*Pecial Programs for Professionals0 the Young, and the Klihd;

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ND 166 763 CS 502 421 AUTHOR Carlisle, Robert D. B., Comp TITLE Patterns of Performance Putlic Broadcasting and Education 1974=1976. INSTITUTION Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Washington, D.C. PUB DATE 78 NOTE 147p.; Small print may be marginally legille

EDRS PRICE, MF-$0.83 HC-$7.35 Plus Postage.. DESCRIPTORS Adults; Broadcast Industry; *Educational Radio; *Educational Television; Elementary Secondary Education; Instructional Media; Junior Colleges; Mass Instruction; Media Research; Postsecondary EduCation; Preschool Children; *Programing (Broadcast); *Public Television; Telecommunication; lelecourses ABSTRACT Intended as a practical invertory of ways that public broadcasting has been used for education, this volume is divided into three sections that depl with teievisicr,, radio, and research articles. The section on television discusses the method, material, and changing context of educational hroadcasting; analyzes the programing and funding of preschool television;compares different approaches- to- programing for the:school age child; and describesa number of approaches for teaching the adult learner. The sectionon radio presents a status report on education through radio including *pecial programs for prOfessionals0 theyoung, and the klihd; distinguishes the role of radio at various educational levels; and summarizes the needs of the radio industry if it is to expand. The final section contains research articles. cn'satellite technology and public service telecommunication, open learring and. postsecondary education,the effectiveness of "The Electric Company," and the role of instructional television in the educational community. (MAI)

**** * *** *************************** **** **4411444*41 Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best thatcan he made from the original document. **** ************************ ******** ************************ * V DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION &WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF 643 EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN. ATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE- SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

PATTERNS OF PERFORMANCE: Public Broadcasting an MEducation 1974 -1976

Compiled by Robert D.13_ Carlisle

Office of Educational Activities Corporation for Public Broadcasting

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Corporation for Pub isBroadcasting TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) AND USERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM." Patterns of Performance: Public Broadcasting and Education 1974-1976

No reproduction of this book in wholeor in part, by mimeograph or any other means, isauthorized without written-permission. For informationwrite: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting 1111 Sixteenth Street, N.W. Washington D.C. 20036

ISBN 0-89776-004-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-068395

Additional copies may be obtained for $3.00 Foreword

Under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, CPBwas charged with aiding the development, encouraging the growth,and tracking the progress of public broadcasting, including itsuses for, and services to, instruction. Recently, CPB's Office of Educational Activities hascompleted, with support from the National Center for EducationStatistics, the first nationwide survey of the instructionaluses of television in the nation's elementary and secondary schools. Extensivere- ports of the findings will be issued throughout 1978. Results of other Educational Activities' surveys which provide additional information about public stations' services to learners of allages will be reported in 1978. But to look only at such data would not reveal allone should know about the complex sets of relationships thatcharacterize the efforts of public broadcasting and educationto work together. This volume offers insights about the human sideof these efforts and looks at some of the successes, failures, and beyIssues occurring since 1974. Commissioned articles provide specialfo- cuses. What follows mostly is a recounting ofone man's journeya reporter passing through the scene from 1974 to 1976visitinga handful of locations where something significantor promising happened or seemed likely tooccur in the long, often convoluted history of public broadcasting and education. The tone of the volume is upbeat, and rightlyso, we at CPB believe. Surely success is not everywhere, andperhaps in not enough instances, but certainly itoccurs in many diverse and often disparate places where public broadcasters andeducators are working together to better the quality of American Life. This volume is not a compendium ofsuccess and failure,. but it is a useful documentation that much of importanceis indeed happen- ing, and-that much more remains to be done.

Henry Loomis President, Corporation for P-Iblic Broadcasting Contents

Foreword/iii Acronyms/ix AcknovvIedgements/xi Section One: Television/1 Preface/3 Educational Broadcasting: A New Look/5 The Method and the Material The Changing Ci3ntext For the Preschool Child/15 Change in the Programmers' Ways and Means Pre-K Series: A Status Report Dollars for Pre-K Programs For the School Years/23 A Difference in Programming Agency for Instructional Television (AIT) Great Plains National ITV Library (GPN) International Instructional Television Cooperative (ITV Co-op) Ontario Educational Communications Aulhority (OECA) Western Instructional Television, Inc. (WITV) Commercial Suppliers The State of Utilization On the Research Side Out of Today, Tomorrow's Possibilities Appendix I: Structures in ITV's World/41 Appendix II: A Sampling of Utilization Data/49 Appendix Ill: School TV Utilization Study: Preliminary Findings /53 For the Adult Learner/61 Broadcast College-Credit Courses College Degree Tracks Credit in Prime Time In-service Courses Courses for Business, Industry and Professions Remedial Learning for Adults Informal Learning Among the Headlines Advocates for Open Learning Problems Still Persist Section Two: Radio/79 Education Through Radio: AStatuseport Part of the Scenery Public Radio and Education A Spectrum of Services Many Signals for Young Minds Radio-Delivered College Credit Virginia's HEAR Project Messages for the Professional Messages for the Blind Another Option Log for Tomorrow Public Radio in Education:An Overview/95 Terms and Distinctions Audio Distribution Elementary-Secondary Instruction by Radio Post-Secondary Instruction by Radio Other Roles for Public Radio inEducation The Policy Questions Conclusions Summary_ : To Harness the Potential/105 The Debate Goes On The State of the Art: A PersonalView Larger Budgets Strong National Commitments New Leaders Added Awareness Efforts More Variety in Delivery Greater Majority Section Three: Articles/113 Satellite Technology: Satellites andPublic Service Telecommunication/115 Public Service Management: The BenevolentDilemma The Heart of the Matter: Aggregation The Concentration on Requirements The Continuing Education Network The Prior Question: Why Satellites? PSSC and the Public BroadcastingInterconnection System Getting Started: Experiments and Demonstrations Shaping Technology to Suit Requirements How About the PSSC Satellite? The Question of Software And In Conclusion Open Learning: The Case.ofa Marriage/11. Coastline: Background Coastline: Operations Telecourse Design Telecourse Operations

vi Enrollment Coastline: Results

Research: The Eleclric Company and the School 'Marketplace/27 Early Developments Teachers and Television Documenting the Effectiveness of The Electric Company The Lincoln Heights Story Investment in ITV: Hunt for the Wiser Answer /x.37 On Confining Quicksilver Setting for Genesis Formula and Procedure: A Prologue A Checklist for QueStioners Acronyms

Advisory Council of National Org. anizations/ACNO Agency for Instructional -Television/AIT Applications Technology Satellite/ATS Central Educational Network/CEN Children's Television Workshop/CTW Communications Technology Satellite/CTS Corporation for Public Broadcasting/CPB Division of Educational Teclinology/DET 'Eastern EducationalTelevision Network/EEN Eastern Regional Council for Educational Television/ERCE-TV Educational Broadcasting Facilities Program/EBFP Educational Research Information Center /ERIC Educational-Television/ETV Educational Testing Service/E1S Emergency School Aid Act/ESAA Full-Time Equivalent Student/FTE Student Fund for Improvement of Post-secondary Education/FIPSE General Educational Development/GED Great Plains National Instructional Television Library/GPN Higher Education Applications of Radio/HEAR International Instructional Television Cooperative/ITV Coop Instructional Television/ITV Instructional TelevisionFixed Service /ITFS Kentucky Educational Television/KET Massachusetts Educational Television/MET Milwaukee Area Technical College/MATC Minnesota Public Radio/MPR' National Assessment of Educational Progress/NAEP National Association of Educational Broadcasters/NAEB National Center for Education Statistics/NCES National'Endowment for the Humanities/NEH National Institute of Education/NIE National Instructional Television/NIT National Public Radio/NPR New England Instructional Television Research Center/NETRC Office of Policy Development /OPD Office of Telecommunications Policy/OTP. Ontario Educational Communications Authority/MCA Post-Secondary Education/PSE Public Broadcasting Service/PBS Public Interest Satellite Association/PISA Public Service Satellite Consortitim/PSSC Public Television/PTV- Regional-Schools Contract Planning Committee /RSCPC RSCPC Cornmittee/RISKIP Research Triangle Institute/RTI Response System with Variable Prescriptions/RSVP School TV Utilization Study/SUS Subsidiary Communications Authorization/SCA Southern California Consortium for Community College Television/TELECON Southern Educational CommunicationsAssociation/SECA State 14iiversity of Nebraska/SUN Top of ANbamalkegional Education ServiceAgency/TERESA University of Mid-America/UMA United States Office of Education/USOE Virginia Public Telecommunications Cou VPTC Video Tape Recorder/VTR Western Educational Network/WEN Western Instructional Television, Inc./WITV Acknowledgements

This publication would not have been possiblewithout-the con- tributions of many individuals. First, the dedicationand energy of Robert D. B. Carlisle, who compiled the materialin this text from a wide number of sources, is responsible for much that went into this book. UM Udkoff, assistant to Mr. Carlisle, andresearch assist- ants Arlene Pike and Station Rice provideda large measure of supportive contribution as well. Steve Millard edited the basictext. In addition, constructive editorial advice andcomments were provided by a number of individuals from theeducational broadcasting community including: Eva Archer; DianaBliss, Barbara Cole, Shirley Gillette, Clyde Green, Dr.J. Terrence Kelly, Dr. Ber- nardLuskin, Dr. Otto F. Schlaak, Rhea Sikes andHoward Spergel. Thanks goes to thoge who contributed articles. Thediscussions enhance the educational perspective in publicbroadcasting. Th include: Robert Carlisle, writer consultant;Dr. Bernard Luskin, president Coastline Community College; Dr.Edward Palmer, Executive Director, Children's Television Workshop; JahnWither- spoon, president, Public Service Satellite Consortium; andDr. Elizabeth Young, Director TelecommunicationCenter, Ohio State University. It should be noted that the opinions andcontributions of the authors reflect their respective personalviews and are not neces sarily those of the Corporation for PublicBroadcasting. In addition, a special thanks to Stanley Harrison.CPB Publica- tions Manager, for overall stipervision of thaeditorial text and management of production and for the assistance of EleanorMiller, Assistant to the Publications Manager, CPB, inseeing this book to publication. Brian Brightly, Project Manager

Preface

As my life and opinions are likelyto make some noise in the world, and, will take in all ranks, professions, and denomina- tions of men Whateverbe no less thanPilgrim's Progress itself and in the end, prove the very thing whichMontaigne dreaded his Essays should turn out, that is,a book for a parlour - window 1 find it necessary to consultevery one a little in his turn....

