Beloved children’s program “Sesame Street” has been around for almost 55 years, bringing all kinds of joy and happiness to its young viewership—and, honestly, a lot of parents too. But what happens when it’s defunded by the federal government and access to it becomes limited to kids all around the world?
PBS Kids is an extremely iconic educational brand responsible not just for Big Bird and friends but also numerous other shows that make learning fun for children, including “Super Why!” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood”, just to name a few. There are over 130 million people annually watching PBS Kids, so imagine how disrupted and disappointing the American people—not to mention the global community—must feel hearing the latest news from Washington, D.C. about how public broadcasting will face severe cuts..
In July, President Donald Trump signed a rescissions package (an official reversal of previously announced and allocated funds) to eliminate funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This public corporation not only funds the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) but also NPR (National Public Radio) and the Next Generation Warning System (NGWS), which helps upgrade and maintain emergency alerts of all kinds, from weather events like tornadoes or hurricanes to AMBER alerts and active shooter situations.
When this shutdown of public broadcasting was officially announced by the CPB in August, parents and educators alike started wondering what the educational replacement for PBS might be. The Prager University Foundation, known more commonly as PragerU, is a media organization that describes itself as a “pro-America broadcasting system” and has explicitly stated since 2022 in its annual report that it aims to go “toe-to-toe with massive youth companies like PBS Kids.” One of PragerU’s many controversies was a lesson on George Floyd, whom they described as “a Black man who resisted arrest.” In truth, George Floyd was killed by a police officer who, in turn, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to prison for 22 years. Eyewitness testimony in the case also confirms Floyd was not resisting the arrest—just the brutality. This appeared both on their news source created for adults as well as the kids’ website.
In November 2023, PragerU also released a short film called “Detrans: The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care”. The narrative follows two people who start going through a gender transition at a young age, then, at an older age, they decide to detransition. The film states that the individuals interviewed were “manipulated by the trans movement,” and after detransitioning, they are against gender-affirming care for minors, arguing young trans people will “just grow out of it” when they’re older. Neither the “documentary” nor any other resources on PragerU offer an alternate perspective from trans people.
“As far as children’s programming [goes], no political sense should be a part of it at all,” Columbia Heights High School (CHHS) English teacher Ms. Michelle Douglas said. “Children’s programs should be about learning, not about politics.”
Regardless of one’s political leanings, one thing is clear—kids’ educational content is officially lacking the public backing of the federal government, which means the future is uncertain for the intersection of media and learning.
