Dear Ariel, Christina, and Leilani, and Christina,

June 26, 2012

“Channel One is disproportionately found in schools located in high poverty areas.” **

Does that matter to Ariel Glickman? Christina Jones? Leilani Rapaport? 

Ariel Glickman

Christina Jones

Leilani Rapaport

        

 

 

 

 

From Jim Metrock

Hey, Ariel, Christina, and Leilani, can we talk?

You three college students have decided to do a summer internship at Channel One.  You have already written articles for Channelone.com’s blog page. You understand, like those interns before you, that you will be the the fresh, summer face of Channel One. Thousands of young people will see your faces and read your words and see you in videos posted on Channel One’s website. Your presence at the company is meant to convey an image that Channel One is rock solid. Hey, if we’re about to go out of business, why would we hire interns?

Of all the companies you could have interned with, why join this firm?  I am thinking that there might have been some type of “bait and switch” pulled on you three.  Did you think you were applying for an internship at CBS News and then when you showed up all bright and eager you were unceremoniously escorted down the hall and shoved into the Channel One “studio”? 

As budding journalists, here is a News Flash for you: Channel One News is a youth marketing company. Tell me you knew that – please. If you didn’t know that before, it should be real obvious to you by now.

Channel One is a pariah in the world of education and in the legitimate news gathering business, but they are a true champion in the kiddie marketing industry.

Channel One News is to CBS News as a fish is to a bicycle.  Go over to a veteran CBS correspondent and ask him or her, off the record, about Channel One News. Ask how they feel about mixing advertising and news – a practice Channel One has perfected. Ask about the quality of the “news people” at Channel One.  Have you met Kent Haehl yet? Why you chose to do your summer internship for adman Haehl and his crew of kiddie marketers is perplexing.

Did any of you do any research on Channel One before accepting the job? If you didn’t, you may not be as smart as your bios indicate and all of you sound extremely smart. If you did the research, like a good reporter is suppose to do, and you still decided to join a company that makes it money off the backs of schoolchildren by converting their school time into marketing time, then shame on you. You have betrayed young people across the country.

The three of you now work for a company that has its boot heel on the neck of millions of schoolchildren from low income communities. These schools too often agree with Channel One’s Faustian deal (TV sets for your school time) because they feel they have no choice.

Channel One robs the students that need extra time the most. Sure, Christina, you will say that no one is forcing these schools to sign a contract with Channel One. No one put a gun to their head and brought TV commercials into the school. You would be wrong if you said that. Economic conditions force principals and superintendents of schools with few resources to do things they would never do otherwise.

No school would agree to bring Channel One’s commercials into classrooms and waste that potential academic time if they had all the money in the world. Schools that can say NO to Channel One, say NO to Channel One.

Now you are part of this marketing machine.

I hope you will at least scan the study at the bottom of this article. It was paid for my a group that was opposed to Channel One, but it may be of value to your. It was done by Dr. Michael Morgan at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst way back in 1993.  The summary:

The schools that have signed on with Whittle Communications do not represent a typical cross-section of American schools. Rather, these “Channel One Schools” differ in some consistent, systematic, and troubling ways from other schools.

Overall, the most glaring discrepancies revolve around clusters of attributes reflecting  class, income, and race. Channel One is disproportionately found in schools located in high poverty areas. These schools spend the least amount of money per student on instructional or other materials by far. Also, Channel One is more often found in schools with larger proportions of African- American students, while the more Asian students there are in a school, the less likely that school is to feature Channel One.

I can hear Ariel and Leilani and Christina all saying that this is an old study that it is out of date. Actually it’s not an old study – it is a very old study. But it is still relevant because few things have changed.

A little more current (but not much) information is from the Alabama Department of Education in 1998. It showed that the schools that spent the most per student (richer communities) were likely not to have Channel One, while the schools that spent the least per student overwhelmingly had Channel One.

So how do you feel now Ariel, Christina, and Leilani? Did I take the fun out of the fun summer internship? I hope I did. You three can find important work elsewhere that will advance your careers in legitimate journalism. Of course if you are contemplating a career in kiddie marketing, then you certainly do have the best summer internship available.

 

CHANNEL ONE

COMPARISON OF SCHOOL SYSTEMS

AND PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES

TOP TEN PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES

SYSTEM EXPENDITURES CHANNEL ONE
MOUNTAIN BROOK CITY $6,241 NO
HOOVER CITY $5,732 NO
HUNTSVILLE CITY $5,471 NO
SHEFFIELD CITY $5,470 NO
FLORENCE CITY $5,422 NO
DECATUR CITY $5,410 NO
LINDEN CITY $5,374 YES
AUBURN CITY $5,328 NO
ANNISTON CITY $5,318 NO
COLBERT COUNTY $5,266 YES
    2 YES/ 8 NO

BOTTOM TEN PER PUPIL EXPENDITURES

SYSTEM EXPENDITURES CHANNEL ONE
AUTAUGA COUNTY $3,674 YES
WINFIELD CITY $3,694 YES
TALLASSEE CITY $3,701 NO
JACKSONVILLE CITY $3,706 YES
ROANOKE CITY $3,732 YES
SAINT CLAIR COUNTY $3,733 YES
ELMORE COUNTY $3,758 YES
ONEONTA CITY $3,760 YES
HALEYVILLE CITY $3,819 YES
BLOUNT COUNTY $3,835 YES
    9 YES/ 1 NO

FINANCIAL DATA WAS TAKEN FROM 1997 REPORT CARDS.