ever great expectations Tris- while national statistics, but found them tram Shandhad for his Life either inappropriate or unavailable. To com- and Opinions two centuries ago pensate, we moved in the direction of citing present a sly parallel to this re local instances as a suggestion of quality, "port. Let me explain more briefly than Mr. if not quantity, of activity in the field. Shandy did. In our research, we found a pattern: the First, do not expect to learn about the state of this art is advancing. The peopleare writer's life and opinions here. Thiswas not more able, more sophisticated; the work is our mission.- As it described the project in better; the results are more tangible and mid-1976, the Corporation for Public Broad- convincing than they were, say, half a dozen casting (CPB) did hope thatwe could make years ago, or less. sane noise. We even expecteda bit more readership than Pilgrim's Progress has these On the Report's Beginnings days. But we have never assumed that the In a real sense, these pages directly y follow book would wind upon family coffee tables. those written in 1974 by John P. Wither- In fact; our horizons have been somewhat spoon. His State of the Art:1 Study of limited by the nature of our subject. You'll Current Practices and Trends in Educational hardly find here as much amusementas you Uses of Public Radio and Television, dated would in Tristram Shandy's delightful 'tale. August 1, 1974, was prepared for the Ad- Insteid, we would hope you'll find thesevisory Council of National Organizations pages to be useful in your work with, and (ACNO) and CPB. concern for, the applications of public tele- The Witherspoon report was background vision and radio in education. for ACNO in meeting its February 1074 Looking to provide a practical referencecommission froth CPB to "study and make document, the writer set out "to consult recommendations on the role of the CPB in -every one a little in his turn ..." Six months the relationship of public-_,broadcasting and later, this was the inventory which has so- education." By March 1975, that assessment cumulated: was done. Titled Public Broadcasting and 111 letters written in search of informa-EduCation, the- "ACNO report" expressed tion; the labor of four- task forces made up of 55 6 73 interviews, 52 of them inperson; individuals. With stimulus from the ACNO study, 134 pages of notes transcribed froth theCPB's. Board of Diredtors, nieeting April 13, audiotapes; and 1976, adopted a ,resolution embodying a' A-stack' of documents 101.6 centimeters "Preliminary Statement of Goals and Objec- high. tives for CPR's Educational Activities." The In spite of this crush of Materials, it waspreamble statedf never our plan to cover all parts of # com-.'It is a mission of the Corporation for Public plex field (vintage 1976-77). Rather, we have Broadcasting actively to seek ways in which wanted to give you a sense of what has beeneducational television and radio canmore going- on in public broadcasting'suses foreffectively contribute to meeting the needs education. We planned to exploitany worth- of learners and becothe an integral part of an educational service, bothformal and in- ties of involved organizations, and evalu- °rata], to the American people. ation of progress. CPB's Directors then endorsed three broad This CPB Board action established the goals and eleven objectives.It wou'.d be pattern. Working withinitsthreadlines, Coal I to "make better use of existing na- CPB's Office of Educational Activities pro- tional resourcesprograms, print materials, ceeded to initiate these ten projects: personnel, physical system." Under this came. these objectives: 1. A nationalInstructionalTelevision (ITV)utilizationsurvey coveringtele- 1.Increase awareness of availablere- vision use in elementary and secondary sources;_ schools; 2.Develop methods to extend the use of 2. The CPB-Public Broadcasting Service high quality programming presently avail- (PBS) ITV Awareness Project; able for nationwide distribution; ITV and radio-instruction field survey_ s 3.Develop and implement methods of of stations; measuring the effectiveness of current resources; and 4. A -technology cost-comparison study due in the Fall of 1977; 4.Increase utilization of the available sys tern. 5.Guidelines for print development: a survey of past and current projects; Goal II was this: "Create new resources to meet the needs of a broad range of nation- 5.Preparation, distribution, and evalua- wide audiences." The individual objectives: tion of secondary-school teacher guides for the science series NOVA; 1.Assess needs of learners; 7.Experimental projects to be conducted 2.Create new programs and accompany- by severallicensees,in the Eastern Edu ing ancillaryapaterials; cationpl Television Network (EEN) during, "TV for Learning' Week;" 3. Assist in the devel ent of flexible '123 delivery 'systemsto seteducational B. National Public Radio (NPR) Educa- needs and reach learlie s not currently tional Services Study; served; 9. A demonstration project foradult 4.Assist in the development of utiliza- learners focused on stimulating increased tion plans which help educational institu- programactivityusingtelevisionfor tions and individual learners.make better delivery; and use of programs and materials; and 10. A sequel to the 1974 State of the Art, Find additional financial resources to that is, a report on the various services extend the scope of activities describv1 in rendered by public TV and radio at vari- objectives one through four. ous levels of education. For. Goal III, the Board directed CPB, to Some very devoted men and women have "project future needs, new goals, and means spent years clearing the ground fortwhatiis for reaching these goals." Two objectives today the reasonably solid edifice of instruc- were defined: tional broadcasting.. Through their toil, 'the 1. Compile a continuous assessment of drafty log cabin has been moved piece by the needs of learners; and piece and put under glass in the museum. These chapters have been written with re- 2.Design long-range goals (ten years) and spect and admiration for what they have mid-range goals (five years). Develop a achieved. systematic plan of steps needed to reach.` the goalstime-table, costs, responsibili- Robert D. B. Carlisle

4 Educational Broddcastirig: A New -Look oung as itis,1 educational broad- dentists, and 2,656 paraprofessionals. Others casting has been on trial for years, came from new kinds of institutions. Most- It has had a mixed presswhen it isible was a nontraditional study project, has had any at all. Some witnesses the University of Mid-America (UMA) which assure us that its quite alive, quite well: uses TV, audio and other media to offer others assert with equal vigor thatit adults college courses. at home; by the Fall ready for the glue factory. of 1976, it had recorded 4,051 enrollments in For once, however,_ the optimists may four states,for :17 courses most of them have gained the upper hand. At all levels, credit-bearing. there is evidence. of better programs and heightened commitment. On the national scene, for example, there is the continuedexcellence, and expanding variety, of children's programs.. There is the decision by CPO, in January of 1977, to grant 6216,424 for the "Essential Learning Skills" project of the Agency for Instructional Tele- vision (AIT) CPB's first commitment ever to help fund a formal in-school series. There isthe successful sale "of almost 75,000 copies of -books related to the first national broadcasts of The Adams Chronicles, and the 30,000 viewers who enrolled for college credit. There is the decision by directors of National Public Radio, to create a new staff function on educational activities; .rriean- while, the NPR series Options in :Education drew almost 1,000 listeners' letters' in May and June of 1976. Within. regional boundaries,thelistof examples was no less varied. Some of the activity carne from The 13 hour-long segments- of The Adams regional networks: for example, the Central Chronicles prompted salesof 75.000 books Educational. Network: (CEN),`-''throughits relating to the series: three-yearoldITV-. service,providedits members '32_.series totalling 846 Programs Elsewhere, at local levels, the evidence of a 340 per cent,increaseOvnr the, year before growth and change was limited only by the and saved thim $54,000 through "group sweep of the inquiry. One could turn in any buy" contracts. Another educational service direction, for example : originated with individual' stations slich as Wisconsin, where a survey of 1,100 resi- WAMC=FM in Albany,- New York. Through dents by the American Revolution Bicenten- its subcarrier channel, the station continued nial Commission revealed that ,educational -two-way,,radio conferences for physicians radio and television ranked third among'the in six Northeastern state's (7,513 doctors in state services they, see as beneficial' to them 1975-76), and generated other continuing- (trailing only highways and parks); education sequences for 5,354 nurses, 595 South Carolina, where the state's- ETV

1 Modern educational-broadcasting turns 24 much older; it began in 1919 at WHA's prede- this spring a dating thtiederives from theopen- cessor in Madison, Wis.f By comparison, the ing in May 1953 of KURT, the educational TV phonograph had its 100th birthday in 1997; film station licensed to the University of Houston. is 75; even the futuristic transistor is 30. (Educational brobdcasting itselfI f course tiT

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11=116Nid, Ctimmon prwincp.1 hy KKIV, :41, Louis, and distributed bythe Agency for Instructiorial Chuirli-Cli 1,001(.111010 Ili the series.

. .pai;seil one million in studenteri -tan was bound to spot another kinclof evi- oiliments tor the lira time in1975-19FG clencereminding the onlooker that it isn't took huhu courses at all rosy, nOr has it ever been. 1)2 school,: One major public TV station withan $a Chicago, .,-her, ,:tutioo \\ITNA. cirt, about million budget (WETi \, Washington,D.C.) houshobir and mllet-noesmore has had no structured ITV service forsev- :amon, fo'y its vrekly Saturday telecasts eral years, and has' found no concertedcry of high-schOol -equivalency r:ourse.-- (from for it from local schools, Kentin:l, Editi:ational Television); In Chicago, -,vrrw drastically altered- its Cleveland, where ITV enrollment jumped daytimel'I'Vlitoven dropped the term 20 per cent in1,975-71i to 91/3,712 (26 sorif:s -ITV") three years ago. Meeting withschool= 11;1(1 meet' thatI 710.(100 a'.'ers)and tvlit,vrt! system repreSentatives, the station ma nJgee, the oniput ['TV-program cassettes'filar William J, McCarter, had found "consider- closed:circuit inschrrolsisdoubling able disenchantment" with the traditional philosophy of ITV; when he askedone of Kentw:ky, win nut of ten elemen- the educators what sortof programming tary children 1,1e-4 eil ITV on a regular basis would be useful, the replywas: -If I could insets Kentucky,-Eilucatiimal Television got an edited version of 'Bridge on the River ..\( cording ti) a KET survey of teacli. Kwai' for cassette play to teacha lesson on yrs. 52 per tent use:KET broadcasts: among pride, I'd rather have that than all the ITV those with TV se.tin their room, 79 pair offered in the system." As for what WTTW cent use the service:1. transmits, the staff makes the choice. At that Indiana, vhuire thi'ir spread of instructional time, the morning included: Sesame Street, could he si411.in Purdue's new Oft.ine 1'111: Electric Compony, Mister Rogers' Neigh- id Instructional NIatcrials which allottr:da borhood, tVordsmith, Infinity Factory, Cover lull year for producing asradio course on to Cover, Bread & Butterflies,Corrasco- personal finance. The project calls for de- lendus,, VillaAlegre.And whopicks? sign. recording of 'location actualities, and McCarti.r said "We'vemade the selection.- piloting;it sharp row rast to the unadorned Lineal threadscan he found elsewhere. recording HItraditionallecture courses a In one New England slate, a Department of year ago. Education survey of teachers showed that 1Xithout question, !real ground has been only 12 per cent 'were using ITV program- gained in edocational;Throadcasting ina few ming. The public TV licensee in the state short ars.Still, any research outing in started rebuilding during this academicyear, although, "definitely hampered by a lack of , on. In Fresno, California, a new school- publicity." licensed station (KMTF) was expecting to Lack of awareness can hurt, so may lower go on the air early in 1977. After innumer- enrollments. Zealously committed to ITV, able years, a new copyright law was in Cleveland's WVIZ last year studied p'opula- place, calling for a shakedown period for tion figures in 40 of its school systems. Its public broadcasters. projection: by 1985, the station might lose Meanwhile, KET was moving ahead'early one-third of its membership. in 1977 to funnel $1.1 million worth of new With _production qualityskyrocketing, equipment to Kentucky schools. At the same some educational series have pulled doWn time, it was designing a concentrated anal- major awards (for example, Inside /Out won ysis of ITV wage patterns in selected school a national Emmy in 1974; KBPS-AM Port- districts. And atthe Mitchell School in land, Ore., won an Ohio State award in 1975 Needham, Mass., Mrs. Helen George for the for. Who Cares?), Other projects have fallen fourth year was using Inside/Out in second- short. After one season and the outlay of grade classroom. As the programs played, more than $7 million, the Children's Tele- she found again that "you could hear a pin vision Workshop (CTW) shelved its health- drop: the children are so attentive they education series Feeling Good. To Virginia become completely absorbed in what's hap- Fox, Associate Executive-Director of Ken- pening on the screen" tucky Educational Telev,j,sion, that cancella- So the work does go on, and change dis- Oion by CTW President Joan Ganz Cooney cards the outmoded. This report will try to was "one of the bravest, most important join the onlookers. steps taken in ITV." Still, it cut deep when the front-running, persistently praised CTW The Method and the Material faltered. Basically, the, three sections of thisreport will be built, outward from the learner. The Nor was it comforting to scan last fall's spectrum will stretch, from children in pre- enrollment figures for the University of Mid- kindergarteneducationalexperiences,to, America, with its media-borne courses serv- adults who involve ,themselves in lifelong ing residents within reach of a six-state learning. consortium of public universities. The Fall In keeping with this approach, the first 1976 total of 750 adults contrasted with a high four chapters and appendices treat high- of 1,260 in Fall 1975, and 969 in Spring 1976. lights of the past two years in the preschool The decrease represented "a situation which area, the school yearskindergarten through apparently was repeated all across the coun- grade 12, and opportunities -for the adult try," according to Milan Wall, UMA's Di- learner. rector of Public Affairs and Information The second section considers radio's place Services.2 in education. Included is an article by Dr. At the very least, the UMA report was Elizabeth L., Young, Director of the Tele- discouraging to the project officer for this communications Center at Ohio State Uni- regional institution's largest [under, the Na- versity, who reviews current _applications of tional Institute of Education (NIE). Said Dr. instructional radio and audioand suggests Jerome Lord, chief of NIE's Open Learning ways in which those activities might be re- Systems Branch: "I take a very short bredth thought. when I read those enrollment figures." But Finally,thethird section contains sev- those in educational broadcasting are used eral articles: satellites for education, open to riding a see-saw, and nothing stays the learning for adults and the impact of a same for long in this field. UMA is pushing specific program like The Electric Company. on, planning toward the end of the decade. In one article, "The Hunt for the Wiser This report cannotfairlyfreeze-frame Answer," the writer sketches the Virginia UMA, or any other agency. The work goes Public Telecommunications Council as one mddel for formalizing some cost-and-effi- Miami -Dade Community College's Open Col- ciency questions that public broadcasters lege, which exploits TV, radio and computerized feedback, has run into the same decline. heed to answer. Fall 1976 enrollments in nine courses totaled Throughi;ut these pages,we will deal with 1,495, compared with 1,964 for nine series in both the environment and practice of edur Winter 1976 and 2,219 for eight series in.Fall 1975. national communications. ITV arid instruc- 7 6 ,e0

