Paula Kerger of PBS wants viewers to know: “We’re still here and we are even more resolved to do great work.”
As the president and chief executive officer of the network, she has seen it endure a barrage of cuts by the current presidential administration, which eliminated funding to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the organization that administered funds to PBS TV affiliates and NPR radio stations, leading to its dissolution. Additionally, last May, the Department of Education abruptly canceled the Ready to Learn initiative. This funding, which had been renewed every five years since 1995, focused on creating educational media and resources for children ages 2 through 8. In particular, the initiative aimed to reach low-income children.
“Half the kids in this country are not enrolled in any kind of formal Pre-K,” Kerger says. “And the Department of Education has always felt that we were an important partner in producing content very much focused on the needs of kids. Particularly those kids that, unless there is some intervention, will be far behind the kids that have access to lots of other educational resources.”
In each five-year grant cycle, Ready to Learn helped fund the development of two to three new shows, allowing PBS to launch at least one new children’s show a year. Over the years, the Ready to Learn initiative has funded beloved PBS Kids programs including “Odd Squad,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” “Arthur,” “Sesame Street, “Super Why,” “Molly of Denali” and “Lyla in the Loop.”
Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager, PBS Kids and Education, says the sudden cancellation of the Ready to Learn funding resulted in a $20-million annual loss that led to immediate layoffs (the PBS Kids team was reduced by 30%), unexpected pencils down on ongoing research and a scrambling for funding. “This is a longstanding program that’s been very stable and has a lot of bipartisan support because it is focused on early childhood development, on school readiness and also thinking about the kids who are likely to have the least amount of access to high-quality preschool,” DeWitt says.
On Monday, “Phoebe & Jay,” the last PBS Kids program to receive funding from the Ready to Learn initiative, will premiere. The animated series, from co-creators and executive producers Genie Deez and Thy Than, follows 6-year-old twins Phoebe and Jay Yarber who live in the Tobsy Towers apartment building with their father and grandmother. The series focuses on functional literacy and how literacy skills can be woven into our everyday lives, whether it’s following laundry directions on a clothing tag, figuring out an address to deliver a package or labeling food for allergy awareness.
This is Deez’s first series and he’s thrilled to be part of the PBS legacy. “Thy and I are PBS kids,” Deez says. “We’ve always been fans and disciples of this institution.”
The series, Than says, is very story-driven. “We want to reflect what real kids would experience. So Phoebe and Jay are off on their adventure, they run into a problem and how does this everyday text help them solve the problem?”
Than calls it the “Mr. Miyagi effect,” referring to the iconic mentor in the “Karate Kid” movies. “You don’t know that you’re learning because it’s very interwoven into the storyline, so it seems very seamless.”
Kelly B. Cartwright, the lead curriculum advisor on the series, says engaging young viewers with literacy in this way is critical. “This program helps kids to see in very concrete ways that text things are not just for the grown-ups. The text things are for everyone. Reading is for everyone. Literacy is for everyone. Text is an important thing that we use to accomplish goals in life,” says Cartwright, professor of early child literacy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “Knowing that gives them the motivation to want to learn how to read, to want to understand what text is for, what it can do for them. It’s very empowering for little people to realize that they have those tools.”
The Ready to Learn funding also allowed for local stations to have in-person programming. PBS SoCal will host a screening of the series Feb. 21 at the Compton Library, where Deez and Than will be in attendance for a question-and-answer session afterward and there will be a character meet and greet. “It’s great for little kids to see themselves on the screen and feel seen,” Than says. “Because Genie and I, when we grew up, we really didn’t feel seen because the programming wasn’t like that. So, to be able to reflect our lived experience, to reflect our community right now is one of our intentional goals.”
For example, Than thought it was important that Phoebe, who is Black, have three distinct hairstyles. “Black ladies and Black little girls love their hair and they love their hairstyles and I wanted to represent that,” she says.
“Those details matter,” Deez says. “Kids notice those details. Noticing Phoebe’s hairstyles, the grading in Jay’s hair. The difference in skin tones. The texture of their world. How the carpet is maybe a little bit worn and there’s a little bit of a water stain. All those details get picked up. People see themselves and that’s empowering.”
That attention to detail is precisely what sets PBS apart when it comes to its programming, which is why the sudden halting of the research for children’s shows may have the biggest long-term effect on the network’s series. “We’re different than any other media organizations [in how] we think about kids,” Kerger says. “Everyone else is thinking about how do you create sticky content? How do you create content that’s just gonna keep kids watching and wanting to watch more and more? But, for us, it’s not enough just to keep kids watching and entertained.”
Kerger says for PBS, how many views a show gets isn’t necessarily a measure of success. “Our purpose is for kids to come away from the experience with certain learnings that the early childhood educators say are important, particularly for kids before they walk into school the first time,” she says. “We want to make sure the kids are actually coming out of their experience watching and interacting with the show with the knowledge that we’re hoping they take away.”
DeWitt calls the loss of this research data “tragic.” “Not just for our understanding of the shows, but for the industry, for educators, for media professionals and for researchers. It’s work that extends well beyond what we’re doing at PBS and really informs the whole field of how can kids learn from media? What are the ways to do it most effectively? It’s a loss for the entire industry.”
The immediate effect to “Phoebe & Jay” after the cuts was a delay to the show’s launch from last fall until now, an extended rollout of new episodes and scrambling to fill the funding gap so the show could complete its 40 episodes. “Phoebe & Jay” will also launch with two games, which help children practice the lessons they learn from the show in fun and engaging ways. Unlike so many other platforms with children’s content, PBS Kids is free and the games on the PBS Kids app can be downloaded so that even if a family doesn’t have consistent access to Wi-Fi, the games will still be accessible. “That’s a pretty expensive feature to keep up,” DeWitt says. “Right now, unless we can fundraise to maintain that, that’s one of the things that’s about to be lost.”
Despite the funding setbacks, DeWitt and Kerger remain positive about the future and the prospect of finding new funders for “Phoebe & Jay” and other series that focus on educational storytelling. “I feel like there’s so many more stories to tell here,” DeWitt says. “It’s pretty unusual for there to be an original IP [intellectual property] coming out at kids’ space right now. And this is a brand new property from a first-time creator, and a creative team who has been working in the industry, but hasn’t ever told their own stories. I feel like that’s exciting.”
For Kerger it comes down to “the partnership with the public that the P in PBS stands for.” “For years and years we’ve said ‘and thanks to viewers like you’ and it’s viewers like you that are going to make sure we are here not only for the now but for the forever.”
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