a function of family income and very little else, and AP is far more about hype than any educational benefit.
The school division notes on its website that “The Superintendent and the Albemarle County School Board are bound in a partnership of mutual trust and vision.”
As I’ve said before, with people like this, public education is in more serious trouble than many think.
No, No, No!
To sell to your students is the antithesis of ‘education’, PERIOD! This isn’t about the needs of the teacher, it’s about the integrity of the profession.
My district has an ethics policy that prevents any staff member from accepting money, gifts, or any kind of donations to promote any type of product or service. They just fired an assessment guy who was providing testimonials to a certain computerized reading assessment company using his title & the district name while receiving discounted product pricing.
Being teacher, jlsteach and Kayla Delzer represent gullible people/consumers.
Women did not enter prostitution trade because they are desperate. Mostly, they are cheated into doing it in the name of love for their pimps. Secondly, they are bullied by the crooks with power. Lastly, they are lured in all empty promises by their own greed and by crooked corporate
jlsteach and Kayla Delzer think that they are smart with techies skills. They will eventually be in slavery for corporate and be controlled by corporate. Fascism and communism happen because people are gullible with sound bite like patriotism, in the love for the fortunate, in the name of God, and all empty promises…
In short, now, we can understand and feel sorry for Trump’s administration and his leadership which are completely under corporate control. Teachers like jlsteach and Kayla Delzer can be cheated. Higher education leaders in educational field can be completely controlled. As a result, we should forgive parents and students who are misled by crooked corporate in charter business and voucher. Back2basic
Privatization at its worst. There is nothing good about this.
If I hadn’t seen my colleague’s absolutely stupendously amazing interactive bulletin board using Seesaw I would join this naysayer chorus loud & clear. Her enthusiasm hooked me and I started using the App on our Chromebooks. The students love the audio & video features and now anybody walking by Room 250 can scan the QR code next to a picture created by each student AND HEAR THAT STUDENT READING an original essay! So what if the company gives her a free t-shirt and fun posters for the classroom? It is a way to engage students using a FREE resource. I’m more worried about entire districts paying Pearson to create tests that make or break students and lead to horrible grading of schools. Isn’t that corporate promotion on a much broader scale?!
“The students love the audio & video features
…So what if the company gives her a free t-shirt and fun posters for the classroom?
…Isn’t that corporate promotion on a much broader scale?!”
Yes. Bill Gates began by giving away free copies of windows and computers, and the kids enjoyed it a great deal too. And his innocent little philanthropy has blossomed into exactly the massive influence Pearson is only a small part of.
This innocent looking little foot in the door of our kids’ classroom belongs to a gigantic monster. We have seen the monster many times, and yet we keep trusting the foot.
Her bio says she is (among other things) a “Flexible Seating Guru.” WTH? Yeah, it’s also called “Guided (Whatever)” groups. Seriously? I guess I can call myself “Vertical Alignment Expert” instead of lining students up or “Time Liaison Manager” instead of picking students up from specialist classes. Give me a bleeping break!
If teachers are going to promote product in their classrooms, they should demand more than a “free trip”
These products are wildly profitable. Ed tech is ripping you off if they’re paying you with free trips.
They’re playing you for fools. No actual salesperson would accept a “free trip” as compensation. Salespeople earn commissions. At the very least you should demand pay instead of patronizing “gifts” they give to chumps who promote their products for free.
If they’re “beta testing” ed tech products on students, then why do we have to pay for the products?
They should be paying us. I’ll allow them to use my son as a product tester for a fee, payable to his public school. I’m certainly not going to pay them for his free labor.
I am trying to start a business on the side, which in some respects could be helpful to teachers and students. However, I am paranoid about being accused of using my district’s resources for personal gain, so I basically keep it to myself.
I’m appalled that this is even allowed.
I know of school music teachers who teach private lessons on the side, and there are rules (both written and unwritten) about how you can stay out of trouble. No paid lessons allowed on school property. Do not teach students in your feeder chain. Example, you’re the band teacher at Pear High School and teach trumpet lessons on the side. Your school gets students from Orange Middle and Banana Middle School. You don’t offer your services to students from Pear HS as well as those two middle schools. You also can’t advertise your lessons to other teachers at schools outside your zone using district email. It’s basically word of mouth and maybe social media if you’re friends with the other schools’ teachers there.