CHANNEL ONE INFORMATION WAS TAKEN FROM STATE DEPARTMENT SURVEY,
JULY 30, 1998.


 

 

 

 

**               CHANNEL ONE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

                        WIDENING THE GAPS



                         Michael Morgan
                   Department of Communication
               University of Massachusetts/Amherst

                  Phone: (413) 545-6345 / 1311
                       Fax: (413) 545-6399
                  Email: mmorgan@comm.umass.edu


              A Research Report Prepared for UNPLUG


                          October, 1993





Since March 1990, Whittle Communications has been offering 
"Channel One" to the nation's junior and senior high schools.  
Channel One provides a centrally prepared, ten-minute daily 
newscast accompanied by two minutes of commercials.  Schools that 
sign contracts with Whittle Communications receive the program as 
well as a satellite dish, two VCRs, and a 19" TV monitor for each 
classroom.  They may also receive teaching guides and other 
materials, including other video materials.  By most accounts, 
approximately 12,000 schools are currently showing the program to 
about eight million of the country's 13-18 year-olds.

The spread of Channel One raises a host of complex questions 
about the relationship between public institutions and private 
corporations in contemporary society.  Several states have passed 
or proposed legislation banning the controversial program, based 
on concerns about the implications of providing advertisers such 
direct access to students within the walls of tax-supported 
public school buildings.  Critics charge that it is inappropriate 
for public educational institutions to even appear to endorse 
specific products or advertisers, and that Channel One signals 
the further penetration of the marketing strategies and over-
commercialization that dominate so many aspects of our lives.  
More fundamentally, some object to virtually any use of 
broadcast-type television in the school context, since students 
spend so much time viewing TV outside of school and because it 
can reduce the time that might otherwise be devoted to the 
acquisition of reading, math, and other basic skills. 

Conversely, others contend that Channel One's news programs 
provide students with timely and stimulating reports about 
important current events while giving schools valuable video 
equipment that can also serve as a useful educational resource in 
a variety of other applications and contexts.  Further, it has 
been reported (Oullette, 1993; Osborn, 1993) that the service may 
be beneficial inasmuch as some schools are explicitly using it to 
foster critical viewing skills and to teach students to 
deconstruct hidden ideological messages underlying the newscasts 
and commercials.

Research to date suggests that both views may be partially true. 
Studies conducted in Michigan (Greenberg and Brand, 1993) in the 
Midwest (Tiene, 1993) showed that students who watched Channel 
One knew more about the news items covered in the programs than 
did students without access.  Channel One viewers even scored 
higher on tests of general knowledge than did non-viewers.  In 
both cases, however, the differences were fairly small.  
Moreover, in the Michigan study, exposure to Channel One had no 
apparent impact on the priority students assigned to various news 
topics, on students' levels of interest in news and current 
affairs, or on their use of other news media outside of school.  
And, the Midwestern study found that two-thirds of students feel 
they have "learned some things" from Channel One, and only about 
one in ten want their school to eliminate the program.

On the other hand, the Michigan study found that students who 
attended schools receiving Channel One gave more favorable 
evaluations to the products advertised on the programs.  The 
research noted that more than half of the commercials shown were 
for gum, candy, snacks, and fast food.  Students, of course, are 
bombarded with commercials for these kinds of products for many 
of their waking hours outside of school.  But the added exposure 
to these commercials _within_ the classroom had other effects:  
Compared to their peers who attended schools that do not receive 
the programs, students who watched Channel One were more likely 
to indicate that they would purchase the advertised products, and 
they expressed more materialistic attitudes in general.  The 
extra exposure to these commercial messages within the school 
context, which adds up to about a _full school day_ of watching 
commercials over the year, clearly had some impact, perhaps 
because it is assumed that the schools are giving some implicit 
approval to the products advertised.

The present study does not seek to examine the "effects" of 
Channel One on our students.  Rather, it asks a more basic 
question:  What kinds of schools, in what sorts of communities, 
choose to receive Whittle Communications' Channel One?  Where 
does Channel One fit into the pool of educational resources we 
are making available to the next generation?  The goal of this 
report is to provide a bird's-eye comparative profile of the 
schools that, across the country, do and do not receive Channel 
One.

Channel One is currently contracted to both public and private 
junior and senior high schools.  Inasmuch as the use of Channel 
One has very different implications in private vs. public (i.e., 
tax-supported) school contexts, the analysis focuses _only_ on the 
patterns for public schools.  




Methods and Data Description


The analysis is based on the data archives of Market Data 
Retrieval, a subsidiary of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.  MDR 
maintains an extensive and continuously updated data bank on 
numerous aspects of each and every American school.  Accordingly, 
the unit of analysis in these comparisons is the school.

