System/Policy

CPB, RTL award $2.2 million for public TV school-readiness projects

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CPB and Ready to Learn, a U.S. Department of Education program supporting preschool learning, will provide $2.2 million in grants to 21 public television stations to create new or expand existing school-readiness projects. One of the new grants, announced June 3, will establish an Illinois Ready to Learn transmedia network with pubTV partners WILL in Champaign-Urbana, WSIU in Carbondale and WTVP in Peoria, to reach 12,000 educators and 13,000 school children. Partnering with community coalitions in central and southern Illinois, the effort will provide educational programs to three low-income communities, as well as offer professional development for educators. The stations received just over $105,000 for that work. Since 2011, pubTV stations nationwide have used Ready to Learn grants specifically to extend the educational benefits of PBS Kids content by providing interactive math and literacy programs and services to local communities.

Programs/Content

New talking point on Capitol Hill: PubTV’s role in education

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Public television’s strongest case for preserving tax-based support for stations and CPB centers on informing political leaders about the full range of public-service work that stations deliver to local communities, particularly in the field of education, according to the field’s lead advocates in Washington, D.C.

Programs/Content

Barksdale: Make literacy your mission

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Corporate leader and philanthropist James Barksdale, a co-chair of the PBS-appointed Digital Future Initiative, previewed his thinking in a Current commentary seven months before the long-delayed publication of the initiative’s recommendations. See also comments by initiative Co-chair Reed Hundt. In a story that has always held meaning for me, Lewis Carroll’s character Alice came to a fork in the road. Which way do I go? she wondered. The Cheshire Cat beamed down from the tree above her and asked, “Little girl, are you lost?”

“Well, I just want to know which way I should go,” she said.

Education/Engagement

Buster to visit gay moms on some public TV channels

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At least five public TV stations have pledged to air a controversial episode of Postcards from Buster, dropped last week by PBS, that features two families headed by lesbian parents—despite strenuous objections by the nation’s new secretary of education, whose department provides significant funding for the series. About 20 other stations were considering running the show last week after viewing a preview tape that producer WGBH beamed by satellite to member stations on Thursday, said station spokeswoman Jeanne Hopkins. The controversy over the cartoon bunny comes at an awkward time for PBS, as it prepares to compete for renewed Ready to Learn funding from the Education Department. The agency has said it will divide a $24 million pot among as many as four grantees for five-year programming and outreach contracts. In the 10-year existence of the RTL program, CPB or PBS has administered the grants.

Public Media Policybase

Secretary of Education objects to Postcards from Buster ‘two moms’ episode, 2005

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Margaret Spellings, secretary of education in George W. Bush’s administration, complained to PBS in 2005 about an episode of the animated Postcards from Buster children’s series with funding from her department. In the episode, Buster visits a Vermont family that has two moms. See also Current story. January 25, 2005
Ms. Pat Mitchell
President and Chief Executive Officer
Public Broadcasting Service
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, Virginia 22314

Dear Ms. Mitchell:

The Department of Education has strong and very serious concerns about a specific Ready-To-Learn television episode, yet to be aired, that has been developed under a cooperative agreement between the Department and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The episode — “Sugartime!” — is part of the “Postcards from Buster” series, and would feature throughout the show families headed by gay couples. As you know, the cooperative agreement that PBS is using to support these programs is designed to prepare preschool and elementary age children for school.

Programs/Content

Goal for Ready to Learn: engage kids and parents

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On July 11, PBS begins beaming its long-anticipated Ready to Learn service to 11 pilot stations, embarking on what planners acknowledge will be a bumpy journey toward better TV for early childhood learning. What comes off the bird will essentially be an expanded, repackaged version of the existing children’s service that, with the help of new educational break messages, will offer a learning-friendly environment for kids. Off-air, outreach activities will target the audiences most critical to the task of preparing children for school–parents, teachers and child-care providers. The on-air and off-air prongs of public TV’s Ready to Learn strategy are scaled-back versions of proposals that PBS floated at last year’s annual meeting. The estimated $72 million needed to launch a comprehensive national service has not as yet materialized.