This is the logical “next step” of the corporate takeover of education.
Happened in sports, too. Players were originally prohibited from wearing any company logo while playing on the field. That’s changed in a huge way, now. To the point where most of the ballparks and stadiums are named after corporations.
Here in NYC we get a yearly memo at Christmas telling us not to accept “significant” gifts from parents of our students. Conflict of interest. IMO, this is more of the same thing.
Let them set up their booths at education tech and curriculum fairs and offer us plans that school budgets can afford. Equal playing field with no teachers advertising their wares in or outside of the classroom.
This just opens up a whole new can of worms.
Reblogged this on Mister Journalism: "Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning".
I understand the ethical concerns but too often we reject what is new. Technology is going to be a large part of future classrooms. At least in what you have described, teachers are able to experiment and choose what to use and how to use it. Given the countless ways we restrict teachers’ choices in this country, I like the teachers taking the initiative.
There are plenty of ways in which businesses, large and small, can market and sell their wares other than through coopting teachers.
I am emphasizing empowering teachers to make their own decisions.
I hear you and second that thought in a big way. Teachers have been muzzled for almost 20 years, now.
And you began your post with the words, “I understand the ethical concerns…”.
Those ethical concerns are big ones and there’s no way around it. The potential for abuse is enormous and waiting in the wings.
Finding the tools and information we need is part of a teacher’s job. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. If we’re confused, wwe can be guided by mentors, colleagues, admins, and friends. But once you add the “personal gain” factor into the equation, it becomes a totally different animal.
We treat teachers abominably – we deny their expertise, their professional and now we say, by the way, forget personal gain. Why? Because a particular software is inadequate and that teacher is promoting it. Teachers are the last group that will promote some product that doesn’t work because they have to go into the classroom every day. Administrators have little incentive to care about an inadequate software because they don’t have to deal with it. I would put far more controls on administrators than I would teachers. Let teachers have their fees for speaking engagements, etc. It is a small price to pay for them to be enthusiastic about their work and their dedication to making their classroom better. Let us start respecting teachers’ judgments and decision making or are we under the impression that somehow we know better, we need control, etc., etc. I suggest that is the road we don’t want to go down.
I’ve been the tech guy at all of our sites for years, btw. I’m all for the inclusion of technology into the classroom routine.
It started with those darn vending machines and now look where we are headed.
YES. This product not good for your kids? Oh well, the district gets a piece of the action…
This is wrong.
Also, raise your hands if you think the way Delzer has organized her classes would be permitted in a no excuses charter. Or if a teacher in a so-called “failing” school who organized classes in this way would be allowed to pursue this experiment.
No, right?
If people really cared about education this would be entirely unnecessary.
It is just another attempt to brainwash our children.
The Northwest Ordinance talked about how important education was. It was to be FREE including college.
How far we have come.
Peter Greene has nailed it:
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-classroom-of-tomorrow.html
HAH! Perfect! Thanks for the link!
Are the posts the kids do for their teacher spelled correctly? That would be my biggest concern, that the teacher glossed over the “basics” in lieu of an $80 gift card from Amazon. Everybody has their price, right?
No. This is a bad idea. For example, TI was(and probably still is) very active in giving away free stuff, giving free workshops, and paying teachers to do workshops that promote their calculators. The end result–every student in nys taking algebra 1 is expected to purchase a TI graphing calculator at a cost of around $100. If the student doesn’t buy the calculator, the school is expected to provide one that the student can use at school. The Algebra 1 regents exam is designed so that the student must use this type of calculator on some questions. There is absolutely no good pedagogical reason for requiring such a calculator this early. In fact, there are sound reasons for not using one this early–but if graphing calculators aren’t required until,say, calculus, then you can’t sell as many. (I should say that I am not completely anti technology. I don’t object to calculators used in an appropriate setting and, in fact require this type of calculator in calculus, statistics, and linear algebra.)