The Next Cola War, To iPod or Not To iPod, and How the Arts Can Pay Off
Teacher Magazine ’s take on education news from around the Web, Dec. 2-8.
To use an appropriate metaphor: The can of soda has been given a hearty shake, and it’s about to be opened. Or so a handful of lawyers, some veterans of ’90s tobacco litigation, would have us believe. They’ve announced a plan to file a lawsuit seeking to ban the sale of unhealthy drinks in schools . Stephen Gardner, an attorney for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, claims that selling such drinks on campus endangers students’ health. But the soda companies, citing a study they commissioned, say vending machine sales do not contribute to the obesity rate among children. Roughly half the country’s public schools have contracts with cola companies, and yet another study, conducted in Oregon, concludes that the money schools earn from the sales is insignificant—less than one-tenth of a percent of the Portland district’s budget, for example. Some contracts, that study adds, reward schools for pushing the unhealthiest of options on students. Gardner and his fellow attorneys have not yet decided whether the consumer-protection lawsuit, to be filed in Massachusetts, will seek financial damages. While admitting that damages in a suit like this could total in the billions, he was perhaps reading the minds of many a skeptic when he added, “We don’t want this to come off looking...
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