As of early October 1993, there were over 81,000 public schools 
in the United States.  Excluded from analysis were all schools 
(about 45,000 in all) whose oldest students were sixth graders, 
because such students are younger than those allegedly targeted 
by Whittle Communications to receive Channel One.  (It should be 
noted that in the process of verifying data samples with specific 
schools, Channel One was in fact found to be in use by some 5th 
grade classes.)  This leaves a total of more than 36,000 public 
schools for analysis with students in the seventh grade or above 
(i.e., these schools covered grades 7-9, 7-12, 9-12, etc.).

Within this universe of 36,000 schools, however, only about half 
of the district administrators or other personnel had provided 
responses to MDR's survey item concerning the presence of Channel 
One in the schools.  That is, we have a measure of whether or not 
the school receives Channel One for 17,344 schools, representing 
47.7 percent of the total relevant universe of schools.

This sample is clearly huge (it is so large that extremely tiny 
differences would appear significant by conventional tests), but 
how representative is it?  The attached Tables and Figures 
suggest there is little probable response bias in the resulting 
sample.  The responding schools match the entire universe of 
relevant schools almost precisely on almost every measure: in 
terms of school type, school level, school enrollments, spending 
on instructional materials, regional location, poverty levels, 
and racial/ethnic composition, the responding schools and the 
total universe show virtually identical distributions.  

Nevertheless, a few minor discrepancies were apparent.  The 
sample under-represents schools in districts with low enrollments 
and, conversely, over-represents schools in districts with a 
great many students.  (The more students in a district, the more 
likely it is that the school provided data; the response rate was 
only 14% for the smallest districts, but it was over 90% for the 
largest districts.)  The exact same pattern appears with regard 
to the number of schools in a district: the response rate was 
only about 13% for the 3245 schools that are the only schools in 
their districts, while 96% of the 2988 schools in districts with 
100 or more schools provided data.  

Both of these differences evidently exist because the response 
rate was much greater for urban than for rural schools:  although 
three-fourths (74.4%) of urban schools responded, only about a 
third (34.8%) of rural schools provided data.  (Over half, 56.1%, 
of suburban schools responded.)  Finally, the response rate was 
slightly lower (38.9%) for schools with the fewest African-
American students (i.e., of the 14,204 schools where less than 
one percent of the students are African-American).  

Overall, then, the sample of 17,344 schools is more than 
acceptably representative of the universe from which it was 
drawn.  The primary discrepancy is the under-representation of 
rural schools (which constitute 57.4% of all target schools, but 
only 41.8% of the schools in the sample).  It is unclear 
precisely what are the consequences of this sampling discrepancy 
for the analysis, but it should be kept in mind as a potential 
limitation throughout.




Overall Patterns


According to the data, Whittle Communications' Channel One can be 
found in 26.4 percent (N=4572) of these 17,344 "target" schools.  
That is, 26.4 percent of US public schools with junior and 
senior high school age students who provided data for this 
measure report receiving Channel One; Whittle Communications' own 
figures could of course differ slightly.  The exact percentage of 
_students_ reached by Whittle Communications cannot be determined 
from these data (since they reflect schools, not students), but 
some published reports have pegged it as high as 40 percent. 

The schools that have signed on with Whittle Communications do 
not represent a typical cross-section of American schools.  
Rather, these "Channel One Schools" differ in some consistent, 
systematic, and troubling ways from other schools.

Overall, the most glaring discrepancies revolve around clusters 
of attributes reflecting _class, income, and race_.  Channel One is 
disproportionately found in schools located in high poverty 
areas.  These schools spend the least amount of money per student 
on instructional or other materials by far.  Also, Channel One is 
more often found in schools with larger proportions of African-
American students, while the more Asian students there are in a 
school, the less likely that school is to feature Channel One. 

The baseline figure of 26.4 percent (i.e., Channel One is 
estimated to be in just over a quarter of all relevant public 
junior and senior high schools) should be kept in mind as a 
benchmark in the following comparisons of Channel One's "reach" 
according to poverty levels, instructional spending, race, 
enrollments, and geography.



Poverty Level


"Poverty level" was measured in terms of the percent of 
households in the school's community with incomes below the 
official poverty line, based on the multidimensional Orshansky 
indicator which is a ratio of the number of children in an area 
below the poverty line to the number of children above it, 
adjusted for family size, sex of the household head, and farm vs. 
non-farm income.

In the nation's richest schools, where less than five percent of 
the students are below the poverty line, Channel One's 
penetration is only 16.6 percent (much lower than the national 
average of 26.4 percent).  But at the other end of the scale, 
where at least 25 percent of the students are below the poverty 
line, a very high 37.7 percent of the schools have Channel One.  
That is, the schools with the greatest concentrations of low-
income students are _more than twice as likely_ (37.7% vs. 16.6%) 
as the schools with the wealthiest students to have Channel One.  
The data show a very strong and monotonic pattern: as community 
income levels drop, the proportion of schools receiving Channel 
One steadily rises (see attached tables and figures).



