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From Jim Metrock:
"Don’t Mess With Texas" is the bold unofficial
motto of the great state of Texas. Obligation shared a booth with the Center
for Commercial-Free Public Education at the Texas Association of School Boards
convention this past weekend. We distributed a wealth of information about
Channel One to school board members and school superintendents. I was thrilled
by the response from the overwhelming majority of convention attendees.
Many already knew about the controversy that swirls around
Channel One, but they didn’t know the specifics. We showed them the outrageous "topless
girl" commercial Channel One has been running since the start of the
school year. We showed them the commercials for Nintendo, Blockbuster, Embark.com,
Warner Brothers and ABC TV shows. They were stunned to see the seemingly
endless commercials for candy bars and sugar-and-caffeine-loaded soft drinks.
We handed out hundreds of copies of the 1999 Southern Baptist
Convention’s resolution asking all school administrators to work to remove
Channel One from their children’s classrooms. Attendees also received copies
of resolution and position statements from other organizations. Hundreds
of copies of audio tapes were distributed to folks from El Paso to Texarkana,
from Brownsville to Amarillo.
I learned a lot by listening. One superintendent was happy
with Channel One. She said that their school system owns the equipment now.
She said Channel One allowed her system to own all the equipment after five
years of usage. She was firm in this even when I gently questioned the validity
of her statement. This appears to be a confirmation of what Grover Norquist
announced to the world in his article earlier this year. Norquist trying
to help the Channel One company, wrote an opinion article that stated that
all schools across the country got to own the Channel One equipment after
six years of usage.
Some attendees had little knowledge of Channel One. I was
talking with a school administrator and one his system’s board members. The
superintendent proudly said that they did not have Channel One so no need
for our handouts. The school board member sheepishly tapped the superintendent
on the shoulder. "We do have Channel One," she said. The superintendent
was surprised. Both gladly took our handouts and tape.
I asked another superintendent if he had Channel One. He
was a pleasant gentleman, but his demeanor changed to serious. "If I
tell you, are you going to picket my school," he said. I laughed and
said that I wouldn’t and anyway I was from Alabama. He said they did have
it and he has always been uncomfortable about it. This is an example of how
the world has changed in the last couple of years. Having Channel One in
your school system is nothing to be proud of. (Last summer, Alabama’s State
Superintendent surveyed his 127 school systems about their Channel One status.
The survey had only four questions. (Do you have a contract with Channel
One? If so, how many schools are involved? Do individual schools have a contract
with them? Do you make video copies available for parents?) It would take
five minutes to respond to the survey. Many schools did not want to respond
and the information had to be pulled from them. It is definitely "uncool" in
Alabama to have a contract with Channel One.
I heard plenty of board members and superintendents say
they don’t show the program like the contract calls for. One teacher said
they show Channel One without the commercials. She didn’t know how they did
it. Since Channel One has a long history of being very relaxed about school
compliance to their contract, cutting out the commercials may be more common
than I thought.
Several Texas board members mentioned that there is a lot
of talk about Channel One in their communities and that their schools are
reviewing the value and the liabilities of having a contract with this company.
I met only four people that had absolutely no problem with
Channel One. They will have a major problem when parents and other taxpayers
in their district find out about the program.
For years, Channel One has taken advantage of some of the
poorest school districts in Texas (the same can be said for Alabama and the
nation). They have taken so much time from children who need every minute
they can get. I left that convention in Houston with the firm belief that
Channel One has messed with Texas for far too long.
