Corporate Marketing and Public Schools
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Some textbooks and teachers' guides in California public schools are being developed in part with input from corporations. In a textbook on the environment, the American Chemistry Council provided language on "the benefits of plastic bags" -- at a time when some cities and counties are banning plastic bags. Are school curricula being designed by private-public partnerships? Does corporate involvement raise potential conflicts of interest? On our rebroadcast of today's To the Point, is there a different kind of Democrat in the White House?
Banner image: A headline in the local paper is seen on March 28, 2007 in San Francisco, California. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets, the first such law in any city in the US. Photo by David Paul Morris/Getty Images)
Main Topic
Should Business Provide the Messages Taught in Public Schools? ()
Los Angeles County and San Francisco are among the California municipalities that have banned plastic bags on the grounds that they're bad for the environment. But an environmental curriculum used in some California public schools contains positive messages about plastic bags. They were inserted into a textbook at the request of the American Chemistry Council, which lobbied successfully against a statewide ban.
Guests:
- Susanne Rust: California Watch
- Gerald Lieberman: State Education and Environment Roundtable
- Bryan Ehlers: California Environmental Protection Agency
- Alex Molnar: National Education Policy Center
Links:
- Pavely's bill, which amends Public Resources Code, relating to environmental education
- American Chemistry Council on plastics
- Rust on plastics industry editing of environmental textbook
- SEER on using the environment as an integrating context for improving student learning
- California EPA on education and the environment
- Molnar's 'School Commercialism: From Democratic Ideal to Market Commodity'
Main Topic
Has Obama Taken a Combative New Turn? ()
With a veto threat and new challenges to Republicans, President Obama has switched from reasoned compromise to partisan confrontation. What does it mean for this year’s legislation and next year's campaign? How does it look to Ron Suskind, author of the latest White House expose? We hear from him and others.
Guests:
- Binyamin Appelbaum: New York Times, @BCAppelbaum
- Ron Suskind: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
- Byron York: Washington Examiner, @ByronYork
- Gary Langer: ABC News, @LangerResearch
- Larry Sabato: University of Virginia, @larrysabato
Links:
Underwriters
Which Way L.A.? is made possible in part by the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, which supports study and research into policy issues of the Los Angeles region.
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