Academic Spending


Given the findings for Poverty Level presented above, it is not 
surprising that Channel One is found most often in those schools 
that spend the least amount of money on instructional materials 
per student per year; the _more_ money schools spend on 
instructional materials per student, the _less_ likely they are to 
receive the program.  Specifically, less than 15 percent of the 
schools that spend at least $200 per student per year have 
Channel One, compared to _almost half_ of the schools that spend 
less than $50.  In other words, the schools that spend the least 
amount of money on instructional materials are over _three times_ 
as likely to receive the program as are the schools that spend 
the most.  

(With 20 data points, based on category mid-points, the Pearson 
product-moment correlation between instructional spending and the 
presence of Whittle Communications is a near-perfect -.88, with 
p<.001; the Spearman non-parametric rank-order coefficient is an 
equally strong -.86, also p<.001.  These results indicate an 
_extremely_ powerful inverse relationship.)

The same patterns hold in other areas of school expenditures.  
For example, Whittle Communications is especially pervasive in 
the schools that spend the absolute least on texts; fully _two-
thirds_ (67.5 percent) of the schools that spend less than a mere 
$10 per year per student on texts have Channel One, compared to 
less than one in five (18.8 percent) of the schools that spend 
$75 or more.  (Based again on category midpoints, this produces a 
Spearman coefficient of -.39, p<.05.)

Moreover, this tendency is especially pronounced in terms of 
_total school expenditures_ per student per year (including all 
instructional materials, texts, salaries, and all other 
expenses).  At the upper level, among schools that spend at least 
$6000 per student per year, only about 1 in 10 (10.5 percent) 
have Channel One.  At the other end of the scale, where total 
spending per student is $2599 or less, about 6 in 10 of the 
schools (60.5 percent) have Channel One.   

In other words, the schools that spend the least amount of money 
on the overall, aggregate educational enterprise are about _six 
times as likely_ to have Channel One as are the schools that spend 
the most.  (For total, combined spending, the Spearman 
coefficient is a strong -.70, p<.001.) 

The clear suggestion is that the Channel One program -- and its 
commercials -- take the place of more proven educational 
resources in the country's most impoverished schools.  Whittle is 
thus apparently used not to complement, but in the place of, 
texts and other instructional materials when these resources are 
most lacking.  The schools with the fewest resources to offer are 
those in which students are most likely to be exposed to Whittle 
Communications' programs and advertisements in the classroom.



Race and Ethnicity


Channel One's penetration is somewhat related to the racial or 
ethnic composition of schools, but the patterns are less clear 
than were those for income and school spending.  (Of course, it 
is difficult to categorize all people into unambiguous or 
exhaustive racial/ethnic groupings, and many students do not fall 
neatly into one single category.  The data reported here reflect 
commonly-used distinctions, but we acknowledge their generality 
as an inherent limitation of any similar analysis.)

The data show a general tendency wherein the greater the 
percentage of African-American students in a school, the more 
likely it is that a school has Channel One.  Among the schools 
with the fewest African-American students (i.e., where less than 
one percent of the students are African-American), 25.8 percent 
receive the program, compared to 29.1 percent of the schools 
whose students are at least 25 percent African-American.  In 
other words, the schools with higher proportions of African-
American students are slightly but monotonically more likely to 
use Channel One. 

There is a mild curvilinear relationship between the percentage 
of Latino students in a school and the reach of Channel One; the 
program is more likely to be found in schools with a _medium_ 
proportion of Latino students.  The differences, however, are 
fairly small: Channel One is in 26.7 percent of the schools where 
less than one percent of the students are Latino, compared to 
30.2 percent of the schools where between 1 and 25 percent of the 
students are Latino, while the figure for the few schools (about 
12 percent of all "target" schools) where over 25 percent of the 
students are Latino drops to 23.3 percent.  Although some reports 
have alleged that Whittle Communications has specifically 
targeted certain needy schools with large Latino populations 
(Arana & Watson, 1992), there is no evidence in these data that 
schools with the highest proportions of Latino students are 
currently _more_ likely to accept the program.

On the other hand, Channel One is sharply less likely to be found 
in schools with proportionately more Asian students.  That is, 
Channel One is in 37.3 percent of the target schools that are 
less than one-quarter Asian, but only in 4.1 percent of schools 
where over a quarter of the students are of Asian descent.  (This 
may, in part, reflect the legal battles that have held back 
Channel One's spread in California, a state with large 
concentrations of Asian students.)

Thus, whatever may or may not be the "marketing plan" of Whittle 
Communications, the data not show sharp or substantial 
differences in the actual acceptance of Channel One in schools 
according to their proportions of African-American and/or Latino 
students.  On balance, Channel One is somewhat more common in 
schools with the highest proportions of African-Americans, and 
with a medium proportion of Latino students, but the differences 
are not very large.  Although the data on income and school 
spending show that the country's least privileged students are 
those most exposed to Whittle Communications' commercial messages 
within their schools, there is no evidence in the available data 
that race or ethnicity is the driving force behind the class 
differences.  Poverty and a lack of educational resources seem to 
motivate schools to receive Channel One, whatever their racial or 
ethnic composition.



