Support parental notification for Channel One

[Gary Ruskin]

Commercial Alert					December 5, 2001

– Support parental notification for Channel One and other companies that
use public schools to extract personal information from children.

U.S. Senate and House conferees are finishing up their work on the
Elementary and Secondary Education bill (S.1/H.R. 1).  One remaining
issue is the fate of a provision to require schools to notify parents
about the collection of personal information from their children in
public schools.  The provision would alert parents to corporations that
use schools to invade their children's privacy.

Because the negotiations are ongoing, the situation is a bit murky. 
However, Capitol Hill sources say that Primedia Inc. (which owns Channel
One) is lobbying hard to exempt Channel One from the parental notice
requirement.  Channel One is a company that uses the schools to deliver
TV advertisements to captive audiences of about eight million children
in about 12,000 schools.  It also collects children's personal
information through its website.

Primedia has enlisted Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R-AR) to help them keep
parents in the dark about the personal information that Channel One
collects from schoolchildren.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Please contact Sens. Hutchinson, Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Edward
Kennedy (D-MA) and ask them (politely):
(1) Not to exempt Channel One or so-called "educational news programs"
from the parental notification provision in the Elementary and Secondary
Education bill; and,
(2) Reject any provision in the bill or conference report that would
endorse or legitimize Channel One.

The senators' email addresses are:
<Senator.Hutchinson@hutchinson.senate.gov>, <senator@dodd.senate.gov>,
and <senator@kennedy.senate.gov>.   The congressional switchboard phone
is 202.225.3121.

Please also ask any Senate education conferees (listed below) from your
state to do the same. To find the local phone numbers and e-mail
addresses of your senators, see
<http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html>.

The Senate conferees are:
Senators Kennedy (D-MA), Dodd (D-CT), Harkin (D-IA), Mikulski (D-MD),
Jeffords (I-VT), Bingaman (D-NM), Wellstone (D-MN), Murray (D-WA), Reed
(D-RI), Edwards (D-NC), Clinton (D-NY), Lieberman (D-CT), Bayh (D-IN),
Gregg (R-NH), Frist (R-TN), Enzi (R-WY), Hutchinson (R-AR), Warner
(R-VA), Bond (R-MO), Roberts (R-KS), Collins (R-ME), Sessions (R-AL),
DeWine (R-OH), Allard (R-CO) and Ensign (R-NV).

BACKGROUND:
Channel One is the prime example commercialism in the schools.  It is a
controversial in-school marketing program that shows about ten minutes
of news, banter, music and filler, and two minutes of ads, to captive
audiences of roughly eight million children as young as eleven years of
age, in 12,000 schools each school day. 

Channel One misuses the compulsory attendance laws to force children to
watch commercial advertising, wastes school time and tax dollars spent
on schools, and promotes junk food, violent & sexualized entertainment,
materialism to children.  

For more information, see Commercial Alert's web page on Channel One at:
<http://www.commercialalert.org/channel_one/index.html>.  You can see
Channel One ads at: <http://www.obligation.org/ch1videopage.html>.

MORE BACKGROUND:
The following article, printed in Monday's Wall Street Journal, provides
yet another example for why schools should notify parents about the
collection of market research from their children.

http://interactive.wsj.com/archive/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1007345870354311480.djm
		
College-Survey Firm Quietly Peddles Student Information to Big Marketer
By Daniel Golden

Each year, more than one million U.S. high-school students take time out
of their school day to fill out a survey asking their names, addresses,
grade-point averages, races, religions and social views. The
organization that sponsors the survey, the National Research Center for
College and University Admissions, tells the schools it will broaden
students' higher-education options by distributing their names and
profiles to hundreds of colleges and universities across the country.

But colleges aren't the only recipients of the survey results. Generally
unknown to high schools, colleges, students and their parents, National
Research for at least a decade has also sold the personal information it
gathers to the country's leading supplier of young people's names to
commercial marketers, American Student List LLC.

American Student List pays for the information by helping to fund the
National Research survey. American Student List then sells student names
and other information to companies that solicit students for a wide
array of goods and services. Companies that buy student names from
American Student List include shaving giant Gillette Co.; credit-card
purveyors American Express Co. and Capital One Financial Corp.; Kaplan
Inc., the Washington Post Co. unit that is the largest admissions
test-coaching chain; Primedia Inc.'s Seventeen Magazine; and Columbia
House Record Club, which is owned by AOL Time Warner Inc. and Sony Corp.

