NETA Planning Meeting
Richmond, VA
August 14, 2005
Good morning.
Thank you for inviting me to meet with you today.
In fact, this NETA meeting is so important that I've brought CPB's senior team with me.
We welcome this great opportunity for us to begin a long term dialogue about the most effective ways CPB can work with NETA to strengthen public broadcasting.
A core component of making public broadcasting stronger is education, which lies at the heart of the mission for both CPB and NETA.
NETA has its roots in educational television, and although you are deeply involved in development and outreach and production and more, the E in NETA still stands for educational.
I have been in this position for only one month, but it has been a very busy month of travel and meetings with many of your colleagues in both radio and television.
And one thing is critically clear: It is through public broadcasting that we enhance and sustain education for Americans of all ages in so many compelling and effective ways.
But the challenge for all of us is to tell this good news story about public broadcasting, to celebrate what we do in a consistent and strategic way, utilizing many supporters and endorsers from all walks of life whose lives have been changed, enhanced through programs and public broadcasting initiatives in the community.
This is a very large universe spanning decades and comprising people who are household names and those who are not known at a national level.
In the weeks and months ahead, I look forward to working with you to talk about viable ways in which viewers and listeners can have opportunities to communicate what public broadcasting means to them.
In this way, perhaps we can move beyond the debate, should public broadcasting be funded by the government to instead, how can we be even stronger connecters to community, providing a stronger lifeline to learning and support on many, many levels.
Although I am new to public broadcasting in a formal role, my involvement informally began a while ago when I was a student at American University, and interned at WAMU.
Many many years later, when I wrote my first book, America's New Women Entrepreneurs, I had the great pleasure of appearing on the Diane Rehm Show broadcast on WAMU.
When my children were small we watched Sesame Street together, and the impact of that program really hit me when my daughter Courtney wrote the letter l in my lipstick on her bedroom wall because she said, Big Bird told her to.
Then, much later, the entire family was hooked on Masterpiece Theatre.
In fact we were watching so much Masterpiece Theatre I wrote an article for Dial Magazine lamenting the fact that my kids were beginning to speak with an English accent and were upset our house did not resemble the one in upstairs downstairs.
In fact we had no upstairs.
And I believe my son's foray into television, - directing a science show, The Know Zone, albeit commercial, where he earned an Emmy, was sparked by hours and hours of watching Monty Python.
I view my role leading CPB not too dissimilar from the mission I had as Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs at the State Department.
I ran a bureau of hundreds of people, civil servants and foreign service officers, managing 30,000 non partisan educational, professional and cultural exchanges annually.
To do this we, worked with 1500 public private organizations, and 80,000 volunteers.
And I believe that our exchanges succeeded because we treated people with respect – and this non partisan, non political orientation was a key element of that respect.
This is similar to the role of public broadcasting where we treat our viewers and listeners with respect, as citizens first and not as consumers.
This is just one of the reasons I am committed to protecting the non partisan nature of public broadcasting.
The 1967 legislation which created CPB, instructed that it be free of political or government interference and that it represent a diversity of views.
And believe me after you have run 120,000 exchanges for almost four years from every country in the world, every race, every ethnicity, every economic and religious level, every political opinion, you are very comfortable hearing a diversity of views, and in fact, you welcome them.
Because of my experience at the State Department I am more convinced than ever before about the crucial role public broadcasting has to play, must play as we seek to connect to community, to inform, educate, inspire, elevate and sometimes just plain help—when help is not forthcoming from any where else.
You at the local stations are the ones who deliver on that promise every single day.
We at CPB know that, and we are committed to doing everything within our power to help you become stronger, more important institutions within your community.
Most of you know that CPB and the Affinity Group Coalition have a strategic planning process for public television that is just getting underway.
This major planning initiative – station driven and station focused – will begin to answer the question – what is the future of our nation's public television stations?
We are working to identify significant opportunities – ways for local stations to strengthen and improve the services they provide to their communities.
And as the opportunities are identified, CPB will work with you to determine how we can best support the process.