Enrollments


The presence of Channel One does not vary greatly by the size of 
school enrollment, but the data show a mild curvilinear pattern, 
with mid-sized schools (i.e., with between 300 and 1000 students) 
most likely to have the program.  A very similar curvilinear 
pattern holds in terms of the number of students enrolled in the 
entire district, with a few variations.  For one thing, Channel 
One is extremely unlikely to be found in the smallest school 
districts.  For another, the greatest numerical (though not 
proportionate) clustering of Channel One schools is in districts 
with the largest number of students (25,000 or higher); that is, 
these largest school districts are _not_ more likely than smaller 
districts to have Channel One, but in raw numbers there are more 
Channel One schools in this category than in any other.   

The patterns are not very strong here, but what differences exist 
point towards the greater likelihood of finding Channel One in 
neither the most nor the least crowded schools and districts, but 
instead in more "average," typical, mid-sized schools and 
districts.  

(These manifest patterns could be greatly influenced by the 
variations in response rates across different-sized school 
districts -- as noted above, the response rate is _much_ lower for 
the smaller schools and districts -- but there is no way to 
determine the consequences of this definitively.  All we do know 
is that the data are _most_ reliable for the larger districts, 
where the response rate was over 90 percent.  If it happened that 
the smaller districts _that use Channel One_ were more likely to 
respond than the smaller districts that do not -- a plausible 
scenario, arguably -- then it could well be that the data inflate 
the appearance of Channel One in smaller schools and thereby 
underestimate the extent to which Channel One schools actually do 
tend to be more densely crowded.)




Geographic Patterns


The data show that urban schools are slightly more likely to have 
Channel One (27.3 percent) than are either suburban (26.5 
percent) or rural (25.6 percent) schools.  (Given the much lower 
response rate for rural schools, it is possible to speculate, 
following the same logic as above, that these data underestimate 
the relationship.  That is, if rural schools that use Channel One 
were more likely to respond than rural schools that do not, then 
any "real" tendency for Channel One schools to be more likely to 
be urban schools could be obscured.)

Channel One schools are more likely to be found in the South 
Atlantic, South Central, and Mountain states; over 30 percent of 
the schools in those regions receive the program.  In contrast, 
only about ten percent or fewer of the schools in the New England 
or Pacific states have Channel One.

Statewise estimates show that Whittle Communications is most 
pervasive in Tennessee (the company's home base; 74.6 percent), 
Mississippi (73.3 percent), Utah (66.7 percent), New Mexico (63.8 
percent), West Virginia (58.3 percent), Arkansas (57.3 percent), 
Louisiana (50.6 percent), Pennsylvania (46.1 percent), Arizona 
(45.5 percent) and Michigan (39.7 percent).   On the other end 
of the scale, Channel One is reportedly being used in none (or 
very, very few) of the schools in Alaska, California, 
Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New 
Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.  

These statewise differences could have a lot to do with the 
patterns observed for ethnicity and race.  Were it not for legal 
and legislative battles carried out in New York and California, 
it seems likely that Whittle Communications' presence in crowded, 
low income, urban schools with disproportionate numbers of 
students of color would be vastly greater than it already is.





Summary and Conclusion



Overall, schools that receive Channel One are mid-to-large sized 
(but not _the_ most crowded) schools; they are slightly more likely 
to be found in urban areas, but the reach of Channel One in 
suburban and rural schools seems nearly as great.  They are  
slightly more likely to have higher proportions of African-
Americans, or to have a medium proportion of Latino students.  
They are especially likely to be located in South Central, 
Mountain, or South Atlantic states, rather than in New England or 
the Pacific states.

Most of all, however, Channel One is most often found in schools 
with the largest proportions of low income, underprivileged 
students, and in schools that have the least amount of money to 
spend on conventional educational resources.  Ironically, these 
schools have more high-tech equipment, in no small part due to 
Whittle Communications' own contributions, but they invest 
substantially less in teachers, texts, or other instructional 
materials.  The relationship between spending on texts or other 
instructional resources and accepting Channel One is especially 
striking: Channel One is apparently used _instead of_ traditional 
materials when resources are scarcest.  Schools that can afford 
to spend more on their students are _much_ less likely to utilize 
Channel One.

Given these patterns, the greater devotion to commercialism that 
students apparently develop from watching Channel One is 
particularly disturbing.  That is, Channel One is more often 
shown to the students who are probably least able to afford to 
buy all the products they see advertised.  It requires no stretch 
of the imagination to suggest that this in turn may enhance their 
alienation and frustration.

The commercialization of the culture -- and increasingly, 
perhaps, of the schools -- means that other voices and interests, 
less able to generate profits, are being shut out of the 
educational system.  It seems inevitable that Channel One will 
further entrench and legitimize the power of massive private 
commercial interests in those public arenas where a diversity of 
voices is most badly needed. 

The results from a new four-year study, just released by the 
Department of Education, sound similar to so many others we have 
become accustomed to hearing about, but these are more shocking 
than usual: according to the report, almost half the nation's 
adults have low reading comprehension and math skills.  Worse, 
the study points to increasing divisions in society between the 
haves and the have-nots, based on poverty and racial/ethnic 
status.  Low income students and youth of color attend schools 
most in need of a substantial infusion of resources.  These are 
the same schools that give their students Channel One instead, 
creating the illusion of providing more and better educational 
facilities.  In this way, Channel One may be helping to widen an 
already dangerous gap in our society.





