From Jim Metrock:
This is a short clip from the video Schools for Sale.
I have always been fascinated with this video from Fargo, ND since 1997 when I first saw it.
The principal Ed Raymond was very willing to suspend students for THREE DAYS if they did not go to the classroom where Channel One News was playing. Mr. Raymond knew Channel One was a youth marketing company. He knew that the commercials were the main point of the show. He had to have known he was being used by Channel One and the advertisers, yet he insisted on opposing the students in his school who wanted more time for academics not commercials for junk food and movies.
I have seen too many school administrators like Mr. Raymond in the past 15 years. Luckily they are a minority, but it is still chilling to meet a principal or superintendent that embraces advertising in a public school setting.
The principal in this video clip from long ago is a confused principal. He’s not sure who he is suppose to serve – students? or advertisers? He forgot that a principal should always err on the side of the students and community he is being paid to serve.
Raymond didn’t last long as a principal in Fargo, but his pet project Channel One did. Although there is no outward indication that North High and the other Fargo high schools have Channel One today, all three of the Fargo middle schools do. Schools are not suppose to sell out their own students. Fargo parents obviously are unaware of this massive waste of time continuing in their school system.
May 1, 2011 – Fargo schools still in love with classroom commercials
October 22, 1990 – Students give Channel One commercials failing grade
