Don't know who, if anyone, reads this anymore, but in the spirit of serendipitous stumblings...Sad, sad day today. As many of you are aware PBS stopped producing new episodes in 2006, and as of today Reading Rainbow will no longer be broadcast - new, reruns, nothing. NPR reports: "The show's run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights." (http://www.npr.org/templates/
These are a few efforts floating around out there:
petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.
facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.
And, I guess this is my conversation starter... I know all good things must come to an end, but is there an equally amazing alternative for early literacy learners via this TV/entertainment medium? The NPR article talks about "back to basics" and testing contributing to the show's downfall and lack of interested funding. Sesame Street is still going strong. I know very little about Between the Lions, but know it to be quite good. But is there anything else like Reading Rainbow? I've been suddenly thrown into quite a lot of discussions and reflections today. From everything I ever knew about booktalks ("but you don't have to take my word for it") to crosscurricular content awareness between and within books and so much more - I can trace a substantial portion of it back to Reading Rainbow.
Also, is it really only "several hundred thousand dollars"? How does such a legend not have any advocates, or enough advocates with enough cash? Am I just naive about the big world of operating costs and funding?
3 comments:
We can only hope that with the attention the story has generated today alone(especially through Twitter)that someone, whether they be in the entertainment industry or not, cares enough to want to help save something that was a big part of the lives of children and adults alike.
I signed and I will be keeping the petition link on both my Twitter and Facebook pages.
Thank you! I'm expecting to hear back from a few people today about what our next steps might be. Cross your fingers!
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