Produced by the Agency for,Instructional Television for junior high'school stbdents, Self- Incorporated deals with the issue. ofemotional' health. The scene above programs in that series, "No Trespassing." is from one of the

tional radio have to live within educationas "apple's and oranges" problem whensets a whole and this report must stake out some of statistics are irreconcilablethechapters of the constraining issues in American edu- will lean away from the numbers andto- cation! In one way or another, these issues ward the illustrative anecdotes.' such as higher education's search fornew These pages will also look for perceptible customersaffect the use of media to meet trendssuch as the modest but visiblein- academic goals. crease in ITV uses at the secondary school To illustrate the current workings of edu- level. As an introductory illustration take cational broadcasting, the report willdraw the series Self-Incorporated. Intendedfor on the wealth of anecdote at hand forany junior-high students and released early in investigator who listenS well. And,where 1970, it was seen by 38,000 students in Iowa, possible, a statistical backdrop will bepro- or 23 per cent of that state's enrollment in jected. "Where possible" isan important grades 7 to 9. Meanwhile, KET's caveat: not all public broadcasters ask the new and well-produced The Universe andI- has same questions or stick to the same ground reached 15 per cent of Kentucky's eighth- rules, and the result is a .spray of numbers grade students. One of six pupils isa start.. that may not always translate intoa national All too recently, theupper grades would picture. This report will offer lie reader invariably rattle off a confoundingarray of Whatever precise, cleanly chiselled figures reasons why ITV was not suited to their there are; when data disintegrate into the institutional way of life 3 One further comment on the thirst for (and numbers.' You go to her and shesays, 'For my vaiue ofl statistics comes from AIT's Director level of decision-making, 1 don't really need (surveyof Regearch, Saul Rockman. Recalling AIT's numbers at all, but the assistant superintendent, of ITV use in eight states, hesays: he's the one who needs numbers.'And so it -People, when asked 'wh'at do you want?' would goes, according to Rockman, right to the state say. 'I don't really need hard data for my job. I'd settle for case studies, but legislaturewhere the legislative aide might my boss, he say: "We may need the numbers. But whenyou needs numbers. You go to the boss. Hesays: 'I go to the legislators, if you can tell them a good- don't really need numbers. I can settle forcase story, you're better off." studies and anecdotes. My boss: she needsthe 8 If pne further point needs to be mentioned there have been massive new levels of sup- briefly: the problem 91 defining the bound- port from-other sources--especially the fed- aries of our subject. Public broadcasting has eral government. Support from federal agen- always had trouble defining its terms, and cies has grown so dramatically (some with time has smeared whatever definition of more strings attached than others) that the "ITV " may have existed. College courses, risk of redundancy is real. Some examples adult education, and instruction for business from the Department of Health, Education and the professions have been added to the and Welfare (HEW) alone: schedule, but the term "ITV" retains cre- denceif not precision. How to draw the The Educational Broadcasting Facilities line? Program (EMI) in the U.S. Office of Edu- Thisreportwelcomesthedistinction cation (USOE), had $13 million available offered by EEN's Director of Educational 1977 and has distributed $118 million Services, Howard K. Spergel. TO him, ITV 'elver the 15 years of its existence. "is primarily intended to provi4 television The DiVision of Education Technology, programming for integrated and,appropriate ,which administers EBFP also has an ad- use within the structure of formal.educati9i ditional-$7 million in educational TV "set- (whether within or outside of instit aside funds," most of which has gone to tional framework)." Foimal learning, Sper eI support CTW's Sesame Street and The goes oncan and does take place outside Electric Company. formal educational settings. A casual walk in the park with a group of children i'an Elsewhere in USOE over $40 million in example of informal education. However, program-productiOnfundinghasbeen that same walk structured by the objeCtive made availablesincepassageofthe of finding and identifying six varieties of Emergency School Aid Act in 1972. series moss then becomes a formal educTional like Carrpsoalendos, Vegetable' Soup, and experience." Rebop have been produced withthis In this context, _watching The Asdent of assistance to meet the needs of minority- Man earnestly but casually would be "in- . groupchildren. forrol learning." Stepping up that /experi- For nonbroadcast, applications oftele- ence to meet "specific knowledge acid per- communications, the seven-year-old Office formance objectives" with the addition of of TelecommunicationsPolicy (OTP) seminars, readings, and independent study attached to the office of the Secretary of assignments would, as Spergel concludes, Health, Education and Welfare has a bring the viewer into the campf formal discrete fund of $1 million in FY 1977. learningand into ITV. Public brbadcasters could be prime can- While this distinction may be offthe didates, says administrator Howard Hupe, beacon for some it will help guidet discrimi- "if they view themselves aeducators nations in this report. And it may goad the more than broadcasters." purists into coalescing behind a isearch,for ...k* more broadly acceptable definitios. A move The federal government's main educa- toward sharper, nationally affi med terms tional research ands development arm, the would be among the most worthy outcomes National Institufe of Education, has approxi- of this report. mately $300,000 earmarked for satellite experiments in the first planning phase of 1977,, The Changing Context with several million planned for funding in This report will speak oft! n of marked future years. improvements in the quality-- nd :approach The emerging emphasis on new_technol- of instructional programmin Those im- ogy,visibleinthe above paragraphs, is provements cannot be and rstoodapart equally apparent elsewhere. In the most from .equally pronounced a angel inthe conspicuous -example, CPB has the lead role operations of educational c mrnunications. -in planning for eventual public broadcasting Some of those changes dese ve preliminary use of a satellite to distribute programming. mention here. - A kindred organization, the Public jervic Wehave already noted:tile,new level of Satellite Consortium (PSSC)-, was formed in commitment among piibN broadcasting's 1975. Its 85 members (18 of them public own national. organization's. Concuirently, broadcasters) said theirfirstpriority for t 9 satellite use was id continuing edu- rand for it from within education. WNET on; this has become PSSC's initial ob- cites an intriguing example, During 1976, its jectiveinajoint study with the Public staff me Wish some New York City teachers Interest- Satellite Association on non-broad- about using the station's ITV output. "Their cast use of the public broadcast satellite biggest frustration," recalls Shirley Gillette, system. the station's Education Divisiondirector, PSSC provides one illustrationamong "was that they didn't have the sets. They many that this is the era of the consortium. were angry with our staff for tantalizing In the area of program development the them with this good stuff which theycan't evidence grows more striking everyyear. As use." of Fall 1976, A1T had finished six projects Quire apart from production, licensees [going back to Ripples in 1970), was winding have boosted their sophistication inother up a seventh, and had two more on the ways. More research is being done. InIlli- drawing boards. Another grouping, the,Inter; nois_, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, national Instructional Television Cdopera- and Kentucky, surveys of in-schooluses tive (called the "ITV Co-op") came together have been made. on October I, 1976. It had been the core tif Licensees have become mushmore cost- the !TV unit at WET A, in Washington, D.C. conscious. Within the last two years, these About the same time, WNET in New York computations were reported: began stimulating a consortium of, higher- education institutions in New York, New WVIZ has figured that "the cost to the Jersey, and Connecticut. Recent receipt ofa schools to,deliver one fifteen-minute les- grant from The Fund for Improvement of son to one Child, based on actual reported Post-secondary Education will providere- usage" comes out, to 2.1 cents. Thecost sourcestolookatfuturecollege-credit per child for having 120 children see a courses for broadcast. commercial library'sfifteen-minute film In Los Angeles, public station KCET has would be 8.5 cents. bedome the focal point fora six-organiza- Virginia'sPublicTelecommunications. tion consortium's "Television, Career Aware- Council retained researchers in 1975to ness Project," funded by NIE (now titled estimate the "approximate cost of instruc- Freestyle). In South Carolina, ten private tional television..." Their fijures, drawn colleges have put up the money to link their from a random sample of 100 public campuses in a closed-cinuit grid; eventually_ schools, boiled down to 8 centsper pupil the system will tie into the ETV network, hour. Through similar combinations of institu tions and resources, through transfusion of KET. checking records for 1974-75,ar- instructionaldesign methods, production rived at a breakdown of "theaverage coat quality hhs risen extraordinarily (forsome- per student for all broadcast offerings in one remembering the ancient ITV of 15 the curriculum area." The delivery cost years ago).Quite competitive with con- per student ran from a low of 12 cents for sortia, local stations and state systems have Interifisciplinary courses (suchas Rip- reached new levels of sophistication, too. ples)to a high of 52 cents for Math The experience at WVIZ, is typical. Says courses. Assistant Manager Alan Stephenson: , GeorgI1, Hall, formerly Director of the f, Our high in producing shows was 180 in Virginia. Co cautions wisely that these 1968. Now we do about lop a year, with figures may be "noncomparable." Undoubt- -edly he is right. Even so, public broadcasters instructional design worked in. The quality's:( up 309 'to 400 per cent since '68. We've won are proving they are no less concerned about four national awards recently, Two ofour accountability and efficiency than educators. series were done totally on film, on-location. Then, too, broadcastersare perfecting We,clo a lot niith actors. We've even bought their skills in utilization, or field coordina- single feet of UPI news footage (16 mm at tioncall it what you will, The work aims $6 a foot). to enhance the teacher's use of electronic instructional materials. -There'sno_., magic All this for ITV productions. Inevitably, in it," insists Alan Stephenson. "It's just it means greater visibility for, educational common - sense." It's also hard NJ,- ork. AIT's broadcastingand just possibly greater de- Associate executive Director, Robert W. 10 Fox, travels 125,000 to 150,000 milis a year. recognition that ITV advocates can no longer WVIZ field coordinator, Esther Dahs, drives afford to use Coolidge-era ways of "selling." to her schools three or more day_ s a week, WNED-TV, in Buffalo, N.Y.,was moving generally 120 Miles or more per round trip in the right direction. In January 1975, the and she still won't come close to hitting statica suggested that colleagues in BEN join all 350 of them this year, to her chagrin. it in a "TV for Learning Week" that coming The labor of utilization comes under the September. The week's goal would be "to heading of what KET's Virginia_Fox calls make both the general public at home and "servicing your account." In her words: "If educators in the schools moreaware of you don't service your account, you're not ITV as a learning tool." going to hold it. Public TV must learn to EEN held "TV for Learning" weeks in service the account." 1975 and 1976, and the consensus was that

fs Produced by KCET, Los Angeles, Freestyle made its debut in 1978:The programs, part of a six-organization consortium and funded by the National institute of Educationare designed to help, young people with career options. It sounds like sales ,work, and 'insome they "definitely created more awareness of ways itis. When Ed McGuire started toITV programs and services."' The weeks work for KET in 1974, hewas its singlehave involved the assembling of=a special utilization man. Today he has five fieldrep- program line-up development of a logo and resentatives; two of them. live and work in,print materials, and special angles by many eastern' and western quarters of the state.of the individual stations. One ambitious Sometimes the _six wear their utilization project wasa "Television for Learning" hats; at other times, as McGuire put it, they supplement in the New York Times, devel-, become "salesmen of sorts." (If he had his oped by WNET with a grant from Exxon way, McGuire would have a staff of 17 to will be repeated in the 1977 "TV for Learn- "service the account.") ing Week." Understaffed as utilization efforts often At the same time, WNET's Education Di- arehe neglect of promotion and publicity vision began trying other approaches; in- in 'Ty was, for years, even worse. (Witha cluding a ""Speaker's Bureau" that has sent few exceptions, says one regional network volunteers to academic institutions in- the, directoit has been "pitiful.") In the past region, armed with. -such tools as a 15-prO- few yea s. however, there has teen new'gram "sampler" cassette and a utilization 11 The "Television. for. Learning" supplement to theNew York Tfines,-,funded by ri-krant from the Exxon Corporation is examined by (left to right)Shirley Gillette, Heide Kane and Don Skelton,: All with VVNET/ Thirteen, New York. film produced under a $9,000 Exxon grant. in a set of materials developed by the New Many observers have long felt that the York State Education Department's Bureau "awareness" push must reach back to the of Educational Coprnunidations. The, five- training level: As Maryland's .Rick Breiten- part "Visual Learning" package is designed feld puts it: "The teacher-educatio institu- to "assist teachers and adininistraters to tions should be assaulted in such away_ that make more prictical use of ITV in the class- our teachers hit, the classrooms and grow room. ..." It goes about that task in a big quickly angry and confused that television way. The manual's cover picture of Gene isn't used." Shalit, a star of the Today show, auggests at But the message is spreading thatsome- once that "Visual Learning" may be more thing can be done. In- Virginia, thegover- than a perfunctory stab at the iSsues: That nor's picture appeared in newspapers last impression persists as the material unfolds: fall as he proclaimed "ITV Week." Similar In each of five sessions "Visual Learning" activities are under way in the midwest offers a videotape segment, a manual, and withtheCentralEducational -Network certain activities, with topics ranging from (CEN). At the pational level, a plan to spread 'broad assessments of what TVcan and can- the ITV message has deVeloped at PBS and..not do, to practical - information on using CPB. Regional Woikshop,activity,with ITV TV in the classroom. The segments feature directors and .public information-, spedialista --well-knOwn .personalities (Walter Cronkite, has already-takeuplace,A-grpttoRESfrarn Betty. Furness Shalit) and eminent analysts CPB's Qffice.-,of'Edticatitinal Aetivities has of the media, but the ultimate aim is close produced 'PrainotiOn NteleVisicn'::to home: to help teachers, understand how spots, and a special Progiem-entitlectoSorne-:-television = works and what services are thing's FIappening.all far:use:by- thesta-- available to them ocally. tions. The new importanCe of "selling" is reco NoWhere Is --the -new-. attitude toward,nized and demanstrated in this -package., awareness demonstrated:rpm clearly than the ITV message is at all worthwhile then it is wholly justified to use sophistication, nel. What about teacher aeceptance? Ed and to enlist people of stature, in spreading McGuire says: that message. They're very comfortable with it. They're With all of these changds and improve- so accustomed to TV that it's part of their ments, the question remains: Does educa- curriculum; in fact, many would feel naked tional.broadcasting matter? To Virginia Fox without it. Series like Inside/Out do' it.so of Kentucky Educational Television,this well that teachers feel they'd be depriVing concern can be a nightmare: . children ofsomething if they didn't include I'm haunted by the fact that there aren't (such programs) as part of their clasSroom enough people who core, I have a strong experience. feeling that short of the football program, On the one hand, a haunting feeling that the athletic program, the_ textbook program, "there aren't enough people who care;"on there isn't anything you couldn't take away the other, a classroom of children who have from the -schools. There might be a few'come to regajd learning through television whimpers, but no mass uprising. as an important part of their education. The Match her candor against the zeal of her impressions are different, but each is part own utilization director, Ed McGuire,- one- of this story. tine curriculum supervisor in rural Taylor Educational broadcasting is like that; it county, 85 miles southwest of Lexington. resists easy generalizations,' and it is chang- In that county, 2,700 children go to fouring more and more rapidlyThis report will county schools. Each building has 'one TV try to capture as much or the story today receiver per classroom; -every school has as it can. When that story -is told again in four closed-circuit channels, with a small- three or four years, expect.Mucli of it to be format videotape player to feed each chan- quite different. .F©r the Preschool Child

