Scholastic’s pro-coal curriculum pulled from schools

[n2doc]

BY CHRISTOPHER MIMS
16 MAY 2011 3:02 PM

Scholastic, the children's book publisher, took a big pile of money from the American Coal Foundation and turned it into a curriculum for 4th graders that (surprise!) didn't mention any of the drawbacks of coal. Now Scholastic is all sorry it pimped out America's kids to the industry that quite possibly cares least about their future. Or at least, it’s sorry it got caught.

So the good news is that Scholastic won't be passing out copies of its pro-coal curriculum, and also the American Coal Foundation comes out looking like the cynical disinformers at the Tobacco Institute, just like always.

The bad news is that Scholastic's "InClassroom Marketing" program still exists, and is every bit as insidious as its camel-cased Newspeak title suggests. Previous clients have included makers of a television show aimed at preschoolers and McDonald's.

No word yet on whether Scholastic will be changing its motto to "Selling your kids on diabetes, climate change, and the educational benefits of television since whatever year those industries drove a dump truck full of money up to our offices.”

more
http://www.grist.org/list/2011-05-16-scholastics-pro-coal-curriculum-pulled-from-schools

[Art_from_Ark]

1. I still have a couple of my old Scholastic books from the '60s

Runaway Slave-- The Story of Harriet Tubman
and
The Search for Planet X

I wish Scholastic would have stuck with that sort of thing.

[Ian David]

2. Didn't Scolastic get busted for pushing "Smokers' Rights" to kids? n/t

[kristopher]

3. Interesting

Scholastic's statement from their blog:
Statement from Scholastic on “The United States of Energy”
By Scholastic on May 13th, 2011

Scholastic’s children’s books, magazines, reading programs and website content are used in most American classrooms – a responsibility and trust that we built through painstaking work through 90 years of service to teachers and schools. A tiny percentage of this material is produced with sponsors, including government agencies, non-profit associations and some corporations. This week, Scholastic came under criticism for an 11” x 16” poster map which displays different sources of energy – coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, solar, wind and natural gas – not so much for the content of the poster but primarily for its sponsorship by the American Coal Foundation. We acknowledge that the mere fact of sponsorship may call into question the authenticity of the information, and therefore conclude that we were not vigilant enough as to the effect of sponsorship in this instance. We have no plans to further distribute this particular program. Because we have always been guided by our belief that we can do better, we are undertaking a thorough review of our policy and editorial procedures on sponsored content, and we will publish only those materials which are worthy of our reputation as “the most trusted name in learning.”



And reference in the first comment informing them they don't get it:
(Good read)
http://www.fastcompany.com/1753121/this-is-what-it-really-looks-like-when-the-coal-industry-targets-kids

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. A lot of teachers worked hard to convince Scholastic

This has been an effort that goes back months. Glad to see it worked!