Market research in the schools

[Gary Ruskin <gary@essential.org>]

Commercial Alert				April 8, 1999

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Ralph Nader and Commercial Alert sent the following letter today to
David V. B. Britt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Children's
Television Workshop, regarding Noggin's use of public schools for market
research.

									April 8, 1999

David V. B. Britt
President and Chief Executive Officer
Children's Television Workshop
One Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023
via telecopier (212) 875-6111

Dear Mr. Britt:

	We write to urge Noggin to stop misusing schools and schoolchildren to
conduct market research.  

	The New York Times reported that Noggin, a joint project of Children's
Television Workshop (CTW) and Nickelodeon, a for-profit company,
combined to conduct market research on students at the public elementary
Watchung School during schooltime.  According to the Times, Noggin
arranged for Watchung students to be given an assignment without
academic value for the purposes of market research:

		The homework -- filling out a 27-page booklet called "My All About Me
Journal" -- was not handed out by teachers at this public elementary
school in the New York suburbs. Instead, the assignment, given to some
250 Watchung students, came from researchers for Noggin, a new
educational cable television channel that forged a special partnership
with the school earlier this year. 

		In exchange for $7,100, which the school has put toward buying 30
classroom word processors, Noggin can go into the school one morning a
week from January until June to run 30-minute focus groups with
students. 

	Schools exist to teach children to read, write, add and think.  They
are not market research factories.  Noggin is wrong to use the schools
for prying and snooping into the lives of innocent and impressionable
schoolchildren.  Noggin should not use captive students and the
compulsory education laws to waste precious schooltime and tax dollars
by forcing or cajoling children to participate in market research.

	Once again, CTW is preying upon the children it professes to protect
and nurture.  In October, we criticized CTW for running advertisements
on Sesame Street to deliver children to Discovery Zone.  These
commercials were an unfortunate turning-point because they are the first
national commercials on Sesame Street, and they are benefitting a
corporation that targets children.  CTW acknowledged this difference in
the headline of its news release announcing the Discovery Zone deal:
"Children's Television Workshop Announces Discovery Zone as First
National Corporate Underwriter of ‘Sesame Street' on PBS."

	Why does CTW persist in eroding the accumulated goodwill that years of
Sesame Street have generated? Please reconsider your use of schools for
market research.  Do you need organized protest to stimulate your
re-evaluation?  Shame!

														Sincerely,

Gary Ruskin				Ralph Nader
Director

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Commercial Alert was founded last year to oppose the excesses of
commercialism, advertising and marketing.  The web address for
Commercial Alert is <http://www.essential.org/alert/>.

To read Mary B.W. Tabor's April 5, 1999 excellent article in The New
York Times, "Schools Profit from Offering Pupils for Market Research,"
search the Times's website at <http://www.nytimes.com/>.

For more information about ZapMe!, a corporate predator that conducts
market research in the schools, see
<http://www.essential.org/alert/zapme_spies.html>.

To subscribe to Commercial Alert send the message:
subscribe commercial-alert your name
to listproc@essential.org

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE WIDELY

---------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Ruskin | Commercial Alert 
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite #3A | Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 296-2787 | Fax (202) 833-2406
http://www.essential.org/alert/ | mailto:gary@essential.org
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