My colleagues and I want to move from concept to action – and we want to do it quickly.
This means using funds to leverage local initiatives, and to jump start new projects.
These plans are in the very early stages, and will be built on the outcome of the Affinity Group Coalition planning process.
Local stations have been the public face of public broadcasting's commitment to education right from the start.
Local - close to, connected to community — is a trust builder and we know that parents and teachers trust us to be partners in their children's learning. And we know that trust is well-placed.
Liz Carroll (a mother in Mississippi) wrote "I watch [my daughter] Grace absorb the concepts being taught in Between the Lions. She mimics what Theo, Leo, Lionel and Leona do on the show. Grace can tell me the sound of the letter or consonant even if she cannot name the letter."
This is happening in households across the country on a daily basis. And because of our commitment to Grace and thousands like her we are strengthening education at a time when our kids need all the help they can get in terms of learning.
I am not telling you anything new, but when we talk about these wonderful initiatives it is important not to assume that everyone has your knowledge base.
How many people who may have an opinion about public broadcasting know, for example, that our focus on education has been at the heart of our mission right from the start – and that it is a commitment that is evergreen.
In the very first sentence of the public broadcasting act it states:
"The Congress hereby finds and declares that it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational and cultural purposes."
Our reach – teaching and learning — is amazing whether at home, in school, at the childcare center, the elder care institution, on TV, radio and online.
I am so impressed by the depth and breadth of public broadcasting's educational initiatives, the varied audiences that we reach, and the community involvement that continues long after the show is aired.
We recently received an e-mail from Monica Revilla-Amador that I would like to share with you.
She wrote, "I was talking to my husband about how I learned how to speak English through watching Sesame Street and he told me that his 30 year old brother did as well. I am 25 years old and came to the United States from Cuba when I was 3 months old in 1980.
I began preschool in Miami and quickly discovered in my pre school other children didn't speak Spanish. I relied on the show and I never forgot how comforting the show was to me.
Now, I am a special education teacher and my brother in law is a vice principal – both living proof that kids of all different backgrounds need shows like Sesame Street."
Kids of all different backgrounds still need shows like Sesame Street and Maya and Miguel – and learners of all ages still need the opportunities that public broadcasting provides.
You know, I just wish that when my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1979, a program such as The Forgetting had been available to my mother and our family.
This primetime program combined with extensive outreach helped thousands upon thousands of families struggling with the impact of Alzheimer's disease.
Here's just one comment, from a woman in Philadelphia: "My husband is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. He was interested in the program and that made me glad. This is where the show helped: it made it easier to talk with him about what's going on. I had seen changes, but I couldn't talk with him about them. The biggest thing was to have him know that I'll be there. After seeing the show, it opened up the dialogue. Before I tried to skirt around the issue, and I felt so bad."
Then there are adult learning projects like KET's dynamic GED program that serves so many Kentuckians and in the process helps make KET one of the nation's largest providers of adult education.
Keisha Garlington, a 30-year-old mother from Lexington, Kentucky who used KET's GED at home program wrote to thank the staff for their help, encouragement and for pushing her until she received her high school equivalency diploma. She says in her letter "I have 3 children and I want them to finish school and now I can encourage them not to give up no matter how hard it is."
Perhaps you are sitting here and thinking: well, what's the big news. This is what we do. What we have always done.
But in fact, the more I learn about what you do and how lives are changed the more I see the need to educate others outside the public broadcasting family.
So they can really understand beyond what they think they know—and what our research shows. The growing importance of public television to the viewer, the family, the community. And our country.
And this importance, the trust in public broadcasting is tied to our core mission of learning and educating.
CPB's commitment to the mission of learning and educating is unwavering – as is our support for the vital work your stations do at the local level.
Let me highlight a few of the things we are doing. And let me start with a program around which many of you have built your education activities – Ready To Learn.
As you know, the Department of Education changed the focus of Ready To Learn earlier this year.
Primarily because research shows that too many of the nation's children are not reading at grade level.
Ready To Learn is focused on one goal: getting measurable improvement in the reading scores of children from low income families.