all it Alice's Wonderland or a Hans other children and with adults in the pre- CChristian Andersentaleorthe school." ' world of Oz or a learning experience turned, intofun, or even a So, not only have these two series (and welcome friend. Public television has been others on PTV) been reaching larger,num- these and so much else for more than half bers but also they have, donemore than a generation of Arnericau,children in theirentertain. They have taughtfrom formal preschool years. It has been an impressivebits of education, to how to get along with performance, as recent evidence hasre- a fellow human being. emphasized: This service to the pre-K child .certainly merits accolades. Happily, society hasre- 01 A 1974 CPB study said tliat "perhapS as sponded. Sesame Street has won more than much as 49 per cent of all PTV air time is 100 awards, including 12 Emmy's. Ina explicitly for :children." The :preschool parallel respect, on May 20, 1974, Yale Uni- child is very much` a part of that viewing versity awarded Fred Rogers a Doctor of multitude.' i - . . -, ,- Humane Letters degree. He said: ,PBS research has shown that the morning ... you have brought a rare quality to your audience of Sesame Street (top 13 markets, work. Emphasizing the uniqueness of each January 1977) has two and a half timesof your viewers, you hal'e helped children the viewers of the average prime-time resolve their conflicts, standup to their PTV show. fears, and explore their fantasies with imagi- In . an October 1975 survey, Nielien re- nation ,and intelligence. prided that PTV children's programMing Can a television performer do anything else was seen in 16,220,000 households.' That that is of equal importance? meant 23.3 per cent cif all TV homerlip- dating the figures, in March 1976, Nielsen Change in the Programmers' found a 12-per cent jump of 1,950,000 Ways and Means households, for a total of 18,170,000, Put Over the past two years, public television's in another way, PTv children'sseries "children's block" of programs had its share were being watched in More thanone- of changes.For the most part,young quarter of all TV households (26.1 perviewers for old) would hardly have been . . , cent). aware of them. Here were some: Larger numbers only tell some of the Sesame Street no longer carried the heavy. story. Writing in Child Development in 1976,, load of cognitive freight that it did when Brian Coates, H.Ellisori Pussqr, and Irene it began in 1669., Then, the ratio ofcog- Goodman described their study of "The In . nitive to affective material was 75-25. In fluence of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers'. 1976, it was on the order of 50-50.:. Neighborhood on Children's Social Behavior in the Preschool. Extending the_ prior re- Mister Rogers' Neighborhood stopped new search of others, the authors found that: production. Instead, Fred Rogers' teamre- vised existing shows. Their goal: to make Sesame Street can influence "children's a 460-episode loop of programs that would social behavior itgthe presch1," Further, be "continuous and hopefully perpetual.- the series "can increase positive types of behavior such as giving positive reinforde- Without shunning the preichoolyoung- ment and being cooperative." ster, both the Children's Television-Work- shop and Family Communications, Inc. Mister. Rogers'. Neighborhood increased (the parent- company of Mister 'Rogers' "all the children's-... giving of positive Neighborhood) were generatingnew series reinforcement to, and social contacts with, for older ages. To, the child amused at Oscar's grouchi- At many sites, children do not watch the ness or absorbed in Fred Rogers' caring broadcasts. Instead, they take part inpre- Words on the importance of listeningto. reading activity based 'on Sesame Street ...each other, matters like these are. trivial. script highlights. In early 197.7, CTWwas And so are the issues that boil today within distributing 1,200 copies of these highlights education. Yet, the debates on these issues to New England centers. -may eventually affect what that child sees A similar report comes frorrianti ly Com- on public TV. munications.. Vice President Basil x said There is a question today, for example,in late 1976 that they were "really not able about one of the basic building blocksof to estimate" day care center use of Mister Sesame Street. This has to do with itsorigi- Rogers' Neighborhood. But they "frequently" nal goals, which were to include "recogni-fill requests from centers for materials tied tion of lettzs;esof the alphabet, countingto ti,e series. ability and number concepts,geometric shapes and basic reasoning skills." (TherePre-K Series: What Are They? Whether_a were going to be "concepts relating to self," child goes to a center or stays home, his too.) PTV viewing habits undoubtedlyrun the -In its October 2, 1976 issue, TV Guide gamutfrom Sesame Streetand Mister Rogers to series intended for older brothers 'wondered if the three-year-old isre ''.y to learnlettersand numbers. and sisters, such as ZOOM and Villa Alegre. Psychologist At the same time, these boys and girlsmay - Bruno Bet telheim was quotedas- favoring very well have b4en following the preK The "increasing focus" in. Sesame Street on Sesotho Streetas arin-_schoolprogram. the s, = affective,' ,fieopted forthe Cookie. Monster "without the teaching of cognitive Eda LeShan, psychologist and author, voiced Asimilar ',.coneern.Learningthe alphabet at three or four "interferes witha young child's play," she said, "and play is childhood's work." These observationsnot- withstanding, there wasno indication in 1976 that Sesame Street was about toput all its weight on the affec Day-care centers have h tie topic for another debate at the pre-,1 .. Should laws be passed to make them fe to all? Might day care- suPplant the home as prime inculcator in the society? Public TV share profitably in weigh- ing these concerns. There islittle doubt that its broadcasts are being watchedin day care centers. No one knows how much, though. Available national figures only hint at the actuality, A joint CPB' National Cen- ter for Education Statistics (NOES) study for the first _half of 1976 showed that Sesame Singer Buffy St. 'Marie, heror Dakota Street and. The Electric CoMpany filled16 Starblanket, ,talks to some kidson Sesame per cent- 'of the total PTV air schedules. Street about ;plant care. When schools were in session, the 'research In a formal sense. this serieswas never indicated, 22 per cent of the hours consisted intended for strict in-schooluse. Said CTW's of those two series alone. That time of day Director of Broadcast Relations, Robert 'Dav- coincides exactly with the traditional sched- idson, early in 1977, "Itisnot a school. ules of day-care centers. show. We don't promote itas such, and we There is other evidence that seems more have no_research on in-school uses," indicative. Field information shows: for ex- While others have written Sesame Street ample, that in New England, 50 per cent of out of the ITV story. too, _some Schoolsys- the day care centers have, been making use tems have not bought that exclusion. North of Sesame Street one way or another.Carolina offers a case in point. A 1972 studyna "The Utilization of the In-School bered that Mister Rogers wastarting his Television- Service in North Carolina"pro- 23rd season on the air. duced this pattern: In a way, people may have come to take 1. The Electric Company-5,088 teachers for granted the shows that public TV haN were using it for r. total of 152,640 stu-,offered to pre -K -- .youngsters. If anything, dents (class size was baSed on an assump- PTV's record has been too good: it lured tion of 30 per room); commercial TV into pursuit. CTW's Robert Davidson has one word for the competition: -.2. A WTVI, Charlotte, seriesGranny) "severe." Yet, children make up PTV's big- was used by 3,816 teacher's and 114,484' gest audience. Somehow the producers pupils; and public prograMming have to keep turning 3.Sesame Street--3,_585 teachers 107,545 out the programs to hold the attention of students. those loyal friends. Those publictelevisionproducers' do Elsewhere,anothersituationprevails: have a real dilemma Children are being Sesame street \does not figure in insruc- saturated with commercial programming. tional TV schedules. Massachusetts Educe-.Dr. Keith W. Mielke suggested its nature in tionaliTeleviiidi (MET); the state's ITV his report on The Federal Role in Funding agency, does not offer it for in-school pur- Children's Television Programining. He-cited poses. By the time a child gets to kinder- Nielsen figures showing that children aged

garten, MET believes, he has seen so much two to five rank fourth among groups using_ of the show that he is "beyond it." An echo TV (after women 50+; men501-, andwomen hat view can be heard in San Jose, Cali- 35 to 49). Further, as of February 1974, these fornia. There, public TV station 'KTEH has boys and-girls were averaging 30 hours and kept the series out of in-school time. Says ten minutes. of viewing a week. That comes Manager Maynard E. Orme: to four and a quarter hours A day, 1,500 I love Sesarne Street. But we want to be'hours a year, and, quite a potential headache -involved ina child's total education, and those charged with keeping PTV channels alive week in, week 'losing an hour block during ITV time'we don't think is good use of our TV schedule. This was what several of the makers of We haVe so little time to educate the chil- pre-K series were doing 'inlate 1976 to dren who are in school, anyway. counter the dilemma. Big Bird Keeps 'Plying. Bynow,, Sesame As it is, some schools in the KTEH area Street has the face that's seen mosf,often have picked up the CTW series from KQED, on public 'TV. That's good, but it can be, Sin Francisco,at points' where its signal kad, too. overlaps KTEH's. It can't bevery surprising,therefore,that when -KTEH 'surveys teachers in itscounty,-, the feedback lists Sesame Street as one of the series they have 7 Worked with in.school. Regrettably, the national statistics available in early 1977 could not dispel the fog over this particular matter.--This -suggests

that public TV, now becoming an avid digger , for all kinds -of data, might well probe the full range of Sesame "Street usesin preschool or classroom settings.

