An
Oregon parent is using a lawsuit to bring common sense to his school
system. Gary Boyes is challenging his school district’s waste of
resources that results from having a contract with Channel One. Commercial
Alert has information on this lawsuit. Here is an editorial in
today’s Salem (OR) Statesman Journal. The writers understand the
problem Mr. Boyes has laid out but they get tripped up when they
attack the wrong party.
Channel
One lawsuit wastes scarce funding
The corporate TV deal with schools should be pulled
but not this way.
April 22, 2003
A Salem-Keizer parent has the right idea but the wrong approach in
trying to yank Channel One from local schools.
Channel One is a pact with the electronic devil, one that 12 Salem-Keizer
middle and high schools currently accept.
Participating schools across the country get classroom TVs and video
links in return for playing Channel One’s news and advertising.
If schools don’t follow through on showing the 12-minute daily program
to students, the business removes the equipment.
Keizer parent Gary Boyes is correct that Channel One generally is a waste
of students’ time, as well as an example of school-sanctioned advertising
intruding on students.
But the lawsuit he filed last week in Marion County Circuit Court is
a waste of taxpayers’ money. He is not doing anyone a favor by forcing
the financially struggling district to spend money arguing about Channel
One in court.
Boyes’ rationale is that the district already is squandering money.
He estimates that Channel One consumes the equivalent of five full school
days each year.
This lost instructional time should worry parents even more than the
advertising issue. An additional two minutes per day of TV commercials
might not harm students, who already are exposed to ads in a variety
of forms. However, the schools’ contracts with Channel One turns
the students into a captive audience — even if teachers do follow
up by discussing the values, stereotypes and messages conveyed through
advertising.
The 10 minutes of Channel One news could be worthwhile in a current events
class. But it’s unnecessary. Students already have access to news
through the Internet and other sources at school, as well as newspapers,
radio and television at home.
So the main advantage of Channel One is that schools get free interconnected
TVs for use by teachers and classes. Is that worth the cost of 12 wasted
minutes a day? Not when many districts are having to cut school days
for lack of money.
South Salem High School got rid of Channel One and lost its freebie TVs
as a result. However, students and teachers will benefit from the additional
instructional time. Principals, parents, teachers and site councils at
other schools should take note.
That’s a principled stand worth taking — in school, not in
court.
Copyright 2003 Statesman
Journal, Salem, Oregon "Reprinted with permission of
the Statesman Journal."
The editors clearly understand Channel One
is wasteful of student time and taxpayer money, but they decide
to throw the punches at the father who is trying to save the school
district untold dollars of tax money. If these editors took just
a moment longer to do some math before their deadline they would
have understood the cost of losing one week of school per year
per child for 12 years. (I’ll get them started: Channel One is
13 minutes long and must be shown 90% of the school year. The school
never earns title to the pathetically small 19" TV sets.)
Newspapers are suppose to dig and find those
who steal and waste the people’s money. Where was the Stateman
Journal staff during the last 12 years? Are they embarrassed that
a citizen has done what they refused to do for over a decade? Would
this paper have written this editorial condemning the school district’s
waste of tax money, if Mr. Boyes hadn’t filed this lawsuit?
The paper wrings its hands over the expense
of defending this lawsuit. Oh, it will waste SO MUCH MONEY. Excuse
me, editorial writers, last week, each child in the schools that
have a contract with Channel One spent one hour watching TV in
order to keep their $140 rental TV set in their classroom. No investigative
reporter from the paper bothered to ask one question…last week,
or the week before or the year before.
Taxpapers in Oregon should be riding Mr.
Boyes on their shoulders.
One more thing this editorial board got wrong.
They said, "But the lawsuit he filed last week in Marion County
Circuit Court is a waste of taxpayers’ money. He is not doing
anyone a favor by forcing the financially struggling district to
spend money arguing about Channel One in court."
The editorial writers clearly state that
Channel One should be yanked from the schools, but then they assume
the school district will surely fight hard to defend its use of
Channel One. They worry about the cost of this defense. That doesn’t
make sense. The school district should NOT defend this lawsuit.
They are caught doing a bad thing. The school district should send
a letter to Channel One and tell them the contract is ended. (The
contract can be ended at any time during the three year contract
period without any added penalties.) The school board will soon
find out about the reckless junk food ads and the ads for violent
and sexually-charged movies and the unethical mixing of news with
advertising messages.
Wait until the school board attorney sees
some of the sexually suggestive commercials on Channel One News.
That is the area where we see the bulk of future lawsuits against
school districts. By allowing Channel One to bring in their "topless
girl" ad by Clearasil or their "nice package" ad
by Old Spice or their "Stealing Harvard" movie ad, etc.
etc into the classroom, school boards are intentionally increasing
the sexual tension in middle and high schools. Mr. Boyes didn’t
mention this is his lawsuit., probably because he has enough reasons
to remove Channel One already.
This editorial board is obviously concerned
about taxpayer money being wasted. They should write one more editorial
which will guarantee the saving of Oregon tax money. That editorial
won’t take much time to write or proof-read. A one-word editorial
will do the job: "Settle."