CPB and PBS have submitted a proposal to DOE for a new kind of Ready To Learn program. We've involved experts, researchers, content developers and educators who have worked with us on a comprehensive plan to expand our reach to children: at home, at school, in their neighborhoods.
And provide them – surround them, with unprecedented opportunities and invitations to read.
And we will use technology to reach the technology savvy generation with reading games they can play on line or on hand helds.
We'll include parents through their cell phones and text messages that provide tips to help their children read.
We hope to create a whole new generation of reading focused television programs that will be as entertaining and engaging as they are educational.
We're moving forward with the Ready to Lead in Literacy grant program we created earlier this summer.
So many stations have been doing such great work in terms of education over the last several years using Ready To Learn funds.
To help it along, CPB — with a lot of input from PBS and the station community, put together a competitive program that will, over a three year period, offer stations grants that they can utilize to increase and improve their Ready To Learn activities and partnerships while they develop other funding sources in their own communities.
These grants enable stations to take a leadership role in child literacy in their communities and to engage potential donors in this important work.
So far we have received proposals from 120 stations and we will make the funding announcements in early September.
We're also taking on what may be the toughest challenge and probably most important – engaging today's high school and middle school students with American history and civics.
This group represents the all important successor generation but without engagement and education now, their chances of succeeding later are diminished. These are some of the initiatives that define public broadcasting as in the public interest, adapting to changing needs and demographics, as communities needs change.
As we look to the future, I think it important to affirm the need for a long term and comprehensive strategy when it comes to programming for children and youth.
Especially because this generation of young people and those even younger, are not watching television in the same way as they did in the past.
These kids are getting text messages on cell phones bought by parents almost as soon as they can read.
They are computer savvy and if you look at their Christmas wish lists, you need a translator to understand what new technological wizardry they want under the tree.
All this means is we cannot reach them where we think we last saw them sitting.
We need to go where they are and be prepared to connect when they decide.
Having said that, the fact is cell phones and iPods are able to deliver only very short chunks of content.
And not every child nor their families can afford the latest in bells and whistles technology.
We can and must enhance our ability to reach out to the youth audience through technology but public television stations will always be the major source of substantive local and national programming for their communities.
The good news is that all the research underscores the importance of early childhood learning. And research also underscores how powerful an influence television can be in the learning process, what an effective teacher it can be.
Public broadcasting sits right at the intersection of education and technology and we are uniquely able to offer young peoples programming combining the highest entertainment value with the highest educational value.
But we cannot sit at the intersection for too long, the light is green now. And the CPB board is unanimously on board to invest in the education of young people—from preschool to high school.
This means a commitment to supporting the best in children's television programs. With an emphasis on reading.
The foundation of any program will be based on consultation with a wide range of informed publics who will help us set appropriate educational goals and measure and evaluate our success in achieving these goals.
We will also be working with you to determine how we can better involve and create partners from the communities of parents and teachers to work with us.
How we innovate with new media and online content to reengage the older kids?
How we can help local stations deliver the content to attract learners of all ages?
These are among the critical questions facing public broadcasting, and I am eager to hear more from you as we work together to answer them.
I know there's some great work being done right now. Here's just one example from Ozarks public television.
This rural Missouri station is using one of its digital channels to provide real time interactive professional development for teachers.
Several times a year, teachers throughout the region convene in a library where OPTV has installed a digital tuner card on one of the computers.
Back at the studio, a master teacher provides tips and training to those viewing. They can cut away to clips of the teacher in action, call in with their questions – all in real time.
Another example using the power and reach of public broadcasting to do something important for a community.
Arlen Diamond, director of broadcast services at Ozarks Public Television said "communities are held together by their schools and post offices."
And he's right – but I believe communities are held together by their local public broadcasting stations as well.
And in this volatile world, people are looking for ways to connect, to understand, to get the learning and information they need that public broadcasting is uniquely positioned to provide, – from person to person, from community partner to community partner, and from need to action.
That is our power and our potential. I look forward to working with you as we meet the challenge of communicating both the power and potential to all Americans.
