Nearly half of distance-learning courses used by K-12 schools are given by college-level institutions, says a major U.S. Department of Education study released March 2. Nine percent of schools used distance learning in 2002-03, with 328,000 enrollments a year (counting some students more than once). Two-way video is the most popular platform, used in nearly half of school districts. A big PDF of the full 97-page report is available online.

A different pro-family lobby–this time the Family Pride Coalition of gay parents–is raising a ruckus, calling a “virtual rally” on Thursday, March 10, with supporters phoning and sending e-mails to the U.S. Department of Education disapproving Secretary Margaret Spellings’ attack on the two-moms episode of Postcards from Buster. For the moment you can see the episode on the coalition’s website. In a Current commentary, public TV exec Ron Santora says Spellings and PBS marginalize many American families while catering to the prejudices of others.

“We think as a family it’s important to understand the world and all the people in it,” says a parent who turned out at a Washington, D.C., church for a screening of the Postcards from Buster “Sugartime” episode. The Washington Post covered the event.

“NPR does a pretty good job, but it seems to delight in its own culture more than is absolutely necessary,” said NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin at a seminar in Mississippi, reports the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

“I don’t think anyone should ever get over the way this country was founded — on not just liberty but also the extermination of the continent’s original inhabitants and the importation of slaves,” says Sarah Vowell in the Kansas City Star.

“[W]hat the classical fade-out tells us more than anything is that the ‘custodians of public taste’ have left the building, ” writes a Washington Times opiner in the wake of WETA-FM’s format change.

Public TV is the subject, not the medium, for a five-day seminar for journalists at UC Berkeley, May 1-6. The Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism is taking applications for 15 seats in the all-expenses-paid seminar for mid-career journalists, “Channeling Public Interest Media: Reporting on the Public Broadcast System.” Participants will also attend parts of concurrent Input 2005 in San Francisco. Application deadline: March 25/28. See explanation on the center’s website. Contact: Lanita Pace-Hinton, (510) 643-7425. The Knight Center is funded by the Knight Foundation and operated by USC Annenberg in Los Angeles. For this and other upcoming events, see Current’s Calendar, current.org/calendar.

Perhaps prompted by the Buster fuss or a slow news day, George F. Will joins a gathering pro-marketplace chorus on the right: “In today’s 500-channel environment, public television is a preposterous relic.” PBS sells so many toys, it must have mass market appeal, he argues, then suggests its fans are the kind who re-read Proust.

Tod Maffin lays out his vision of “vertical listening,” which he also mentioned in our recent article about podcasting. Meanwhile, KCRW-FM launched more than 20 podcasts yesterday.

Funding hikes for public broadcasting in Alaska survived a challenge in that state’s House of Representatives, reports the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

“After just five weeks on the air, it seems that MPR’s new alt-rock-and-variety station is already a significant tastemaker in town,” says the Twin Cities’ City Pages, which devotes three articles to “89.3 The Current.”

“Let’s take a moment to acknowledge something that has, in fact, been true for some time: Technical innovation in U.S. radio broadcasting is being led by public radio,” writes Paul McLane in Radio World.

Terry Gross’s idea of cooking used to be “opening a can of Progresso minestrone and taking out their vegetables, keeping the broth and putting in my own vegetables,” she says in Delware’s News Journal.

The San Francisco Chronicle looks at the the competition between secular and religious broadcasters for low-power FM stations.

In the MP3 era, “the art of the set and the segue is in imminent danger of dying,” writes WFMU deejay Dave Mandl in the Brooklyn Rail.