The Educational Cost of Schoolhouse Commercialism - The Fourteenth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends: 2010-2011

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jake

The Educational Cost of Schoolhouse Commercialism - The Fourteenth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends: 2010-2011 analyzes how commercializing activities in schools harm children’s education. It argues that school-business partnerships often function as marketing with limited educational value, while risking damage through undermining curricular messages and displacing learning activities. A central focus is the threat commercialism poses to critical thinking, since sponsors have incentives to avoid content that could lead students to evaluate biases, consider alternatives, or generate solutions beyond sponsor interests.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages41

Reading Time1 h 43 min

AccessFree to download

Executive Summary

School-business partnerships and marketing vs education

Threat to critical thinking

How commercial activities prevent critical evaluation

Claims of educational benefit and the need to understand harms

THE EDUCATIONAL COST OF SCHOOLHOUSE COMMERCIALISM Alex Molnar and Faith Boninger University of Colorado Boulder Joseph Fogarty Corballa National School, County Sligo, Ireland November 2011 National Education Policy Center School of Education, University of Colorado Boulder Boulder, CO 80309-0249 Telephone: 303-735-5290 Fax: 303-492-7090 Email: [NEPC@colorado.edu](NEPC@colorado.edu) [http://nepc.colorado.edu](http://nepc.colorado.edu) The annual report on Schoolhouse Commercialism trends is made possible in part by funding from Consumers Union and is produced by the Commercialism in Education Research Unit Kevin Welner Editor Patricia H . Hinchey Academic Editor William Mathis Managing Director Erik Gunn Managing Editor Briefs published by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) are blind peer-reviewed by members of the Editorial Review Board. Visit [http://nepc.colorado.edu to find all of](http://nepc.colorado.edu to find all of) these briefs. For information on the editorial board and its members, visit: [http://nepc.colorado.edu/editorial-board](http://nepc.colorado.edu/editorial-board). Publishing Director: Alex Molnar Suggested Citation: Molnar, A. , Boninger, F. , & Fogarty, J. (2011) . The Educational Cost of Schoolhouse Commercialism--The Fourteenth Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends: 2010- 2011. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved [date] from [http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/schoolhouse-commercialism-2011](http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/schoolhouse-commercialism-2011) . This material is provided free of cost to NEPC's readers, who may make non-commercial use of the material as long as NEPC and its author(s) are credited as the source. For inquiries about commercial use, please [contact NEPC at nepc@colorado.edu](contact NEPC at nepc@colorado.edu). THE EDUCATIONAL COST OF SCHOOLHOUSE COMMERCIALISM THE FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT ON SCHOOLHOUSE COMMERCIALIZING TRENDS: 2010-2011 Alex Molnar and Faith Boninger, University of Colorado Boulder Joseph Fogarty, Corballa National School, County Sligo, Ireland Executive Summary Over the past several decades, schools have faced increasing pressure to “partner” with businesses, both to be seen as responsive to the business community and out of the hope that partnerships would help make up budget shortfalls as states reduced public funding for education. Often, school-business partnerships are little more than marketing arrangements with little if any educational benefit and the potential to harm to children in a variety of ways. The 2010-2011 Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercializing Trends considers how commercializing activities in schools harm children educationally. It is relatively easy to understand how corporate commercializing activities harm children educationally by undermining curricular messages (as when candy and soft drink ads contradict nutrition lessons) or by displacing educational activities (as when students spend time focused on a corporate contest rather than the curriculum) . A less obvious, though perhaps more serious, educational harm associated with school commercialism is the threat it poses to critical thinking. Researchers generally agree that thinking critically requires abilities, such as problemsolving, decision-making, inductive and deductive inference-making, divergent thinking, evaluative thinking, and reasoning. According to the research literature, critical thinking is best cultivated in a school environment that encourages students to ask questions, to think about their thought processes, and thus to develop habits of mind that enable them to transfer the critical thinking skills they learn in class to other, unrelated, situations. It is not in the interest of corporate sponsors to promote critical thinking. Far from it: their interest is in selling their products or services or “telling their story.” Encouraging chil

FAQs

What does the report examine about school-business partnerships?

It examines how school commercializing activities harm children educationally, often functioning as marketing arrangements with little or no educational benefit.

How can schoolhouse commercialism harm education beyond simple curriculum conflicts?

The report highlights a less obvious but serious harm: it threatens critical thinking by channeling student attention into a corporate-friendly track.

Why do sponsored messages tend to avoid encouraging critical thinking?

From a corporate perspective, encouraging children to identify biases, consider alternatives, or generate other solutions would be self-defeating for sponsors trying to sell products and tell their story.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Jake