Pre-K Series: A Status Report As the 1976-77-TV season unfolded, corn, mercial TV's firev.Tcrkstendedtoover- shadow parts of public TV'snew season. Few viewers probably noticed that Sesame Street, entering its eighth year, was about Big Bird, star of Sesame Street, has a nation- to produce its 1,000th hour of original pro- wide audienceihtheseries produced by gramming. Only a few might have remem- Children's. Television Workshop (CTW). Daring the 1976-77season, PBS was trans- 6. Even in straight repeat, SesameStreet Miffing most programs of the130-unit cycle 'would be expensive, because CTW.,would vice a day, two timesa week. Then the have to buy clearances from cycle was to be rerun. The result: actors and at least others involved. To .Davidson, thatproc- four broadcasts perprogram in a year"far might cost as much more exposure than any other public TV as $500,000 a year. series," according to CTW's Davidson.'Why Ironically, while some in public TVargue such heavy use? He explained: for putting Sesame-Streetinto reruns, others complain about seeing "thesame old showi The stations needprograms to fill air time. year after year." That view is not wholly Sesame Street draws an audience for them. fair. Presented' with theoriginal 1969 pro- It's basically an audience question,not an grams, as Davidson puts it, they would educational one. consider them "poorly produced andout of After awhile, the true Sesame Streetde- date by the standardsof year number votee may think he's seensome animation eight."' segments before. HF would be right: about If anyone outside CTW wouldget corn- 70 per cent of the program material hascome, plaints about Sesame Street, it wouldbe from old shows. It has been blendedwith Dr. Malcolm Davis, whose Officeof Educe- new continuity and, adds Davidson, "where. lien budget covers much of theshow's cost. We can afford it, withnew anihration, since In late 1976, Dr. Davis, Directorof USOE's_ we know that's the most effectivepart of Division of Educational Technology,noted how." that he may get "a dozencomments a year"- "it's like taking By any standard, the series is costly(see . on motherhood." Some below).Concerned about this-theyare have griped about repetition, others, out the impact -of TV broadly and asked to share thecost,through their Sta- Sesame Street tion Program Cooperativesome publicTV in particular on readingscores. Dr. Davis' managers have raised a key question. Why reaction to the latter point was: not just repeat the series, they ask, rather TV generally has contributedto a downward _than produce new elements each year?Bab trend. I think that'sa function of lack Of Davidson offers thesereasons for staying practice. We've become a visual culture.. on the existing track: Reading is, not as importanta 'medium of 1, With a tenth anniversary ahead,CTW entertainment as it was once. wants to analyze every aspect ofSesame Street as it has been from thestart, i.e., a In terms of the numbers of kids who watch series being changed eachyear. Then Sesame Street in school and at home, the CTW will reshape it "to fit changes inthe figures are rather impressive.It' costs less educational,and social environment.' than a penny. per ,dayper vievilerIii'. those terms; the taxpayer is getting his.or, her Z. By amending the series eachyear. money's worth. CTW can inject new, currentinformation for preschoolers. Fred Rogers Changes Sneakers.Endless re- hearsals, blinking tally lights, 3.- Committed to annual changes,- ,Jstage man: CTW agers' hand cuesFred 'Rogers had can try different affective components,or more of these than most TV performers. even broaden the target age level. since his 1954 WQED, Pittsburgh, debuton - 4.Consigning the series torepeats, CTW Children's,, Corner.2 As timewent by, he believes with "absolute certainty,"would built a big inventory ofprograms far pre -l( make the program's spellfade. ,Even now children, a fact which helpedgive birth to there is a risk of that:a single bit can be a recent change in the neighborhood. used 40 times inone block of 130 pro- In Fall 1974, Rogers announced that'1974- grams, thus having 240 exposures ina 75 would be his last season of producing year. Individual stations have optionsto schedule S. The series continues to be"the most the programs more frequently(WTTW, Chicago, for example, -has hadan active Saturday repeat noticed public TV programby theadult schedule). press, 'in station fund-raising. ..." Straight reruns, Davidson holds, are "dead" in the ° He has also receivedmore degrees than most performers: Mus. M. Div., D. Hum., Litt, press. D., DHL, D.D., LHD. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. His company, Medical Association of December'-8,1975, Family Communications, Inc., wouldrevise described the series as the "best known earlier shows intheseries.In time, this example" of engendering prosocial behavior would give them 460 episodes, enoughto through television. run 92 weeks without a repeat. Explained So, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood hasnow Co x of Farnily Communications: become recognized asa \patriarch in the Given the relatively narrow agerange of the Mister Rogers' Neighborhood audience, each child could be cxpectod tosee each episode only twice bnlore "graduating"to other programs designed for children. After some 100 days of makingmore than 3,000 edits in the tapes, andmore days of producing 70 new or altered films,illister ti Rogers' Neighborhood-Revisedwas done. The modified series had its debut in Feb- ruary 1970, and, according to Cox, household viewing hours jumped "an astounding 05%." The response, he said, "resoundingly validated" the idea ofa library of revised shoWs. Mister Rogers' has had another kindof validation. To Family Communications,the "most definitive behavioral Measure of(the show's)influence" was a 1972 study by Fred.Rogers (above) is-the movingforce be- Aletha FL Stein, and Lynette K. Friedrich.' hind the success of the popularkid Over a four-weekspan, boys and girls were Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, observed s they watched FredRogers', family of affective programs. Ten shows, egg essive cartoons,or neutral pro- years ago, according to Basil Cox, therewere none, grams. The ,,esearchers found, accordingto Cox, that: except for Captain Kangaroo, And whata change in that short decade! "Virtuallyevery . , these who watched MisterRogers' children's program," says Cox, "focuses'to Neighborhood showed higher levelsof task one degree or another on the emotions of the persistence, interpersonal prosocial behavior, audience," and self-control than those exposedto the Liketheunnumberedchildreii Who aggressive programs. watched him, Fred Rogers has I arnedfrom - his years on the screen. Moire than This refrain has been echoed in a little more re- of his mail came fromelderlymen and centliterature. Harvard Medical School women who viewedand enjoyedthe pediatrician Dr. Richard I. Feinbloorn, writ- Neighborhood programs. Along withthe . ing in the March 1976 Pediatrics, singled out'youngsters in his audience, they Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for felt that a promoting friend had come to callon them. "prosocial behavior" and forpointing the So, with Mister Etagere Neighborhood way "to the richness and variety of human Revised at last in circulation, Fred relationships and communicationto which Rogers television could expose children." was moving in late 1976 to meet needs ,he' ,-- has seen elsewhere in the, human.spectrum. Another professional has praised Fred He has already shown that TVcan support Roger.? efforts. Dr. Michael B. Rothenberg, the awakening of the commenting in Journal pre -l( child. Now, as of 'the American a sequel, he wants to .show that his 'kind of TV can also support individualsat other Alethe and Lynette K. Friedrich, stages of life. But even as.he plansa series "Television Content and Young Children'sBe- havior," in Television and Social Behavior, Vol. for the elderly, he has not forgottenthe 11: Television and Social Learning, eds. J.P. children: they too wills playa part. Fred Murray. E. A. Rubinstein, and G. A.. Comstock Rogers has come= to believe thatties be- (Washirigton, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing tween the generations in a fragmentedso- Office, 1972), pp. 202-317. ciety, are absolutelY, essential. -.,. Dollars for Pre -K Programs 2.Children's Television Workshop (for In the world of the educational television Sesonie Street). Funding Sesame Street ,producer, concept and vehicle seldomre- has been every bit as much of p challenge main the same for long. Nor, for that matter, as finding the money for Mister floors' does the supply of dollars. In fast, ifany- Neighborhood. thing is immutable on the fiscal side,itis this basic question; who willpay the fare Robert Davidson, describing the strategy for the children's fare? So far, theanswers of cm in tryingto meet the costsof have been more temporary and makeshift Sesame Street, said: The plan we've talked than most participants would like. about for years has been for the seriesto Inpractice, different means havesup- pay a substantial part of its own way." This per* preschoolers' series onone hand and is how far CTIN has come toward. that goal: l( -12 ITV on the other. Take thelattera a) Five years ago, the series was funded state network may get program dollars from from two main sources. Part came from the state department of education. Ora CPB ($5million). The balance was put consortium may pull together thenecessary up by USOE. This preceded the start of money. But local stations have always been the PBS Station Program Cooperative in the act, too. Working with localmoney, bidding process. It also preceded CTW's they have lamed out ITV series, whichmay earning a hearty income from selling toys, or pay not go on into distribution else- books, and records keyed to the show. where through a national library. Then, in contrast, thereare the major b) In 1977, CTW entered the Station Pro- series directly intended for the preschooler: gram Cooperative bidding with a request Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and. Sesame of $2.2 million for Sesame Street. That 5treet. For both, funding has beena bizarre made the seriesthethird most costly'. patchwork,withsourcesandamounts item on the Cooperative's list. Davidson- changing every year. The following break- expected that CTW would come under downs underscore the point': . strong pressure from the bidding stations to reduce the $2,2 million, the money, they 1. Family Communications, Inc. are asked to put up to help pay for )he a) FY 1075: This was the lastyear in total cost of the series.- which new Mister Rogers' showswere The rest of the money for FY 1977was produced for the pre -l( audielice. About to come from two sources: half of the funding, or $1,045,000,came frorn the PBS Station Program Coopera- (1) $5 million from USOE's Division of tive' bidding. Of the remainder, 20per Educational Technology, asum that cent was provided by The Sears-Roe- covers -both Sesame Street and The buck Foundation, ten per cent by the Electric Company; and Bureau of Education for .the Handi- (2) $2 million-plus from CTW itself.self. capped. atfother ten per cent by Johnson Davidson's expectation: "We Jo.hnson Baby Products Company, able to do this without great strain," and a final ten, per cent from miscel- because' the effectiveness of 'the CTW laneous sources. 1,A. Products Group has given CTW the forecast of "regular incomeevery year." b) FY 1076: Just under $280,000 mile from the PBS Station Program Coopery Nothing shows quite so well the fund- tive procedure. 'Then, Johnson & John-. raising hazards of public broadcastingas son Baby 'products contributed 30 per CTW'a experience with The Electric Com- cent; McFeely-Rogers Foundation, ten pany. As will be explained in the next chap- percent; Lilly Endowment, ten per cent; ter, CTdecided to close down that opera- and miscellaneous other sources, 20 tion° in November 1976. There will beno per cent. In this last category, the two new Electric Company shows after October largest items were acarryover from 1977, When reruns of mild ones begin (and FY 1975 of $60,000 from the Bureau of continue until Fall 1980). One spinoff: the Education fox- the liandicapped, and budget for Sesame Street may shootup by- $25,000 from The Sears- Roebuck Foun-; asInuch as $800,000 in FY 1978. That would dation. Pat it at about $6.1 million. Why thejump? Davidson explained: "We're losing the bene- 2 fitsof volume production that doing two same quality won't he made. Davidson of series in one studio gave us." And no longer CTW isunequivocal on the point: "We can CTW overhead be spread. across the could never have dune Scsonie Street With- two shows. At any rate, CTW will have to out USQE," put up the needed $600,000 itself. The weight, of this problem was affirmed The keystone of CTW budgeting has been when USOE hired Indiana University's in- the $5 million from USOE for both Sesame stitutefor Communication Research. Thu Street and The Electric Company. Have product: the exhaustive Mielke Report. (As there been strings attached? To a degree, principal investigator, Dr. Keith Mielkewas yes. ''We do notdo notdictate to them joined by two associates, Rolland C. John-, in any way the content," said Dr. Malcolm son and Barry G. Cole.) Their chief concern Davis. But USOE does have certain aims. was over "national purposive" programs. Dr. Davis'office has requested CTW to Should USOE help pay for thanor not? The buy audiovisual rights from Sesame Street team came to believe: performers andothers. Once CTW gets these rights, schools can then tape the series . the options and probabilities formain- off-air and use programs internally at their tablingsuccessfulserieswithoutMoral support to be unpromising. convenience. "We feelitis inthe public interestto make itavailable this way," The reasons were several. Among them: explains Dr. Davis. I. Foundationsupportis"shortler , The Government as Banker. The question and ... dissipating." the problemof continued funding cuts across all public broadcasting's educational 2.Corporate support night be vain hie activities. It is just as intense in the area of for this type of programming, "but 'this pje -K programming as in any otherarea. In resource will be tied to furthering corpo- late 1976, Rhea Sikes, Director of Educe- rate interests." banal Services for PBS, unscrambled some Whilesellingancillarymaterials of the subquestions: (Sesame Street records and books) might If the federal government puts out large yield "partial support. .unfettered sums of money for liildren's programming, hucksterism is generally perceived to be should it be intended for in-school use? If inappropriate.. .." it should, what kind of safeguards will there 4.Public broadcasting is "underfinanced be to ensure that this is not justa notional at present agency decision? Yes, these sources could be countedon At some point, educators: have got to make for "partial support.- But "the federalgm: a far greater commitment to the use of theerrunent appears to be the fonder o&last medium financially. That makes the federal resort, if quality purposive programs are to government probably the largest source of be developed and sustained." funding. Should it fund little specific proj- Pages of detail supported Dr. Mielke's ects? Should there be Some kind of national analysis, e.g.,his team. learned 'that there assessment,withchief state schoolofficers were 63 "federal assistance programs with corning to some kind of agreement, whose special relevance to education telecommuni- money- is made available for productions cation ..." Their total funds in FY 1974: intended for both local and national use? more than $1. billion. However, the investi-

