Does Channel One fragment or support the school education and system? Is it a supplement?

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CorpWatch is an organization whose mission statement asserts that it “investigates and exposes corporate violations of human rights, environmental crimes, fraud and corruption around the world. We work to foster global justice, independent media activism and democratic control over corporations.”
In its report on Channel One in Schools, they emphasize resistance to Channel One and view it as a very negative influence in the schools of the United States.

They present the following section on resistance in their article http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=888:

Resistance to Channel One

Communities across the country are fighting to get Channel One out of their schools -- no simple feat as the contract lasts three years and generally renews automatically if no one protests. Students and parents have asked for alternative homerooms, spoken out at school board meetings, written newsletters, and even staged walk-outs during the program to protest its compulsory nature.

Communities protesting Channel One are in good company. Since the outset of the program, almost every national educational group has taken a strong stand against Channel One and other commercial broadcasts in the classroom. These include:
o American Association of School Administrators
o American Federation of Teachers
o National Association of State Boards of Education
o National Council for the Social Studies
o National Council of Teachers of English
o National Education Association (NEA)
o National Parent Teacher Association (PTA)
o National School Boards Association
o National Association of Secondary School Principals
o National Association of Elementary School Principals

From what we see here, it is evident that there is not a unified backing of Channel One in the classrooms of the U.S. Why is that?

The following articles also help to enlighten us:

‘Channel One’ Plan To Improve Education: Is It Short-Changing Our Youngsters?
Reprinted from THE SCIENTIST@ 3(7): 10,3 April 1989.
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v14p338y1991.pdf

Channel One and the Education of American Youths
By: Christine M. Bachen
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 557, Children and Television (May, 1998), pp. 132-147
http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7162(199805)557%3C132%3ACOATEO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G&cookieSet=1

Part of the abstract:
“This article analyzes research investigating the alleged benefits of Channel One-the technology, student learning of current events, increased student interest in the news-and the major cost-the advertising. It concludes that outside uses for the technology remain modest. While the program can enhance students' learning of current events and spark their interest in the news, its ability to do so is largely dependent on supplemental activities by teachers. Teachers are constrained in their use by organizational factors and restrictive terms of the Channel One contract.”

From this research report, teachers are shown to be restricted in their roles as educators. So what are the children learning?


Channel One.
By: Celano, Donna, Neuman, Susan B., Phi Delta Kappan, Feb95, Vol. 76, Issue 6
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED366688&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED366688

Part of the abstract:
“In a recent study, described below, we found that teachers rarely, if ever, use Channel One as a focus of instruction in their classrooms. Even though the newscast is truly innovative because of its daily presence in the schools, its value as an educational product is limited. The program is switched on every day with little thought of how the show might help meet students' educational goals.”

From this research report, Channel One is not actively incorporated nor applicable to the educational needs of the children that are viewing the commercial.


Channel One in the Public Schools: Widening the Gaps.
Michael Morgan

Part of the abstract:
“This paper examines what kinds of schools and what sorts of communities choose to receive Channel One, and where Channel One fits in the pool of educational resources. The study used the data archives of Market Data Retrieval, which involves 17,344 public schools and covers grades 7 through 12, revealing some of the following items: (1) Channel One is most often found in low income area schools, where it is often used instead of traditional educational materials when resources are scarcest; (2) schools that can afford to spend more on their students are much less likely to utilize Channel One; (3) Channel One is more often shown to the students who are least able to afford to buy all the products advertised, thus increasing a sense of alienation and frustration; and (4) increasing commercialization of the culture and the schools suggests a shutting out of other voices and interests of the educational system. The study suggests that the use of Channel One in low-income, socioeconomically deprived schools presents an illusion of providing more and better educational facilities which only contributes to widening the societal gap.”

This personal account can be found at this website: http://www.yale.edu/yje/ch1.html (Yale Journal of Ethics):
Whittling Away at Education: The Encroachment of Channel One
By: Darby Saxby
In the article, Darby states, “Today’s schools must develop thinkers, not mere consumers, or they’ll help to produce a society in which everything is for sale - and nothing is worth buying.”

Overall, I was hard-pressed to find anything positive about the influence of Channel One in the educational support that it could provide to schools across America.