REFERENCES


Arana, Ana, and Aleta Watson.  "Channel One used ethnic divisions 
     to win customers."  San Jose Mercury-News, Dec. 13, 1992.

"Dumber Than We Thought."  Newsweek, Sept. 20, 1993, p. 44.

Greenberg, Bradley S., and Jeffrey E. Brand.  "Television News 
     and Advertising in Schools:  The 'Channel One' Controversy."  
     Journal of Communication, Winter 1993, 43:1, 143-151.

Osborn, Barbara.  "Critiquing Channel One: Billerica Middle 
     Schools."  The Independent, August/September 1993, pp. 44-45.

Ouellette, Laurie.  "Whoops for Whittle Communications" and 
     "Deconstructing Channel One."  Mediaculture, The Advocate, 
     Sept. 2, 1993, p. 6. (Syndicated via Alternet News Service, 
     Aug. 19, 1993.)

Tiene, Drew.  "Channel One: Good News or Bad News for our 
     Schools?"  Educational Leadership, May 1993, pp. 46-51.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------



                                  TABLE 1

                        DISTRIBUTIONS OF CHANNEL ONE



              Number of     Number of        Percent of        Percent of
              Schools in    Schools with     Schools with      Schools in 
              Sample        Channel One      Channel One       Category
              ----------    ------------    -------------      -----------

OVERALL         17344         4572             26.36%           100.00%

                           
School Type:

    Elementary   1759          400             22.74%            10.14%
    Middle       4547         1214             26.70%            26.22%
    Jr Hi        2156          600             27.83%            12.43%
    Sr Hi        6867         1817             26.46%            39.59%
    Combined      703          158             22.48%             4.05%
    Voc/Tech      424          153             36.08%             2.44%
    Special       625          171             27.36%             3.60%
    Adult         263           59             22.43%             1.52%
             
              
School Level:

    K-8          1759          400             22.74%            10.14%
    K-12          703          158             22.48%             4.05%
    5-8          4547         1214             26.70%            26.22%
    7-9          2156          600             27.83%            12.43%
    7-12         1088          337             30.97%             6.27%
    9-12         5209         1286             24.69%            30.03%
    10-12         570          195             34.21%             3.29%
    Voc/Tech      424          153             36.08%             2.44%
    Special       625          170             27.20%             3.60%
    Adult         263           59             22.43%             1.52%
                         
  
School Enrollment:       
                           
    1-99          993          267             26.89%             5.73%
    100-199      1054          234             22.20%             6.08%
    200-299      1305          310             23.75%             7.52%
    300-499      2961          902             30.46%            17.07%
    500-999      6675         1855             27.79%            38.49%
    1000-2499    4085          956             23.40%            23.55%
    2500+         271           48             17.71%             1.56%
                           
  
District Enrollment:         
                           
    <599          707           51              7.21%             4.08%
    <1199        1344          308             22.92%             7.75%
    <2499        2275          769             33.80%            13.12%
    <4999        2219          641             28.89%            12.79%
    <9999        1746          491             28.12%            10.07%
    <24999       3096          879             28.39%            17.85%
    25K +        5957         1433             24.06%            34.35%


Number of Schools in District:
                           
    1             420           51             12.14%             2.42%
    2-4          2920          754             25.82%            16.84%
    5-9          3019          857             28.39%            17.41%
    10-24        2721          736             27.05%            15.69%
    25-99        5397         1516             28.09%            31.12%
    100 +        2867          658             22.95%            16.53%
                           

Spending on All Instructional Materials:

    <44.99        197           96             48.73%             1.14%
    <54.99        234          110             47.01%             1.35%
    <64.99        476          168             35.29%             2.75%
    <74.99       1053          332             31.53%             6.08%
    <79.99        706          196             27.76%             4.07%
    <84.99       1111          407             36.63%             6.41%
    <89.99        768          167             21.74%             4.43%
    <94.99        919          288             31.34%             5.30%
    <99.99        945          356             37.67%             5.45%
    <109.99      2462          781             31.72%            14.21%
    <119.99      1642          354             21.56%             9.47%
    <129.99      1858          289             15.55%            10.72%
    <139.99      1173          309             26.34%             6.77%
    <149.99      1065          312             29.30%             6.15%
    <159.99       606          107             17.66%             3.50%
    <169.99       487           75             15.40%             2.81%
    <179.99       389           50             12.85%             2.24%
    <189.99       277           45             16.25%             1.60%
    <199.99       233           22              9.44%             1.34%
    200 +         729          106             14.54%             4.21%
                           


Text Expenditures:     
                           
    <9.99         114           77             67.54%             0.66%
    <12.99         97           28             28.87%             0.56%
    <15.99        238          101             42.44%             1.37%
    <18.99        673          136             20.21%             3.88%
    <21.99       1017          297             29.20%             5.87%
    <24.99       1329          339             25.51%             7.67%
    <27.99       1433          325             22.68%             8.27%
    <30.99       1786          456             25.53%            10.31%
    <33.99       1319          225             17.06%             7.61%
    <36.99       1258          372             29.57%             7.26%
    <39.99        963          311             32.29%             5.56%
    <44.99       2811          824             29.31%            16.22%
    <49.99       1361          459             33.73%             7.85%
    <54.99        761          167             21.94%             4.39%
    <59.99        609          184             30.21%             3.51%
    <64.99        438           64             14.61%             2.53%
    <69.99        287           28              9.76%             1.66%
    <74.99        276           72             26.09%             1.59%
    75+           558          105             18.82%             3.22%
                           