Questions this complex have no simple gators "could detect almost no coordination I answers. They demand thought by the De- .., even within the Office of Education." ' partment of Health, Education, and Welfare, On the Road to Coordination. It is unlikely and by CPB, PBS, NPR, and more. And they that IJSOE people needed to be told about directly involve.the preschoolers' TV series, this reality. For years, requests for TV pro- as much as the K-12 pupils'. Because a,gram dollars have had to do battleoften _,Sesnme .Street-keeps' -on- being expensive (evert wheealmast three-quarters of the ma-- The Federal Rolein . Funding Children's -1 terial comes out of prior seasons' produc- Television Programming, Vol.I,Final Report tion), (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of Education, De. it seems transparent that_either,the partment of Health, Education' and Welfart; government puts in dollars or shows' of, the USOE, OEC-0-74-8674). ! 21 2 out of their weight class= -with petitions to Issues like thesecoordinatiiimin govern- support in other ways the disadvantaged,or ment, -and long-range fundingmay the handicapped,or the bilingual popula- mean little to a child (or to his parent'',either). Still, tions. they are vital. What they Is coordination wholly out of the boil down to is ques- this: how are nationally useful,purposive tion? Among those who, thoughtnot in 1976 program series to be kept aliive? Tacked to was Dr. Art Slieekey, Planning Policy Co- that Is another conceru. Thhi is ordinator in the Office of the Assistant whether the Sec- needs of young childrenare being met ade- retary for Education (now with the Office of quately by 130 hoursa year of Sesame Management and Budget). At hissuggestion, Street, phis reruns of Mister Rogers' -better coordination Neigh- went on a "menu" of borhood and, starting in Fall1977, The Elec- policy issues sent up to the Secretaryof tric Company. HEW. Word came back toprepare a "deci- To loan Ganz Coon sion memorandum" , CTW President, on the Education Divi- the answer to theseconof these questions sion's role in funding educationaltelevision. is quite clear. In Septa, ber As a start. Dr. Sheekey convened ,1.970, she put a task her view into one-concise sentence:"There force.l'vteetingon September 28,1976 is still much more to be accomplishedfor 12 "outsiders"----from CPB, PBS, theAgency our children." fo instructional Television,professional This,ofcourse,callsfor new, well- associations, and agencies suchas the Edu- cational Testing Servicejoined coordinated funding sources. At firstglance, 18"in- it may seem that very bigamounts are siders" (from the Special ProjectsBranch, involved. By. public TV's standards, Equal Educational Opportunity the Programs, FY 1t178 Sesame Street budget of $8.1million and from the NTational Institute ofEduca- is a big one. But that figure has tion,the National Center to be related forEducation to the actual exposure that Big Birdand Statistics,and other HEW components). Oscar get. At the rate of four Their charge: transmissions. a year over PBS, the 130 hour-longprograms .. to help HEW planning officials to iden- in one season's output break downto $128 tify the Department's mostimportant policy a minute of affective and cognitive learning issues in the arm of educational television plus sheer fun!--for thousands.'Dr. Davis sunpdf and to suggestsortie viable options of USOE says that Sesame Streetis costing for theuture. the taxpayer less thana penny a day per viewing child. What taxpayer wouldquibble To Or. Sheekey's knowledge,- thiswas the about that in the face of the factthat the "first time that a group like that had ever youngster watches anywhere from20- to 30 been brought together." The forest ofcom- hours a week of television? plications was vast. Even so, as the group As good a bargain as Sesame Streetmay talked,realizationsof value came forth; be, it hardly follows that it will kehi rolling such as that along without the concerted efforts ofa lot Each year. the EducationDivision spends of tireless proponents. The risk oftaking approximately $30-$35million on educa- itfor granted is too real; thecompetition tionaltelevision and radio octivitiesthe for finite dollars too intense. With an eye coordination of these activities withinHEW to_ the heightening and and with publicly owned andoperated tele- strengthening interest in children'sprogram- vision and radio activities is essentinl, ming, CPB held three seminars in the spring of '77 on this subject and its attendant The task force %vas toreconvene in-a few problems. Representatives of the producers; months, ".10 deal with some of thespecific federal agencies, and the stationsattended, budget and legislative issuesfor FY 1978 The initiative Was laudatory. Now thatthe and 1979." 'rho difficulties had beenlabelled. seminars have ended, however, thework Now it was up to thisnew community of has to begin. planners to agree on howa future route for 4--P Sesame Street (andso many other projects) 'The cost projection, does not takeinto .con- might be laid out and paved.- sideration the repetition of program material.

2Z For the School Years

There is a clear need for several changes in thesystem, but ITV is here to stay. If it were totally abandoned andits finances scat- tered among Georgia's 188 schoolsystems, the impact would be negligible. And within a few years,we believe, it would prove necessary to rebuild the system. Final Report: The Use of InstructionalTelevision in Georgia. Battelle-Columbus Laboratories. We were able to updateour math program (through ITV) in less than five years, whereas it would have takenus twice as long in the conventional method. A teacher from rural New Clarusi,Wiscousin. This is the only day I haveno problem with tardiness. Other days I shut the door at the tardy bell andanyone late must have a note. But on Thursdays, the kids are running downthe, hall to get to class on time so they won't missany of the Univi rse and I program-for that week. They really enjoy theprogram A science teacher on theuse of. Kentucky Educational Tele- vision's Universe and I series. ITV has finally come out of the basement andup to the front porch where it's visible. Robert Fox, Associate Executive bitectorfor Development, Agency for Instructional-Television.

he meaning of that old familiar involved its ITV processes. The Eastern 'label "instructional television" has Regional Council for EducationalTele- changed. The change has not hap- vision (ERCE-TV),acollaboration be- pened suddenly, and it has not been tween as many as ten state, departments of total. Still, ITVdefined hereas the delivery . education andpublic of televised instructionno- longer broadcastersin means northeastern states, vitt s going to bein- what it did 15 to 20 yearsago. corporated during Summer 1977. Chief In fact, 1TV today has strengths thatit state school officers or their immediate lacked as recently as fiveyears -ago.' The content is associates would serve on the board. One better; sois program quality. of the main aims: to producenew ITV ITV uses in schools and effortsto enhance programthing based on common curricular those uses have improved. Certainstruc- needs as determined by the departments tures- suchastheconsortium and the of education. regional network have added to effective- A greater variety of programming has -be- ness. Research and evaluation have been come available. WVIZ, Cleveland, esti- intensified. In many ways, there isgreater mated in 1976 that its ITV "library" sophistication than ever. was worth more than $4 million in production For a certainty, ITV activity hasacceler- costs incurred by consortia and other ated and broadened in thepast few years. agencies. Anecdotes, statistics, and testimony ofprac- titioners have poured in. Not all thereports Forthe1975 production of historigol are of fair weather. Nevertheless, in certain dramas titled OURSTORY by WNET, New ways the horizon has brightened: York, there wasa unique .,integration New York, there wasa unique 'integration Educators with stature have become rno of curriculum materials in theprogram- 23 Produced by Kei itchy Educational Television, the its series The Universe and I helps explain to televisiOn view-ar s. some of the arcane facts of the earth's.interior as ,presented inthis episode by former outer- spacer Leonard Nimoy. making process, To help teachers make The Agency for InstrUctional Television better use of the monthly series, project put $3,000 into evaluating the consortium staff published 1.8 million "backpacks" program Ripples jn 1979. More recently; suggesting games, puzzles, role-playing, AlT has budgeted $636,000 for evalua- alti other in-classfollow-upactivities. tions in its Essential Learning Skills un-; Some 30,000 copies per programwere dis- dertaking. persed to public TV. Stations; 170.000were mailed to social studies departments in Nationalorganizations have showna every junior and senior high school in the greater commitment than before. CPB al- nation. located $218,000 to the pilot development So-called of an Essential Learning Skills series -for "utilization"theworkof fifth and sixth' graders; and it recently achieving the best uses of ITVprogram- conducted six -seminars in early1977 ojia ming in schoolshas been stepped up. In the , status and future of children's 1975-76, KTEH, San Jose, held- 150 work- pro- shops for teachers and school people. graMming. Meanwhile, PBS hasexpanded its- daily transmission of educative series During 1976-77, it expected to haveas many as 250. '---from just three during morning-midday times in 1973-74 to 24 in the daytime Research has .taken on new importance: hours of 1976-77.

24 In some places, the last few years havebeing asked, if not demanded, of the ITV beenatimeforreflection.In1974.the program producer. Georgia State Board of Education brought lie is being asked to share some of the in Battelle-Columbus to study the use of ITV teacher's load in teaching good citizenship there. That same year, the Kentucky Educa- and what those in California's Santa Clara tional Television Authority formed a study County call :'education for responsibility." riommission -"toevaluate KET's progress 11.1 is faced, too, with the flurry ofconcern in Fulfilling its mission. . A year later, over "back to basics" and a host of new the New England Instructional TelevisionCurricular needssuch as America's metri- ResearchCentersurveyedConnecticut's cation, information on career choices, bi- teachers on ITV, and the University of cultural awareness, and affective education. Virginia's Bureau of Educational Research Time and again, ITV has heeded these undertook a similar ITV-usage study in thecalls. Local station, stateagency, multi-state Shenandoah Valley. p . consortiumeach has responded toexpres- These studies and others like them showed sions of need from the education world. As that ITV was finally being doticed. Ata timethe nation moved toward conversionto of dollar shrinkage' and. more systematic the metric system. thiswas how three sepa- management of education, ITV was visible rate entities responded: enough to make the authorities conclude that it ought to prove its reasons for exist- 1. KLCS, Los Angeles, produced eight ence. That, at least, was better than being half-hour shows on the "SI Metrics"sys ignored. tern for teachers. Titled Metrify or Petrify, the series has gone into national distribu- A Difference in Programming tion through AIT, Over the past few' years, ITV programming 2. The Mississippi Authority for ETVgen- has changed in several major respects.It erated fifteen _20- minute- lessons- far ele- has become better-designed, better-looking, mentary- children on The Metric System, better- funded. Today, a producer may be available nationally through Great Plains turning out fewer series than inearlier National Instructional Television library. times, but the current product will bemore durablebecause it'sbetter. (As one ex--- -3. An AlTconsortiumhasinvested ample, AIT's Ripples was in its eighth sea- $364,000inaseriesforintermediate son of use during 1976 -77.Because the grades titled Measure Metric. quality is better, this ITV series and others Educators have faced other problems like it are that much more shareable, that for example, the child with a learning prob- much.more exportable to other users). lem. One response came from the-Learning In'only a' short time, program techniquesDisabilities Council of Virginia. At public have changedperhaps as a direct imprintTV staion WOVE, Richmond, the council of ScsarneStreet and The Electric Company. prodyped 15 half-hour program units for A few statistics tell the story. In a joint 1974 college and in-service uses. Titled Thee Char- study by CPB and the National Center for acteristics of Learning Disabilities, this series Education Statistics, "ITV Hours By Pro- has touched off an unprecedented number gram Format" showed that 19.8 per cent ofof inquiries to its national distributor. Great thehoursincludeddramatizations. Two PlainsNationalInstructionalTelevision years later,a similar survey found that Library. dramatizations had almost doubled (35 per In reacting to these contemporary needs, cent). Animation could be seen in only 2.2 ITV producers- have broken away from the per cent of the hours in 1974, but in 13 perstatic studio. -Assembling American Scrap- cent of the product in 1976. Meanwhile, the book,itssixteen -unithistoryseriesfor long-esteemed lecture had slipped from 34.1 seventhandeighthgraders,WVIZ-TV, per cent in 1974 to 29 per cent. Demonstra-Cleveland went to locations in Pennsylvania, tions edged -off, toofrom 32,1 per cent to Virginia, Arizona, Ohio, Indiana, Wyoming, 26 per cent. Louisiana, Wisconsin, Yellowstone National Changes like thehave brought ITV pro-Park and Nova Scotia. The productionteam, grams closer to 'the level of "winners" suchanxious to tell the story of the white man's as The Electric Company. They have come arrival in the New World "through theeyes at a time when success more than ever is ofnative Americans," arrangedtouse tp 25 Then MC Wolin pops the question: "An aptitude test helps tell you about', a)your accounts, (b) your abilities, (c) your popu- larity." Rival teams try to beat each other in being the first to push a button for the correct answer; the winning group amasses game points. A need arose from teachers for a print component with the TV shows, so KET published a book to complement the \ series. \ Programs In the Spotlight's Eye. Forany- one in ITV, themove had to be seen as big news. At its Jana,-ry 13, 1977 meeting, the\Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocated $218,424 for the Agency for Instruc- tional Television's "Essential Learning Skills" project, Thosedollars will help underwrite experimental production. If the pilot tests favorably, then CPB would be preparedto invest much more ih the $4,250,000 enterprise.- In almost nine years of existence, CPB had not,made a like investment inany ITV project designed for in-schooluse. In ,,xnertean Scrapbook, WVIZ-TV, Cleveland. AIT's, goal: 'to produce GO fifteen-minute the arrival of white men to the New World lessons for fifth and sixth graders. After is seen by the Native Americans. years of concern AIT and elsewhere for Indians whostilllivenear Jamestown the affective, these.,units will dive headlong Festival. Park. into the cognitive, presenting the essential KET's series Contract also meets a current learningskillscornunication(listening, need in a way quite unprecedented, unique speaking,reading,.Writing), (-,:mthhematics for ITV as little as five years ago. In Ken- (computation, measurement), and reasoning tucky, the law holds that ninth-grade pupils and study skills (inquiry, reference, anal- must be able to read above sixth-grade level; ysis, organization). Over, all,the process if they can't, they must go''intoa special from first discussion to 'completed series class. In the words of KET Program Coordi- will take six years. On an 'early-1977 time nator Sandy Welch, "the Department of line, the TV units will be ready foruse in Education and ninth-grade reading teachers Sep tember 1979. said, 'Help!' It would be a mistake to soft-pedal the It took KET a year of researching to come importance of this venture. AIT' Executive up with an air-worthy response. The result Director Edwin G. Cohen has realized that is Contract. It looks and sounds like a corn- his organization is preparinga resource "in mercial-TV game show. Amid applause from the most important area for which schools his audience of students, MC Kenny Wolin are responsible, the essential skills."flow- makes a typical ',entrance. He then states ing that, he offered this forecast: his "cardinal rule," that is, to "Read before If that task is performed successfully, ible- you sign!" His so-called "contracts" might vision will have become of education with- deal with careers, or drug use, orsex edu- out any doubt. If it can't do it, then televisio cation. In the show's format, viewers and will merit obscurity. contestants have to read a paragraph held briefly on the screen, then answer a ques- On its present track; AIT expects to start tion about it. A typical statement: experimentalproduction by midsummer 1977. All-out filming would begin by early An aptitude test helps tell what you might 1978. If the first black of 80 lessons turns, be good at.It takes into account your in- out. well, then AIT would plan tomove on terests,abilities,attitudes, and character. toa sequel: essential skill 7-packages for Discussth'esethings with your parents, other grade levels. As Cohen put it, AIT is teachers, and counsellor. looking at a "decade of activity."

