First Channel One promised schools in the early 90’s that if they signed their
schools up teachers would receive the Educators Channel along with Channel
One News. This "channel" was to be specially designed
for teachers. It lasted a few years and then Channel One quietly killed it
and few complained because the content was thrown together and few teachers
considered Channel One to be serious about education.
Three years ago, Channel One created an email section for "Channel One teachers." The
problem with that was teachers don’t consider themselves "Channel One
teachers" anymore than they consider themselves "McGraw-Hill teachers" or "Microsoft
teachers" because they use certain textbooks or software. So few teachers
used the Channel One email service that Channel One quietly ended
the service last year.
Then two years ago, Channel One started flashing symbols before the main part
of the daily show. These symbols were to alert teachers to the type of
content on that day’s show. Channel One said this would help teachers "teach
the news." For example, a picture of the world would indicate a geographic
story and an atom would be a science story. It didn’t matter to teachers. They
rarely tried to blend Channel One’s content into lesson plans. Channel
One quietly killed their "teach the news" symbols this past school
year.
In 1999, after the embarrassing U. S. Senate hearing on Channel One,
Channel One’s Paul Folkemer (who suddenly left Channel One a few weeks ago)
and other Channel One execs announced a bold new web site that would be aimed
at parents of students under contract to Channel One. The purpose of
the site was to put out good PR for a damaged company. One unique feature
of the site was an "Ask Dr. Folkemer" section. Dr. Folkemer
told me he never responded to anyone and it wasn’t his idea to put that feature
on the web. Probably few parents visited the site. Channel One has took
it off the Web earlier this summer. They no longer mention it on the
Primedia site (their parent company).
The wheels are coming off. Channel One people are leaving and advertisers
are scared. Parents are mounting efforts everywhere to kick Channel One
out. Teachers, who truly care about their students, are demanding commercial-free
classrooms. School board members are asking Superintendent to justify the onerous
Channel One contract. School board attorneys are beginning to realize a flood
of taxpayer, parent, and student lawsuits could become a real possibility.