                           
Total Combined Expenditures:
                           
    <2599         238          144             60.50%             1.37%
    <2799         417          251             60.19%             2.41%
    <2999         599          249             41.57%             3.46%
    <3199         794          388             48.87%             4.58%
    <3399         893          260             29.12%             5.15%
    <3599        1410          563             39.93%             8.14%
    <3799        1634          461             28.21%             9.43%
    <3999        1752          438             25.00%            10.11%
    <4199        1104          291             26.36%             6.37%
    <4399        1193          215             18.02%             6.88%
    <4599        1337          216             16.16%             7.71%
    <4799        1086          111             10.22%             6.27%
    <4999         512          213             41.60%             2.95%
    <5199         683          127             18.59%             3.94%
    <5399         512          186             36.33%             2.95%
    <5599         506          196             38.74%             2.92%
    <5799         331            7              2.11%             1.91%
    <5999         254           35             13.78%             1.47%
    <6000+       2075          219             10.55%            11.97%
                           
                           

Region:                
                           
    New England   739           78             10.55%             4.26%
    Mid Atlan.   1677          360             21.47%             9.67%
    So Atlan.    3298         1001             30.35%            19.02%
    No Central   4906         1132             23.07%            28.29%
    Mountain     1150          410             35.65%             6.63%
    So Central   3282         1418             43.21%            18.92%
    Pacific      2292          173              7.55%            13.21%
             
              
Metro status:          
                           
    Urban        5709         1558             27.29%            33.09%
    Suburban     4328         1145             26.46%            25.09%
    Rural        7216         1849             25.62%            41.82%
         
                  
Poverty Level:               
                           
    <5%          2526          420             16.63%            14.82%
    5-25%       11749         3054             25.99%            68.93%
    25% +        2770         1044             37.69%            16.25%
                         
  
Percent African-American:    
                           
    <1 %         5525         1424             25.77%            34.42%
    1-25 %       6208         1746             28.13%            38.67%
    >25 %        4319         1255             29.06%            26.91%

                           
Percent Latino: 
                           
    <1 %         8105         2163             26.69%            50.49%
    1-25 %       5952         1798             30.21%            37.08%
    >25 %        1995          464             23.26%            12.43%
                           
                           
Percent Asian:             
                           
    <1 %        10702         3989             37.27%            66.67%
    1-25 %       5060          424              8.38%            31.52%
    >25 %         290           12              4.14%             1.81%
                           
                           




                                   TABLE 2 


                      COMPARISON OF SAMPLE AND UNIVERSE



                                         All Potential
              Responding Schools         Target Schools
              --------------------       --------------------
              N of      Percent in       N of      Percent in      Response
              Schools   Category         Schools   Category        Rate
              -------   ----------       -------   ----------     ---------

OVERALL         17344   100.00%           36359    100.00%          47.70%  
                                                                            

School Type:  
              
    Elementary   1759    10.14%            4811     13.23%          36.56%  
    Middle       4547    26.22%            8432     23.19%          53.93%  
    Jr Hi        2156    12.43%            3717     10.22%          58.00%  
    Sr Hi        6867    39.59%           14064     38.68%          48.83%  
    Combined      703     4.05%            2844      7.82%          24.72%  
    Voc/Tech      424     2.44%            1033      2.84%          41.05%  
    Special       625     3.60%             995      2.74%          62.81%  
    Adult         263     1.52%             463      1.27%          56.80%  
                                                                            

School Level:

    K-8          1759    10.14%            4811     13.23%          36.56%  
    K-12          703     4.05%            2844      7.82%          24.72%  
    5-8          4547    26.22%            8432     23.19%          53.93%  
    7-9          2156    12.43%            3717     10.22%          58.00%  
    7-12         1088     6.27%            2911      8.01%          37.38%  
    9-12         5209    30.03%           10184     28.01%          51.15%  
    10-12         570     3.29%             971      2.67%          58.70%  
    Voc/Tech      424     2.44%            1031      2.84%          41.13%  
    Special       625     3.60%             995      2.74%          62.81%  
    Adult         263     1.52%             463      1.27%          56.80%  


School Enrollment:  

    1-99          993     5.73%            3005      8.26%          33.04%  
    100-199      1054     6.08%            3441      9.46%          30.63%  
    200-299      1305     7.52%            3813     10.49%          34.23%  
    300-499      2961    17.07%            7205     19.82%          41.10%  
    500-999      6675    38.49%           12331     33.91%          54.13%  
    1000-2499    4085    23.55%            6189     17.02%          66.00%  
    2500+         271     1.56%             375      1.03%          72.27%  
                                                                            


District Enrollment:
                                                                            
