Millions of children have grown up watching PBS Kids’ educational TV, geared toward 2- to 8-year-olds—from classics like “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” to recently added shows like “Lyla in the Loop.” Over the years, the content has evolved to include digital games, apps, and podcasts across a variety of platforms, plus curriculum-aligned videos, interactives, and lesson plans from PBS Learning Media.
But access to this educational content is in jeopardy due to federal funding cuts.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a major funder of PBS and PBS Kids, announced on Jan. 5 that it would close the 58-year-old organization after Congress approved a request from the Trump administration and rescinded its federal funding. Also, the U.S. Department of Education in May terminated the corporation’s 2020-2025 Ready To Learn grant.
PBS Kids and its producing partners lost nearly $30 million from the Ready to Learn cuts and rescission, a spokesperson said.
Congress is now advancing a spending bill that would revive the Ready to Learn grant program, but it’s unclear how the broader upheaval in federal support for public broadcasting will affect it long term.
These circumstances threaten access to early educational programming and related learning resources that PBS Learning Media says aligns directly to state and national standards, as well as the behind-the-scenes research and development that goes into creating trusted programming, said Sara DeWitt, the senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids and Education.
DeWitt, a 27-year PBS veteran and former preschool teacher, spoke to Education Week about the parallels between sound preschool teaching practices and PBS Kids content, the short- and potential long-term effects of recent federal funding cuts, the network’s continued role in teaching young children valuable lessons, and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
As a preschool teacher, what did you pick up about how young children learn that you brought to your role at PBS Kids?
One, the recognition that you have to give kids a lot of free space to do their own exploration. When I was student-teaching, I remember sitting at the art table, and I started drawing along with the kids, and then the kids around me started trying to draw what I was drawing. And one of the teachers came over and said, “You need to step back, because they’re always going to be trying to do what you’re doing and comparing their stuff to yours.” That’s something I definitely have carried with me.
The other thing I brought with me is a multidisciplinary approach to learning. In the preschool classroom, you wanted to, for instance, do a hands-on piece where students do some kind of art or building project. You would also share a story, so the students had a narrative they were listening to. You would also sing a song and get up and move your bodies. And you want to connect all of those pieces to the same curriculum.
At PBS Kids, we have a lot of sandbox games [digital games that allow players multiple ways to interact with the environment without specific goals] where kids can create their own ideas. Through the games, we want viewers to be able to then take what they’ve seen and play it offline, whether that is pretending they’re one of the characters and acting out the story, or mimicking what the character is doing and building their own thing. ... That’s something I definitely learned in that preschool experience: Try to bring as many multidisciplinary approaches to the curriculum as possible.
Any other crossover lessons you can share?
At PBS Kids, I’ve asked the question that preschool teachers ask: How does a preschooler navigate the world without actually being able to read yet?
Touch screens that allow kids to swipe has made that a lot easier. Children instinctively know how to point, how to touch, and click and drag. Somebody once said to me, “I’m so amazed that a child knows how to swipe.” And I was like, “It’s like a book: They know how to turn a page, and that’s exactly what that swiping motion is.”
What goes into developing a PBS Kids TV show?
All of our shows are based on educational frameworks. So we’re starting first with looking at the curriculum that child development experts and subject-matter experts believe makes sense for kids at different ages, and trying to apply that to media.
We work with media experts, child-development experts, subject matter experts, to then think about, for example—this is the literacy concept that makes sense for 2- to 3-year-olds. How does that translate into media? How would you approach this from a digital perspective? How would you approach it from a linear video storytelling perspective?
Does PBS Kids ever involve preschool teachers in providing input for its content?
We do bring in classroom practitioners, because we want them to look at this and to think about, “How would this apply in my classroom?”
We had a program called Early Learning Champions, where different TV stations across the country nominate preschool teachers in their communities who engage well with media to then engage in workshops with PBS about our content and give us feedback. It also provided training and professional development for these teachers, and it was an opportunity for us to really get much deeper into how teachers are using media in the classroom. That’s a program that was funded by this Ready to Learn grant [and is no longer active].
How do early elementary teachers use PBS Kids content?
We can see in our stats on the back-end that the PBS Kids website has a lot of classroom use, and it’s usually during free time. We are a trusted space that teachers let kids play on, maybe during a rainy-day recess. Or, teachers might recommend it to parents to watch at home.
PBS Learning Media is where we put classroom resources for teachers. Video assets are then mapped to national standards and are searchable. If a teacher is looking for something that would work with 2nd grade math assets, you can search PBS Learning Media and find video clips that might work really well.
How do you evaluate the effectiveness of your educational programming?
A grant that PBS had applied for every five years since 1995—the Ready to Learn grant from the Department of Education—funded a lot of summative evaluations. The information we have about statistically significant gains in literacy knowledge from kids watching “Super Why!” or from engaging with different STEM concepts on PBS Kids Games, those all came through third-party summative evaluations funded by the Ready to Learn Grant.
That’s one of the things most affected by these recent funding cuts. There were at least two studies in the field that had to stop immediately. That means that we currently don’t have any plans for big summative evaluations of some of the shows that are in production now.
How else did the cessation of the Ready to Learn grant affect PBS Kids?
We’ve reduced our staff by 30%, and we have had to cut back on the research pieces. We have had to be really clear-eyed about things like, what can we still maintain with reduced staff?
We have retired 78 games from our website. [A spokesperson also noted that some apps and downloadable games have also been put on pause due to a lack of resources to maintain them.]
What about the effects of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting closing?
Where that hits us the hardest is through our member stations—the grants that they get to be able to then activate content on the ground and to really take things out into communities that are harder to reach. A lot of our stations partner with local Boys and Girls Clubs, with libraries and, in one case, with the housing authority, to be able to do workshops and help parents learn about these free resources they can access.
I think we’re going to see big decreases in our ability to reach those kinds of populations through that on-the-ground work, because of the Corporation for Broadcasting closure, as well as the Ready to Learn cuts.
Also, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting put a lot of direct funding into our programming, so PBS has money from member station dues that we would invest into programming for children. CPB often then gave additional grants to help close the gap for producers, and we are feeling the immediate effects of that right now.
For example, we’re trying to fundraise to do a “Carl the Collector” season two, or to try to get new shows off the ground. We usually launch at least one new program a year. And I think we are going to have some light years ahead. Right now, I’m looking at 2027, and we don’t currently have a show that we can launch.
In these uncertain times, what do you remain excited about?
I’m so excited that PBS is still launching brand-new characters and stories and that they are finding an audience and resonating. Our “Carl the Collector” show that launched last year features our first character who’s a child on the autism spectrum. We’re hearing from parents saying things like, “My kid is seeing himself in this show.” One mom wrote to us to say that she hadn’t told her 7-year-old son yet about his diagnosis, and he watched the show and said, “Am I autistic? Because sometimes I feel like Carl.”
That we are still able to do this, and we are still here, and parents are writing in to say, “This is so important. This is making such a difference in my kid’s life"—it says to me: We are serving a really unique purpose right now. We are still meeting our mission.