. Meanwhile, these were otherprogram ac- Studies) and Getting the Mes an in tivities, illustrative in microcosm of what service course for teachers .reading was going on in late 1976 throughout the instruction. With all costs included, the ITV field: six represented an investment by South Starling in lune 1973. the Education De- Carolina of more than $500,600 apiece velopment Center, Newton, Massachusetts, over a three-year period. had gone to work on a provocative set of Freestyle was the subject of a Los Angeles- mathematics objectives. The product,In- datelined press release in July 1976. The finity Factory, paid for.in largest part by publicity confirmed the award by theNa- dollars from the federal Emergency School tional Institute of Educa,tion of $3.8 million Aid Act went into distribution in Sep- to make the "Television Career Awareness tember 1970 through PBS. Initially, 70 Project" possible. The grant cameto pub-, per cent of the PBS member stations lic TV station KCET on behalf of picked up the series. a member _consortium. The othersshared Terri Payne Francis, "IF" producer,offered the workload: the L.A. CountySuperin: this project aim: "We hopeto present tendent of Schools, the L.A. City Schools, math as. a tool that helps childrencope the University of Southern California,East with life, to affirm ethnic confidenceand L.A. College, the University of Michigan's pride for our primaiy target audienceof Institute for Social Research, and Science eight to eleven year old Black and Latino Research Associates. children and to help all childrenunder- Freestyle's objectivewas " "to address the stand and appreciateone another's life- problem of pre-occupational segregation styles and cultures." The Office of Edu- by expanding the workawareness of cation's Emergency School Aid Act fourth, fifthand sixth ,grade children." 1973 grant of just over $4 millionpro- The plans have called for airing of three duced 52 half-hour shows. A second batch, "project prototypes"(inthe words of of 30 was in the works during1976-77, David L. Crippens, KCET's Vice President for planned use starting in September of Educational Services, and director of 1977. the core committee for Freestyle) inFall During 1976-77, the South Caroline ETV 1977. After evaluation, full production will Network had six ITV series in various begin on the 26-half-hour series, aimingto- stages of CompIttion. They covered a span ward broadcast.in 1978. For itsexecutive from driver's education arid South Caro- producer, TV CAP has Norton W, Wright, lina Ristory to Blue -Umbrella (Social former directqr of domestic and interne- tional production for Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Kentucky Educational Television's.first Major ITV project, Universe andI(a series of 20-minute earth /space science prograMs for Grade8) was completed in. 1976. Among its stars was Leonard Nimey, without his "Star Trek" ears. Irharl been funded al the level of $200,000 (including $10,000 from NASA.). As ..explained by KET Executive Director Len Press, the series "broke the ice" for tbe agency in terms of doing further ITV programming. As a sequel to completion of Universe and I, the Legislature allocated $600,000 for KET to do three or fourmore instruc- tionalseries. Whatever they may be, teachers will be involved in the Planning This scene is pisode of Under the proceii;-"There's enormous value in th4f," Blue Umhrella, in social studies said Press. for the first and second graders. This list of examples offersa glimpse at underway. In between, AIT has involved the diversity of program 48 sources that has states and three Canadian provincesin con- become available in recentyears to the ITV sortia, One state (Iowa] has takenpart in all director and curriculum committee.It is not nine; 18 have jnihed sixor more. at all necessary for each station to produce As a variant, AIT workedup a "prepro- programming for its own ITV schedule. duction lease plan." Under it,a cluster of Today, national distributors have become. agencies puts money into series beingpro- prominentasanalternativeinventory. duced by or for AIT. One example is Zebra Hence, the choices have broadenedcon- Wings, a creative writingcourse developed siderably for the local licensee. by the Mississippi Authority forEducational Whether access to these other-than-local Television, with AIT. These projectshave program sources led to the tangible decline had "neither the scope nor complexity of in local ITV production,' or whethera new the major consortium series ...." supply of program materialwas simply the response to that downward trend, is moot. The fact is that various national distributors nonprofit and commercialhave been fill- ing effectively what might have beena void. The situation is typified bya remark from Howard Spergel, Director of Educational Services for the Eastern Educational Tele- vision Network: When I came to the network in thelate sixties, the ratio of local productionto acquisitions from other sourceswas 70 to 30. Now it's turned around. We havemore than $300,000 invested in 1976-77 in acquisitions of ITV series for the network members. These were some of the agenciesserving the national ITV market in 1978,producing programs, or leasing out series made by Nancy Oakes, of Measure Up, offers first grade math through fun and games;a WCET-TV, others: Cincinnati, production. Agency for Instructional Television (MT) Setting aside consortium operations, AIT's The AIT has 15 years of history, mucli'of TV rentals, filmsales,publicatiems, and it under its former name, NationalInstruc- other services brought the agency $2,250,000 tional Television (NIT). In 1973, AIT ab- in revenue during fiscal 1977a five per cent sorbed NIT, retaining its office in Blooming- increase over FY 1976. The biggest growth ton, Indiana, was in TV rentals, which rose eight per cent Recently, AIT said this about its philos- in 1977. AIT expects its 19713 rentals and ophy; "school television should tacilitate sales to increase three per cent. The dissemination of the best thinking and practice in important and lasthg areas of Great Plains NationalIT_V Library (GPN) need for instructional improvement: Thus, Operational for fifteen years, GPNis called school television,at AIT, is seen as an a "service agency" of the University of important means for facilitating educational Nebraska. Stated by Director. Paul Schup-! change.". bach, its mission has been "identification,i On one hhnd. AIT has run a library for acquisition, storage, duplication, and clistri-' ITV users. Most of the 90 s'eries it offered bution of extant materials (and) to provide in 1976 had bean produced by local stations an ongoing, national, self\-'51ipporting serv- regional entities. ice." Then too, AIT has been taking ever-larger In 1964, according to the 1974 c Televi- steps in consortium production.Itsfirst sion Program Content study by CPB/ \CES.56.2 move came in 1068 when it started work on per cent of ITV hours were locally produced, A similar CPB/NCES appraisal for earlY\1976 Ripples. Its latest (ninth, consortiumven- showed that local production had fallento, 19 ture, Essential Learning Skills projectis per cent.

28 . GPN catalog for 1977 listed 155 ITV tario via television, film, videotap,audio- series. They ranged from first grade to adult tapes,records,telephone,mail,printed level (including eight British Open Univer- matter sity com,,,$)The series came uniformly OECA's catalog, "TV Ontario,"-speaks of from other organizations: CPN does notpros "bringing learning to life." A fuller explana- duce programs. Staffed by 27 full-timepeo- tion notes: "Our programs aren't just edu- ple, equipped with 29 videotape recorders, cational television, and they aren't just good GPN has increased sales yearly since 1972, entertainment. They're both. And our pro- when its volume was $1,144,325. The latest grams are designed into a structured learning figure available (1975) was $1,648,240. experience, backed up by project materials, In Fall 1976, CPN received more calls phone-in discussion and even media literacy "than ever," according to Schupbach, for workshops. We provide,inshort,total elementary-level series, but the "most dra- television." OECA's 103 program listings matic upsurge" was atthe college level. stretch from elementary through adult levels. What other trends could Schupbach spot? Revenues from their uses in America have "Setter materials atall levels. video tripled since 1973. cassette usage up each year. .f see non- To ITV specialists dedicated to both de- broadcaster usersturning even more to sign and creativity, OECA's outlook, stated national libraries for their materials," by station Superintendent Don Torney is A footnote of interest to producers: GPN certain to be appealing. Says Torney: "We reported. in 1976 that in 14years it paid out don't just report or put a teacher in front of more than $2 million in royalties to over a blackboard. We never do that. We say: 50 ETV production centers. For the last five What's the best way to get our message to years,annual paymentsli-aveaveraged the audience? Is it television? Isit print' $245,000. material? Is it slides? And we use the whole gamut." Internation al Instructional Television Cooperative (ITV Co-op) Western Instructional Television, Inc. Youngset of the producers, the "ITV Co-op" Western ITV was established in 1968 as came into being October1,1976.Itis a profit-making enterprise. Los Angeles- independent and nonprofit, headquartered based, it has been,on its own since 1970. inFallsChurch, Virginia. By itsformal "A New Concept in Instructional Tele- starting date, 85 agencies had joinedit, vision" is how Western ITV describes itself. "united to produce the highest quality ITV It combines "some of the most experienced at the lowest cost." ITV teachers" with "a top professionalpro- The Co-op's first three series Coverto duction center."Its 1977 catalog lists 19 Cover I and 11. and The Word Shopwere series. For The past three years, Western's produced at WETA, Washington, under the output has been in distribution in 43 states. direction of Ray Gladfelter. Then, Glad- Director of ITV Donna Matson, featured felter left WETA to become President and in three of the series, has become a -"one- Executive Director of the Co-op. Thenew woman band," as she puts it, at Western. agency will continue to use WETA's' facili- She has sold the programs, and as a Jormer ties for the next three years (accordingto TV teacher,conducted in-service work- WETA President Ward Chamberlin) when- shops. Then, with regularity, she haspro- ever it produces within 100 miles of Wash- duced shows, forming a team consisting of ington. a "top teacher," a consultant, and herself. The Co-op's Vice-President and Creative Western ITV has picked familiar faces for Director is John Robbins, a fourteen-year, its programs, among them Tony Saletan,a veteran rof producing and appearing in ITV music teacher on -TV for more than ten series, Three new Co-op series were to go years, and Julius Sumner Miller, Walt Dis- into production in 1977. ney's "Professor Wonderful."