    <599          707     4.08%            5225     14.37%          13.53%  
    <1199        1344     7.75%            3822     10.51%          35.16%  
    <2499        2275    13.12%            5811     15.98%          39.15%  
    <4999        2219    12.79%            5656     15.56%          39.23%  
    <9999        1746    10.07%            4577     12.59%          38.15%  
    <24999       3096    17.85%            4710     12.95%          65.73%  
    25K +        5957    34.35%            6558     18.04%          90.84%  
                    
                                                        
Schools in District:
                                                                            
    1             420     2.42%            3245      8.92%          12.94%  
    2-4          2920    16.84%            8829     24.28%          33.07%  
    5-9          3019    17.41%            7914     21.77%          38.15%  
    10-24        2721    15.69%            7330     20.16%          37.12%  
    25-99        5397    31.12%            6053     16.65%          89.16%  
    100 +        2867    16.53%            2988      8.22%          95.95%  
                                                                            

Spending on All Instructional Materials:
                                                                            
    <44.99        197     1.14%             513      1.42%          38.40%  
    <54.99        234     1.35%             490      1.36%          47.76%  
    <64.99        476     2.75%             993      2.75%          47.94%  
    <74.99       1053     6.08%            1822      5.04%          57.79%  
    <79.99        706     4.07%            1206      3.34%          58.54%  
    <84.99       1111     6.41%            1811      5.01%          61.35%  
    <89.99        768     4.43%            1519      4.20%          50.56%  
    <94.99        919     5.30%            1741      4.82%          52.79%  
    <99.99        945     5.45%            1904      5.27%          49.63%  
    <109.99      2462    14.21%            4347     12.03%          56.64%  
    <119.99      1642     9.47%            3459      9.57%          47.47%  
    <129.99      1858    10.72%            3392      9.38%          54.78%  
    <139.99      1173     6.77%            2690      7.44%          43.61%  
    <149.99      1065     6.15%            2135      5.91%          49.88%  
    <159.99       606     3.50%            1407      3.89%          43.07%  
    <169.99       487     2.81%            1228      3.40%          39.66%  
    <179.99       389     2.24%             991      2.74%          39.25%  
    <189.99       277     1.60%             800      2.21%          34.63%  
    <199.99       233     1.34%             612      1.69%          38.07%  
    200 +         729     4.21%            3087      8.54%          23.62%  
                                                                            

Region:                                                                 
                                                                            
    New England   739     4.26%            1810      4.98%          40.83%  
    Mid Atlan.   1677     9.67%            3974     10.93%          42.20%  
    So Atlan.    3298    19.02%            4921     13.53%          67.02%  
    No Central   4906    28.29%           10542     28.99%          46.54%  
    Mountain     1150     6.63%            2542      6.99%          45.24%  
    So Central   3282    18.92%            7667     21.09%          42.81%  
    Pacific      2292    13.21%            4903     13.48%          46.75%  
    
                                                                        
Metro status:
                                                                            
    Urban        5709    33.09%            7676     21.23%          74.37%  
    Suburban     4328    25.09%            7720     21.35%          56.06%  
    Rural        7216    41.82%           20760     57.42%          34.76%  
                                                                            

Poverty Level:
                                                                            
    <5%          2526    14.82%            5492     15.57%          45.99%  
    5-12         5384    31.59%           11112     31.50%          48.45%  
    12-25        6365    37.34%           13019     36.91%          48.89%  
    25% +        2770    16.25%            5650     16.02%          49.03%  
                                                                            
                                                                            
Percent African-American:
                                                                            
    <1 %         5525    34.42%           14204     44.66%          38.90%  
    1-5          2542    15.84%            4983     15.67%          51.01%  
    5-25         3666    22.84%            6158     19.36%          59.53%  
    25% +        4319    26.91%            6463     20.32%          66.83%  
                                                                            
                                                                            
Percent Latino:                                                                            
                                                                            
    <1 %         8105    50.49%           17353     54.56%          46.71%  
    1-5          3225    20.09%            5973     18.78%          53.99%  
    5-25         2727    16.99%            4876     15.33%          55.93%  
    25% +        1995    12.43%            3606     11.34%          55.32%  
                                                                            

Percent Asian:
                                                                            
    <1 %        10702    66.67%           23081     72.56%          46.37%  
    1-5          3469    21.61%            5825     18.31%          59.55%  
    5-25         1591     9.91%            2498      7.85%          63.69%  
    25% +         290     1.81%             404      1.27%          71.78%  
                                                                            

Percent White:
                                                                            
    <1 %          847     5.28%            1192      3.75%          71.06%  
    1-5           425     2.65%             692      2.18%          61.42%  
    5-25         1231     7.67%            1901      5.98%          64.76%  
    25% +       13549    84.41%           28023     88.10%          48.35%  





========================================================================
========================================================================


I hope this is useful.

Cheers,



- Michael


-- 
*------------------------------------------------------------------*
| Michael Morgan    *   /\/\ /\/\    *    mmorgan@comm.umass.edu   |
|    Department of Communication, UMass/Amherst, MA 01003  USA     |
| 413-545-1311 (dept) * 413-545-6345 (office) * 413-545-6399 (fax) |
*------------------------------------------------------------------*
 

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