Huge Influence

>From its base in Lee's Summit, Mo., National Research -- a little-known
company with just 30 employees -- has become a hugely influential force
in a burgeoning industry surrounding college admissions in which
companies and colleges buy names and detailed information about young
people. Publicly presenting itself as a service to students and
colleges, National Research doesn't readily disclose its role in helping
commercial marketers pitch their products to an impressionable and
highly valued audience.

Marketers obtain teenagers' names and addresses from many other sources,
such as magazine-subscription lists and Web sites. What distinguishes
National Research is that it gathers student names in a classroom survey
that many school officials believe will be made available only to
educational institutions, but which then is sold to commercial
marketers.

National Research has also made its presence widely felt as it competes
with the influential College Board to sell student information to
colleges and as it lobbies Congress to kill legislation that would
restrict collection of some student information.

Many teachers and educational officials express anger and disbelief when
told that National Research sells student names to commercial marketers.
"It's so disgusting," says Barbara Henry, admissions director at
Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, which buys student information from
National Research. "Everybody's upset when their children are solicited"
without parental approval.

Richard Bischoff, associate director of admissions at the University of
Chicago, another National Research customer, says he also was in the
dark. "To the best of my knowledge, any service we buy names from does
not sell into commercial markets," he says. "That's certainly something
we would care about."

Steven Danloe, who gave the survey to social-studies students for 15
years at Baboquivari High School in Topowa, Ariz., before leaving
teaching this year, says if he had known about the commercial sales, he
"would have thrown the surveys in the trash."

Few Ask

National Research's president, Don M. Munce, says it has never hidden
its commercial ties from high schools or colleges who inquire about
them. But few do.

Its survey includes a "privacy statement" explaining that responses are
"used by colleges, universities and other organizations to assist
students and their families." Mr. Munce says referring to "other
organizations" is sufficient disclosure of National Research's
commercial ties. He adds that the privacy statement was designed to be
brief because "teachers are very busy."

Mr. Munce says he is confident that American Student List sells only to
reputable marketers. American Student List's president, Donald Damore,
confirms that his company aims to limit its sales to legitimate
marketers. He says it monitors its customers by reviewing samples of
their marketing material.

But Mr. Damore acknowledges American Student List has at times supplied
student names gleaned from the National Research survey to college-aid
consultants targeted by the Federal Trade Commission for fraud.

The only other company to which National Research directly sells student
information is the publisher of "Who's Who Among American High School
Students," Mr. Munce says. Who's Who uses the information to cull
entries for the book and then sells copies to students for $45 apiece.

As a 14-year-old sophomore in 1999, Rotem Ben-Ad filled out the National
Research survey, administered by her guidance counselor during a school
assembly at her Jewish day school in Irvine, Calif. Rotem hoped to
showcase herself to East Coast colleges. She then received solicitations
from test-preparation companies, financial-aid consultants, the
high-school Who's Who and other marketers.

"I was like, 'How did they get my name?' " she says. "I didn't know what
was legitimate and what wasn't."

As colleges step up their competition for promising students, National
Research has become the leading private-sector rival of the College
Board in offering colleges information on high schoolers. A nonprofit
organization based in New York, the College Board sponsors the SAT
college-admissions test. ACT Inc., a smaller nonprofit in Iowa City,
Iowa, sponsors the competing ACT exam. Both the College Board and ACT
Inc. gather information from students based on questionnaires filled out
during registration for tests.

The two nonprofits sell the information and test scores to colleges but
not to commercial marketers. They also tell students how information
gathered from test-registration questionnaires will be used and give
them the choice of not answering survey questions or not having their
names sent to colleges.

'Participation Fee'

The College Board makes about 65 million name sales a year. It charges
colleges a $185 "participation fee" each time they order a batch of
names, plus a per-name fee of 24 cents. Mr. Munce declines to say how
many name sales National Research makes a year. People in the
student-marketing industry estimate the total may approach half of the
College Board's.

