Scholastic Corporation


Scholastic Corporation is an American multinational publishing, education and media company known for publishing, selling and distributing comics, books and educational materials for schools, teachers, parents and children. Products are distributed to schools and districts, to consumers through the schools via reading clubs and fairs, and through retail stores and online sales.The business has three segments: Children Book Publishing & Distribution, Education, and International. Scholastic holds the perpetual US publishing rights to the Harry Potter and Hunger Games book series. Scholastic is the world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books and print and digital educational materials for pre-K to grade 12.
In addition to Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, the company is known for its school book clubs and book fairs, classroom magazines such as Scholastic News and Science World, and popular book series: Clifford the Big Red Dog, Goosebumps, The Magic School Bus, Captain Underpants, Animorphs, and I Spy.
Scholastic also publishes instructional reading and writing programs, and offers professional learning and consultancy services for school improvement. Clifford the Big Red Dog serves as the official mascot for Scholastic.

History

Scholastic was founded in 1920 by Maurice R. Robinson right outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a publisher of youth magazines, the first publication was The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic. It covered high school sports and social activities and debuted on October 22, 1920.
In the 1940s, Scholastic entered the book club business.
In the 1960s, international publishing locations were added in England, New Zealand and Sydney. Also in the 1960s, Scholastic entered the book publishing business. In the 1980s, Scholastic entered the book fair business.
In February 2012, it bought Weekly Reader Publishing from Reader's Digest Association, and announced in July that year that it planned to discontinue separate issues of Weekly Reader magazines after more than a century of publication, and co-branded the magazines as "Scholastic News/Weekly Reader".

Marketing initiatives

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

Founded in 1920 by Maurice R. Robinson, The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, administered by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, have recognized more than 9 million young artists and writers, and provided more than $25 million in awards and scholarships and are the nation's longest-running art and writing awards. Recipients of The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards include:
all of whom won when they were in high school.

James Patterson Pledge

In March 2018, author James Patterson announced an increase in his annual donations for classroom libraries from $1.75 million to $2 million, in a program run in conjunction with the Scholastic Book Clubs. Patterson is also distributing 4,000 gifts of $500 each to teachers around the country.

Imprints and corporate divisions

Trade Publishing Imprints include:
Children's Press. Founded in 1945 and originally based in Chicago, Illinois, this press published the Rookie Read-About series and also has a secondary imprint, Franklin Watts. In 1996, Children's Press became a division of Grolier, which became an imprint of Scholastic Corporation in 2000.

Technology products

FASTT Math

In 2005, scholastic developed FASTT Math with Tom Snyder to help students with their proficiency with math skills, specifically being Multiplication, Division, Addition, and Subtraction through a series of games and memorization quizzes gauging the student's progress.

Scholastic Media

Scholastic Media is a corporate division
led by Deborah Forte since 1995.
It covers "all forms of media and consumer products, and is four main groups – Productions, Marketing & Consumer Products, Interactive, and Audio." Weston Woods is its production studio, acquired in 1996, as was Soup2Nuts from 2001–2015 before shutting down.
Scholastic has produced audiobooks such as the Caldecott/Newbery Collection;
TV serial adaptations such as Clifford the Big Red Dog, Animorphs, The Magic School Bus, Goosebumps and His Dark Materials; and feature films such as Tuck Everlasting, Clifford's Really Big Movie, Goosebumps, The Golden Compass, ', ' and The Bad Guys. It will produce the 39 Clues and as Scholastic Productions produced the series Voyagers!, My Secret Identity, and Charles in Charge.

Book clubs

Scholastic book clubs are offered at schools in many countries. Typically, teachers administer the program to the students in their own classes, but in some cases, the program is administered by a central contact for the entire school. Within Scholastic, Reading Clubs is a separate unit. Reading clubs are arranged by age/grade.

Scholastic Parents Media

Scholastic Parents Media publishes the Scholastic Parent & Child magazine. The group also specializes in online advertising sales and custom programs designed for parents with children aged 0–6.

Criticism

In July 2005, Scholastic determined that certain leases previously accounted for as operating leases should have been accounted for as capital leases. The cumulative effect, if recorded in the current year, would be material. As a result, it decided to restate its financial statements.
Scholastic has been criticized for inappropriately marketing to children. Also, Scholastic now requires parents to submit children's names with birth dates to place online orders, creating controversy. A significant number of titles carried have strong media tie-ins and are considered relatively short in literary and artistic merit by some critics. Consumer groups have also attacked Scholastic for selling too many toys and video games to children, rather than focusing on just books.