Business Partnerships with Schools
Policy Guidelines for Schools Seeking to Establish and Maintain Productive and Ethical Relationships with Corporations
Over the last two decades, the business community has
significantly expanded its involvement in public schools. From
"adopt-a-school" programs and school-to-career partnerships to
lobbying for national education reforms, business leaders are taking
on an increasing share of the responsibility to educate America's
youth.
"Education in general, and public education specifically, is the
cornerstone of our culture and an absolute necessity for economic
prosperity," observes Marianne Becton, Verizon Washing-ton's manager
of External Affairs and cochair of the Washington, D.C., STC Local
Partnership Council (Becton and Sammon 2001). Like many business
leaders committed to helping schools improve, Becton views education
as "key to successfully preparing youth for careers in the 21st
century."
Some businesses, in turn, view educating youth as a responsibility
to be shared by corporate citizens. Becton and Sammon write that
Verizon's "commitment to education is driven by its responsibility as
a good corporate citizen and by the understanding that today's
students will be tomorrow's employees, consumers, regulators, and
neighbors." The authors also invoke the notion of returnship that
guides the partnerships of Integris Health, a not-for-profit
health-care system. According to the Integris Health's mission statement,
"returnship is giving back to the community in financial, emotional,
physical, and spiritual ways a portion of what we have received"
(quoted in Becton and Sammon).
Many local firms and national corporations seem to be motivated by
a sincere desire to serve their communities by investing funds and
other resources in schools.
Some other business leaders view their involvement in education
primarily as a way to conduct market research and advertise in
schools. One marketing guide suggests that companies can use schools
to get "kids' opinions on anything from their favorite color to their
favorite TV personality to what kind of texture their breakfast
cereal should have-during school hours" (Phillips Business
Information, Inc. 2000). A 21-page guide shows companies how to work
through the appropriate channels to get inside schools and "inside
kids' heads":
Behind the walls of elementary, intermediate and high schools
across the country, a generation of kids is making short- and
long-term consumer choices based on the influences they receive
during the school day. What clothes to buy, what soda to drink, what
Web sites to surf are all decisions that are based heavily on the
messages they hear in school-from friends, teachers and smart
marketers.
But how do you get your message into the schools, especially in an
era where front-page school violence has made parents, teachers and
administrators more wary of outsiders than ever? And how do you craft
your message to gain the acceptance of an exceedingly marketing-savvy
group?
These questions and more are tackled in the pages of "In-School
Marketing: Capturing K-12 Mindshare," a guide to working through the
appropriate school channels to get inside. (Phillips Business
Information, Inc.)
The guide includes chapters titled "In-School Marketing: from the
Boardroom to Homeroom," "The Way to a Kid's Heart Is Through His
Stomach," "Branding in the Classroom: Cable Networks Strike Balance,"
"Curriculum-Hungry Teachers Love Free, Branded Materials," "How
Uniforms Could Rock Your World," "Why Uniforms Fit Kids' Brains," and
"Don't Show Me the Money: Companies Realize Benefits of Community
Relations."
Not all businesses, however, approach schools with such a blatant
profit motive. Many local firms and national corporations seem to be
motivated by a sincere desire to serve their communities by investing
funds and other resources in schools.
The reasons businesses interact with public schools appear to be
as diverse and complex as the forms these interactions take.
"Commercial activities in schools run the gamut from noncontroversial
approaches, such as grants and gifts, to highly controversial
activities, such as market research," states the U.S. General
Accounting Office (Shaul 2000).
Other business leaders view their involvement in education
primarily as a way to conduct market research and advertise in
schools.
The two most common types of relationships between schools and
businesses are school-reform advocacy and school-business
partnerships (for example, school-to-career programs and corporate
sponsorship). These two categories often overlap, since
school-business partnerships are components of many corporate
school-reform efforts, and many corporate advocates of school reform
assume partnership roles with school administrators and teachers to
implement reforms. Nevertheless, school-business partnerships and
business-led school reform are two distinct forms of engagement, with
a distinguishable cluster of goals, outcomes, and ethical
implications.
("Corporate Involvement in School Reform" is the subject of a
companion Policy Brief that will be available from the
Clearinghouse in Winter 2002.)
The growth of business involvement in schools has sparked an
equally complex cluster of ethical and legal concerns on the part of
educators, administrators, parents, and policy-makers. Many education
organizations have responded to the increased corporate involvement
in schools with guiding principles, resolutions, and legislative
initiatives.
As early as 1990, delegates to the National PTA convention adopted
a resolution that warned against "any business exerting so much power
to influence the curriculum." The resolution expressed concern "about
the dangers to children and the implications of any business exerting
so much power to influence the curriculum of the schools of this
country and the opinions of so many students" (National PTA 1997).
Many education policies now condemn certain types of
school-business relationships as "exploitation and a violation of
public trust" (Center for the Analysis of Commercialism in Education
1999). Educators and policy-makers are especially critical of
corporate sponsors who use their access to a captive audience of
students for commercial purposes, and of schools that sell or provide
access to students or to publicly funded property and publicly funded
time.
This report on school-business partnerships addresses a range of
ethical concerns educators have raised concerning these
relationships. The section on school-business partnerships highlights
recent education policies, federal laws, and practical guidelines for
relationships between schools and businesses. Special attention is
given to legal and ethical guidelines for partnerships with
businesses that offer technology resources to students.
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