"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the primary backer for the inBloom educational grading and service (which also acts as a platform for third-party applications), is catching flak for its role in encouraging the outsourcing of US Education. The article (cited by RMS today) argues that though the Common Core is a scary new concept that takes power away from state and local school governance, the real danger is allowing corporate enterprises to have so much control over our classrooms. The Washington Post also reports a case where Pearson included corporate logos and promotional materials inside its test booklets."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by m on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:52AM
Yep, I remember being subjected to that in the zoned public high school. Celebrity gossip "news" interspersed with copious ads for junk foods. If you wanted a dark satire of the very worst of commercialized television, you couldn't have done much better. Fortunately, when I was able to transfer to the public magnet school where the teachers had more control over classroom activities, "study hall" didn't mean "mandatory advertising indoctrination hour." Unfortunately, all the students in the zoned school --- some of whom might have viewed the broadcasts as something other than a cruel mockery of humankind --- were still subjected to it (and rewarded the corporate sponsors with their loyalty).