http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/22334-this-is-what-happened-when-scholastic-tried-to-bring-pro-coal-propaganda-to-school
This Is What Happened When Scholastic Tried To Bring Pro-Coal Propaganda
to School
Saturday, 08 March 2014 09:19 By Bill Bigelow, Yes! Magazine | Op-Ed
While developing activities on coal and the climate crisis in 2011 for
Rethinking Schools magazine, I ran across a curriculum, The United
States of Energy, from Scholastic, the venerable education publisher.
It was a colorful series of lessons, aimed at fourth-graders, which
explored the various sources for energy in the United States. The
material on coal discussed its many “advantages.” But when I looked for
discussion of the disadvantages … nothing.
Not a word about coal’s status as the largest source of climate-wrecking
carbon dioxide. Nothing about how burning coal emits toxic mercury, or
how mountaintop removal mining has destroyed 500 Appalachian mountains.
It turned out that the education arm of the U.S. coal industry, the
American Coal Foundation, had hired Scholastic to produce these glossy
lessons and to distribute them to teachers throughout the country.
In a blog post, the American Coal Foundation’s executive director, Alma
Hale Paty, explained that they had selected Scholastic to tell their
story because its materials are in classrooms across the country and,
“Four out of five parents know and trust the Scholastic brand.”
I wrote a critique of Scholastic’s pro-coal propaganda for Rethinking
Schools. Before we posted it on the Web, I approached Josh Golin at the
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) about teaming up.
The day we published the article online, Rethinking Schools and CCFC
sent letters to our members, announcing a campaign to demand that
Scholastic sever ties with the coal industry and end distribution of its
coal curriculum. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, and the Center
for Biological Diversity joined the effort.
And then The New York Times’ Tamar Lewin, who had covered CCFC’s past
skirmishes with Scholastic, wrote an article echoing the Rethinking
Schools critique.
The New York Times’ coverage, the story spread quickly via environmental
groups—the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the National Wildlife Federation,
Climate Science Watch—and social justice education groups Teaching for
Change and the New York Collective of Radical Educators.
The New York Times ended the week with an editorial, “Scholastic’s Big
Coal Mistake,” saying that Scholastic had failed to “adhere to high
educational standards.” Later that day, Scholastic agreed to sever ties
with the coal industry, cease distribution of the energy curriculum, and
launch a review of its “In School Marketing” program, in which
Scholastic rented its logo and curriculum talents to numerous corporations.
The story of how Scholastic was forced to withdraw its pro-coal The
United States of Energy offers a valuable lesson: When educators and
activists work together to shine a light on socially and environmentally
harmful teaching materials, we can defend the integrity of schools. As
we work to build a curriculum that equips students to address the
climate crisis, wealth inequality, U.S. militarism and a host of other
social and environmental issues, we need this kind of educator-activist
partnership more than ever.
_______________________________________________
Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list
Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org
http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel