A school-focused commercializing process over 100 years in the making has been turbo-charged by the rise of data-collecting digital educational platforms and a pandemic that has forced widespread use of distance learning. Alex Molnar and Faith Boninger explain how advertising to students creates what John Dewey would call "mis-educative experiences." They describe how private companies have made inroads into public schools by offering funding and free resources, while using their interactions with schools as an opportunity both to directly market to students and to collect data on them that can be used for future marketing or other unknown purposes.