Public television turns its cameras on education this month, airing specials that focus on unequal access to public education and the nationwide movement to make schooling more relevant to careers and jobs.
“Children in America’s Schools,” with television journalist Bill Moyers as its host, takes as its starting point Jonathan Kozol’s 1991 book, Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools.
The first half of the two-hour program presents images and interviews highlighting discrepancies in quality among schools in the inner city, rural areas, and suburbs.
The program focuses on Ohio, which it says exemplifies the situation that exists in other states.
The second hour of the program is a taped panel discussion led by Mr. Moyers, in which students, parents, and educational and congressional leaders discuss the issue and possible solutions.
The program will air nationwide Sept. 13 at 9 p.m. Eastern time (check listings for local times). It was produced by the Los Angeles-based Saint/Hayden Co. in association with South Carolina Educational Television in Columbia, S.C., and Nebraska Educational Television in Lincoln, Neb.
A second documentary takes a look at the school-to-work movement through the experiences of students, educators, and community leaders.
ABCNews correspondent Cokie Roberts is the host.
The one-hour program, “Jobs: The Class of 2000,” shows how several communities across the United States are working to solve problems in their education systems and in their job markets.
It concludes that broad collaboration is needed to prepare students for careers and jobs.
Among the students who are profiled is a single mother who took part in Boston’s ProTech program and discovered that she wanted to prepare herself to work in health care.
She is now a top student at a college of pharmacy and eventually hopes to be a radiation therapist.
Another featured student aspires to be a journalist after starting a newspaper apprenticeship at the McKeesport Daily News near Pittsburgh.
The program, which is produced by WQED in Pittsburgh, will air on public-television stations Sept. 20 at 10 p.m. Eastern time (check listings for local times).