College admissions officers say that National Research's competition has
forced the College Board to try more-aggressive marketing tactics.
National Research mailings prod high schools to survey freshmen and
sophomores, for example, "so you can get a jump-start on reaching them."
It also does its testing at the beginning of the year, meaning it can
send its survey results to colleges as much as three months sooner than
the College Board. Trying to catch up, the College Board says it intends
next year for the first time to sell names of freshman takers of the
PSAT, a warm-up to the SAT. It also intends to introduce a "search on
demand" feature enabling colleges to buy student names year-round.

National Research was started in 1972 by James Kunz, a former admissions
director at now-defunct Tarkio College in Tarkio, Mo. Mr. Kunz, who has
left the organization, wanted to help small Midwestern colleges with
recruiting, Mr. Munce says.

National Research today charges colleges an annual membership fee of
$250, plus a fee of 24 cents for the use of each student name for a
year. Colleges typically order computer searches for one or more
categories of students -- the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for
example, buys names of minority and female high-school freshmen with A
averages and an interest in engineering -- at a total price of thousands
of dollars per search.

American Student List pays National Research about $800,000 a year to
help underwrite the survey's annual cost of more than $2 million,
according to Mr. Damore of American Student List. Mr. Munce won't
confirm the dollar figures.  But he says that funds from his two
commercial customers represent less than 10% of National Research's
total revenue, the rest of which comes from educational institutions.
Who's Who declines to comment on what it pays for the survey names.

National Research's solicitations to colleges state that "member dues
cover the cost" of the survey. Asked about the statement, Mr. Munce says
it is erroneous.

National Research distributes more than 100 million surveys each year to
18,000 participating high schools -- three-fourths of the national total
-- expecting 1% or 2% of the surveys to be returned, Mr. Munce says. It
has a database of four million students, including a majority of
college-bound students, he adds.

National Research has a clever tactic to reach this coveted market: It
ships surveys directly to teachers and guidance counselors, rather than
to principals or superintendents. This approach makes some districts
wary. Gwinnett County, Georgia's largest school district, bans the
survey because National Research doesn't seek approval from the
district's own research department.

Mr. Munce says National Research sometimes contacts school districts and
has occasionally mailed forms to principals. But principals typically
forward them to guidance counselors anyway, he says.

High-school teachers and guidance counselors administer the survey,
without extra pay, during school hours. Most say they hope to improve
students' higher-education prospects. "We're so rural that a great many
colleges can't afford to send someone," says Kelly Palmer, a guidance
counselor at Troy High School in Troy, Mont. He has handed out the
survey for the past six years. "It provides our kids good exposure," he
says. Mr. Palmer didn't know about National Research's commercialization
of student information but says it won't cause him to drop the survey.

Nearly a thousand colleges -- including the University of Miami, Boston
University, Tulane University and many lesser-known schools -- are
survey customers. "We feel like we need to get our name in front of
students early to build recognition," says Ms. Henry, the admissions
director at Atlanta's Oglethorpe University. Her school has bought the
names of freshmen and sophomores from National Research but will
reconsider the relationship now that she knows about the organization's
commercial ties.

Battling in Congress

Relying partly on its loyal college and university customers, National
Research has tried to block legislative restrictions on its activities.
One target: an amendment to the main federal education bill, now pending
before a congressional conference committee, which would require
parental consent for collecting information from students for commercial
purposes. The measure, backed by a bipartisan coalition opposed to
commercialization in schools, wasn't specifically aimed at National
Research but could sharply limit its commercial activities.

At Mr. Munce's request, Paula Tacke, admissions director at the
University of South Dakota, wrote to Senate Majority Leader Thomas
Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, in June, expressing "serious
opposition" to the bill. Mr. Daschle's office responded, acknowledging
her concern.

Ms. Tacke says National Research assured her that survey information is
used only for educational purposes and that National Research opposes
the amendment because it might discourage college recruiting. Mr. Munce
separately says National Research's opposition reflects only this
interest in protecting recruiting as well as such activities as fund
raising for high-school proms.

National Research's survey includes language describing the organization
as a nonprofit, and it is registered as such with the secretary of
state's office in Missouri. But the organization hasn't sought exemption
from federal or state taxes because it doesn't collect charitable
contributions, Mr. Munce says.

As for profits, he says, "some years we have a surplus, and some years
we don't." He says there was a surplus in 2000, but he won't be more
specific.

