Corporate Marketing and Public Schools

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)