CPB and PBS Partner With Five Stations to Support Early Learning in Low-Income Communities

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and PBS have announced partnerships with public media stations in Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada and Oklahoma to provide early learning resources to underserved communities through an innovative community engagement model. Iowa Public Television, Nine Network (St. Louis, MO), Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, VegasPBS (KLVX) and WFYI (Indianapolis, IN), will join 11 public media stations that have been conducting similar work since December 2015.

Each station will receive an initial Community Collaboratives for Early Learning and Media (CC-ELM) grant to give young children from low-income families a strong foundation in early science and literacy by identifying and working with community partners. Station partnerships will include schools, public libraries, science centers, health clinics and housing agencies that serve high-need populations. The stations will work with community partners to implement new PBS KIDS science and literacy-based programming, mobile apps and digital games. Stations will leverage content from trusted PBS KIDS series Ready Jet Go! and The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, along with new media properties that are in development, which will address scientific inquiry and informational text for young children.

“Local public media stations play an essential role pioneering a unique community partnership model that uses public media’s high-quality children’s educational content as a catalyst for school readiness,” said Deb Sanchez, CPB’s Senior Vice President of Education and Children’s Content. “By working hand-in-glove with local organizations, public media can provide engaging learning opportunities - anytime and anywhere – for high-need children and families.”

“Through their work on the ground in communities across America, PBS stations play an integral role in helping our nation’s most underserved kids succeed in school and in life,” said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Children’s Media and Education, PBS. “PBS is thrilled to bring five more stations on board for this innovative project, which builds on years of research demonstrating that PBS KIDS content is effective in helping children learn critical math and literacy skills, with kids in low-income households making the greatest gains.”

This effort is part of a five-year grant awarded to CPB and PBS through the U.S. Department of Education’s Ready To Learn Initiative to advance new tools supporting personalized and adaptive content for children and parents, establish a network of community collaboratives and conduct efficacy research on the educational resources provided.

About CPB
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of nearly 1,500 locally owned and operated public television and radio stations nationwide. CPB is also the largest single source of funding for research, technology and program development for public radio, television and related online services. For more information, visit www.cpb.org and follow us on Twitter @CPBmedia, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

About PBS KIDS
PBS KIDS, the number one educational media brand for kids, offers all children the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television, digital platforms and community-based programs.  Kidscreen- and Webby-award winning pbskids.org provides engaging interactive content, including digital games and streaming video. PBS KIDS also offers mobile apps to help support young children’s learning. The PBS KIDS Video App is available on a variety of mobile devices and on platforms such as Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Xbox One and Chromecast. For more information on specific PBS KIDS content supporting literacy, science, math and more, visit pbs.org/pressroom, or follow PBS KIDS on Twitter and Facebook.

About The Ready To Learn Initiative
The Ready To Learn Initiative is a cooperative agreement funded and managed by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement. It supports the development of innovative educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families. Its general goal is to promote early learning and school readiness, with a particular interest in reaching low-income children. In addition to creating television and other media products, the program supports activities intended to promote national distribution of the programming, effective educational uses of the programming, community-based outreach, and research on educational effectiveness.

The contents of this release were developed under a grant from the Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government. The project is funded by a Ready To Learn grant (PR/AWARD No. U295A150003-16, CFDA No. 84.295A) provided by the Department of Education to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.