National Research's success has drawn new competition. In 1999, a second
survey, distributed by Educational Research Center of America Inc.,
began arriving at high schools. Educational Research, established by a
commercial-list company in Lynbrook, N.Y., sells colleges student names
for 20 cents apiece, making it the low-price supplier.

National Research sued Educational Research in 1999 in U.S. District
Court in Kansas City, Mo., for copyright and trademark infringement. In
its defense, Educational Research contended in court papers that
National Research had no right to accuse it of breaking laws, because
the plaintiff itself had "intentionally deceived" students and
educators. National Research "does not disclose to teachers that the
information being collected from students will be made available to
thousands of companies that want to sell those students everything from
credit cards, cars, clothes and sporting equipment to formal wear and
photographs," Educational Research alleged.

National Research, in its own court papers, called the allegations
"irrelevant, misdirected and totally unsupported." It dropped its suit
in 2000, after a judge rejected its request for an injunction blocking
Educational Research from using similar methods to survey students.

Federal law prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices" that
affect commerce. The FTC, which enforces this law, declines to comment
on National Research.

During the court case, National Research identified 40 teachers who had
contacted it because they were confused when they received the new rival
survey. Through their involvement in the case, some of these teachers
learned that National Research had been selling student names to
American Student List, which sold them to marketers. Some teachers were
displeased.

Stanley Holliday, a social-studies teacher at North Central High School
in Indianapolis, promptly stopped giving the survey in 1999. Susan
Corbosiero, a math teacher at Westborough High School, outside Boston,
dropped it the same year. She says she feared she could be held legally
liable if student names weren't handled confidentially. Lydia Beehler, a
guidance counselor at Angola High School in Angola, Ind., also
discontinued the survey in 1999.

The legal feuding and unease among some educators so far doesn't seem to
have diminished the value of National Research's student-name list in
the teen-marketing world. "The database is priceless," said Mr. Damore
of American Student List in an affidavit filed in a separate 1999
lawsuit. The suit -- since settled -- was brought by American Student
List against a former employee in U.S. District Court in Uniondale, N.Y.

American Student List, based in Mineola, N.Y., has one of the biggest
names in youth marketing. It has its own list of nine million
high-school students, drawn from National Research and such sources as
teen-magazine subscriber lists, youngsters' responses to commercial
offers on the Internet, and, until federal law banned the practice last
year, state automobile-registration records. Last year, American Student
List was acquired by Havas Advertising SA, a French advertising agency.

Dow Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal, also buys
student names from American Student List to market its publications to
college students.

Most students included in the high-school Who's Who are nominated by
teachers or civic organizations, as the company states in its
promotional literature. But many aren't nominated at all. Instead, Who's
Who takes their names from the National Research survey if they report a
"B" average or higher. Paul Krouse, founder of the book's publisher,
Educational Communications Inc., acknowledges it doesn't tell students
it obtained their names from a marketing survey.

In "standards and guidelines" it distributes to high schools, Who's Who
says that "under no circumstances" will it accept nominations from
"standard commercial lists."

Mr. Krouse, now a consultant to Commemorative Brands Inc., a
manufacturer of class rings that in April purchased Educational
Communications, says the statement is accurate because National Research
ought to be considered an
educational organization, despite its commercial ties.

The high-school Who's Who is unrelated to "Who's Who in America,"
published by a unit of Reed Elsevier PLC.

Wheaton Academy, a Christian high school in West Chicago, Ill., doesn't
nominate students for Who's Who because guidance counselor Daniel
Crabtree believes that colleges don't regard listing as a credential for
admission. Nevertheless, because Mr. Crabtree administers the National
Research survey to sophomores and juniors, about 10% of students there
receive Who's Who solicitations annually. David Fiore, chief executive
of Commemorative Brands, owner of Who's Who, says the nomination of one
of these students, Paul Zeigler, came from the survey and from an
"alternative source" he declined to identify.

"I thought I was nominated by a teacher who liked me," says Mr. Zeigler,
a junior who took the survey last year. If it was just a survey, "that's
crushing," he says.

<-------article ends here ----------->

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-- 
Gary Ruskin | gary@essential.org 
Commercial Alert | http://www.commercialalert.org
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