Ontario Educational Communications Commercial Suppliers Authority (OECA) ITV staffs have drawn increasinglyon a Formed in 1970 as an independent agency number of commercial distributors to round of the Province of Ontario, OECA and its outtheir respective schedules.So- have 400 employees ,represent "education in On- several of the existing regional networks, which have w irked out a so-called "group- lying" practicet cut costs for member stations. Typicalofcurrent. practice,Southern EducationalCommunicatibiasAssociation (SECA)---a nroup-huyer ,since 1973as a regional netwakhought $3p2,600 worth of ITV programs (2,200 individual programs) for its members in 1976-77. The savingsto them over acquiring theprograms individually: $95,000. For 1977.78, SECA will spend an estimated $325,000 on TV materials for members. .; A number of commercial suppliers have gone after the ITV market among them familiar concerns such as COE films, Learn- ing Corporation of America, and Encyclo- pedia Britannica Educational Corporation. At least one indication of the commercialsup- pliers' penetration of ITV comes from the Eastern Educational TV Network. It- has Cover to Cover, which presents dramaticpor- traitsof literature,i aimed at stimulating acquired series for its members from at least reading books., 25 major firms. This -market penetration of independent Thishypotheticallicenseecouldfind suppliers has been spelled out in the CPB/ added comfort in another aspect of this size- NCES Interim Report: Prelifninary Results able programinventory.Dr.HaroldE. CFB /NCES Public Television Content Wigren, former Educational Telecommunica- Survey (January 1 to Tune 5, 1976), issued in tions Specialist at the National Education October 1976. One of the study's break- Association, commented on thisfacet in downs dealt with "ITV Hours by_ Producer October 1976. He said that he found "definite of ,Material." This was the result: improvement in quality from producers.' Local 19% Shirley Gillette of WNET offereda com- Corso 9% parable response in April 1977. Over the CTW 12% past live years, she said, there had beena Foreign "dramatic improvement in the quality and Major PTV station substance" of ITV programs. Other PTV station 24% With the rise in quality hascome recog- Independent, 22% nition. For example, Inside/Outwon .A na- Other 3% tional Emmy in 1974, and a Distinguished It is worth noting again that in 1964before Service Award from the Association for the the era of consortium production, before Advancement of Health Education, in 1975. CTW's arrival with Sesame Street-56:2 Ohio State Awards in 1975 and 1976 wentto per cent of ITV production was local in I Cover.,to'Cover, parts I and II, and a 1976 nature. ( Ohio State award was given to OURSTORY.2 One might make another point about the Note also the 1976 "Best of Festival'_' Award progiams produced and/or distributed by for Self-Incorporated at the American Per- five agencies cited on pages above (AIT, sonneland GuidanceAssociationFilm - GPN, ITV CO-OP. OECA, Western). In late Festival. 1976,- their collective output added up to With the- awards and acclaim has come .more than 370 series and individual units, somethlog quite new to instructional tele- GreatPlainsNational'scatalegalone vision. Robert Fox of AIT, whomay see as amounted to 3,201 programs. Even if it were not engaged in any local production, a Singling out one OUJSTORY show titled licensee could feel reasonably comfortable The Peach Gang. the citation described itas "in . about leasing series from these sources to impressive example of how moving and exciting fill the customary 106 hours of air. time in. instruction by television can be, given adequate resources . (T)he dollars were wisely and the school-year ITV schedule..., productively used to create quality instruction." much of the ITV realm nationallyas any other single individual, put it simply: "This is bringing ITV to a level of visibility that it didn't have before." The State of Utilization In big type, the Louisiana Educational Tele- vision Authority's 1976-77 ITV catalog made a strong-opening statement: (ITV)is no longer experimental, nor is there a need for pilot programs. Rather,it should by a major teaching tool usedto improve the effectiveness of the teaching mid learning processes. We encourage sdhool administrators and teachers to work together with the State Department of Education and the Louisiana ;Educational Television Authority inpro- moting the use of the powerful medium television in educating the youth of Louisi- nna. 11j A scene from "lust joking," one of the 06pro- groms_of the Inside/Out- series producedand The signatures beneath this Forewordwere distributed by AIT. those of J. Kelly, Nix, State Superintendent From an early-1976 survey, the Eastern of _Education, and 'A. Fred Frey, Executive EdUcational Television Network learned Director of the Louisiana ETV Authority. that 24 responding agencies in That kind of leverage cart help in 11 states many; averaged one utilizationperson apiece. ways. But sooner or later,the "working together- must come clOwo to ITV'swomen At levelslikethese,couldutilization and men going from. schoolhouse to school- -people be on top of their jobsin 1977? house,meetingwithteachers,andas KTEH Manager Maynard Orme,probably Messrs. Nix and Frey said, "promoting" ITV Spoke for many of them whenhe said: "It's use. not as effective as we would like. We can't There was little likelihood in 1976 of get around to all the schools." At KET they findingthe ITV utilizationofficesover- remember all too well whenan ITV repre- staffed. To suggest the sizeof the field sentative visited a school administrator who forces in the country: was to, be liaison between KET and schools th that district. The visitor foundhim with Connecticut PTV Network had two staff- f'iis feet proppedup on an unopened box of members to-cover the kET's teachers guides to ITVprogramming. KTEH, San Jose, assigned IWO full-time 'In a word, life in utilizationcan be de- people to work with 635 Schools; cidedly frustrating and taxing. Itcan mean driving well over 100 miles ona given day. Ira Maryland, four State Department of It can also mean finding 'ma few TVsets, Education employees were employed for available, and too littleawareness among the task of utilization, one for each of teachers that ITV guidesare accessible, four regions of the state; Some teachers may- still be hostile; it is the Kentucky, Educational Television had six view of KTEH's Orrne that "manyare fearful representatives to work the entire state; that TV will 'replete them,-, Does all this necessarily result Inan un- productive standoff? Not in regions suchas C-alled field coordinationin some places, the one served by WVIZ, Cleveland. There, utilization is a familiar job -broadcasting station,It might Include anything. from field coordinators Esther Dahs and Barbara teacher works'hops and handouts of program-,Wilkes cover 60 school districtsbetween series teacher's guides to speeches to parent them. In her eight yearson the job, Ms;. and newsletter mailings. The burdenfalls Dahs has come to know two-thirds of the mainly on stations staff to do this work. teachers at the elementary level. HOW-do they see her? As a "'resource person," matedtotal of 650,000 students, includ- explains, adding: ing those school districts thatpay for the When I meet with science iettehers, the service and those Who'bootleg" it.) no way I can tell them that these programs In the 1975-76 schoolyear, South Caro- are the ones they can really use, They know lina ETV for the first time broke theone the curriculum best.serve as a facilitator. million mark in series enrollments.Its I show them a representative sample of 272,171 ITV students (theyear before: programming and then acquaint them with 253.029) saw an average of four series the ways it has been used. 7 each, for a total enrollment of 1,097,032. IfidiVidu al chemistrybeing an intelligent, At KTEH, San lose, in 1976,a using responsive listenencan make a big differ- population of 120,000 was much thesame ence. In 1976, utilization had other things as it had been for several years before. going for it as well. Better programswere The station eiTected it tostay at that drawing a better press and generdting better level until the transmitter is moved,as word-of-mouth awareness in the teaching planned, to a more dominant site fcr community. Then, too, delivery meant going greater school and public reception of the beyondopen-circuitbroadcast,enabling KTEH schools to have their better-than-everpro- grams and play them. ,too, i.e by off-air WVIZ, Cleveland, has been faced witha taping and closed-circuit distribution within drop in school enrollment in the Greater asingle-'schoolbuilding,'virtuallyata Cleveland area, Even so, in 1976 thesta- teacher's whim. tion recorded a 20 per cent increase in In an ideal World, the end result of th ITV viewership-918,712, compared with improvements ought to be greater and better 766,000 the year before, use of ITV in schools, the ultimate goal of In Georgia, average daily classroomat- all utilization effort. tendance has been on a slow but steady At WNET, the Education Divisionported decline. In 1969, the average daily attend- about 350,000 students using ITV in 1976, ance stood at 1,013,047; in 1976, it was The total had been "holding steady" for 985,057. several years. (In early 1977, the station Against this background, the Georgia ETV took a different approach to its figures. Network has eneotfittered Mese interest- Counting all membership:,, guide sales, ing, if not entirely consistent,usage pat- and a New York State survey, WNET esti- terns:

Use of the educational guide tlaterialsis on thud Anima WHRO-TV, Norfolk, Va. 0 1.Of the state's 188 schoolsystems, usage have been done over the past seven 181 used ITV in 1974, while 173 used years.- They may not prove a national_ pat- ,the.service in 1976; tern, but they can certainly be what KET's 2.. Using teachers went from 18,710in Virginia Fox has called "a management tad]." 1974 to 18,184 in 1976: (A sampling of these investigations ispro- 3. Individual studentsexposed to the vided in the Appendix to this chapter.) service numbered 379,477 in1974, and Could all the data from different states be rose to 487,576 two, years later; married? It seems unlikely. Researchers ask 4. Counting students on the basis of their own questions, working fromtheir once for each course watched, the 1974 own inferences, and sometimes make ill- aggregate total was 949,072. while in founded inferences. Alluding toone study, 1976, it climbed to 1,109,979; and AfT Research Director, Saul Rockrnan, 5. Students in 1974 watched said an average it was "very good, but they weren't ableto of 2.5 courses, compared with2.3in interpret it well. They didn't havea feel far what the material meant." As information-gathering has intensified, Even so, the quite separate studies cited telecommunications agencies have triedto in the Appendix at the end of this chapter harvest different types of numbersforex-. do have some common threads. Time and ample, how many pupils watch particUlar again, scheduling conflicts within the schools series- As a case in point, the headcounting are cited as a problem. Lack of equipment is on The Electric CoMpany, has become of mentioned repeatedly; so is lack- ofappro- distinct interest. During the 1974-75 school priate programming. These itemsmay not year, lane, Norfolk, Virginia, servingten startle old ITV hands, but they do help in school 9ysterns, found thatmore pupils had writing the strategy for an -aggressiveMill- watched The Electric Company (19,991) than terattack at all levels of activity. . any other ITV series on itlist of 27, The ro Ficeknien, the presant researchnum- closest competitor: Inside /Out, with17,219 bers sernethoes can be "unreal." Other types Health Education pupils in grades3 through of information may be more important. He 6. (recalls the Ohio state legislator who said, Kentucky Educational Televi- "The most important thing I get that deals sion brought in various pieces of informa- with school television is a letter. When I 'get tion about the uses of The EleCtric Company a letteilfrom a parent complaining about a throughout _that- state.KET. reportedin. televisiiin program, I have to act."Neverthe- November 1976 that its twice-weekly broad- less, most' members of the ITV community casts of that series were followed by about would concede _today that they still need 130,00910Ts 4.1,td girls, "almost 20per cent numbers-. to backstop -their efforts towin of all the students in, Kentucky schools," higher, roue consistent exploitation of tele- The agency's data showed further that: vised instruction. CPB's. jointeffort. with NCES on a nationWide school utilization Three out of five second-graders (59.8 survey should provide more definitive an- per cent) were watching thisseries in swers to important use issues. 1975-78 as part of language-arts sturdy. 2. Over three ybars; the trendhas risen. More Use in High Scheele?. Traditioclally, In 1973.174, 4,602 Kentucky teachers made ITV has been used less at thesecondary- use of .The Electric Company; 115,506 sphOol level than in elementaryschools. In students- frail special education classes some -places, that tradition las been under and kin&rgarten through19thgrade polite attack in the past severalyears. At a watched it. The nextyear, 4,818 teachersmeeting of secondary-school repreSenta. were following the series, along with tives in 1976 qt KET, themessage was clear: 116,74i pupils from K through 12 (even _"We yea the rnateriall-INVIZ has spotted 74 seniors were. watching). In 1975-78, "more interest in using the mediumat ther' both totals were up-4,834 teachersand secondary level." 129,676, pupils, including145 in grade 12. It would be unwise, however, toexpect a real trend inthisdirection. So far,the The Number People at Work. Whilena- national statistics do not shore.up any tional data satisfactory to all haveyet to be broadsidejudgments. Putting two CPB/ assembled, more local studieS of teacher NCI studiesside-by-sideonePublic \ Television Pr 9grarnCotintent: 1974; the other, a content survey for January 1 to June 5, 1976---presents this comparison: ITV Hours By Grade Level Grade 1976 1974

-9` 12% 10 11 10 10.5 12 9 10.0 These figures ought to be seen in the context Classroom activities. prompted by the, series of total IW hours airo pcirtion ofa licen- Inside/Out, e's broadcasCschedule. In 1974, instruc- ton Beach Union School District, one-quarter tional materials amounted to 17.1per cent of of the teachers at the high school level-said . air lime. In the ,,early-1976 content survey, they were using ITV. Meanwhile, the .A1- those materials accounted for 21 per cent of legheny Educational Broadcasting Council, the schedule. The 'tong and short ofit is serving central Pennsylvania. had twosur- that. those. figures available do not shoWra veys to report: trend toward greater usgs of,,ITV at the high- school level. 1. `In 1974-754 one secondary teacher out Nevertheless, there were enough straws in of five used ITV in class. the wind during 1976 to encFuiage the 2, The next school year, 47 per cent of Agency for Instructional Televis,ionto in-- vcstigate use. It resulted in a Marsh 2, 1977 the secondary teachers made use of ITV interim report titled "The Statuof ITV "selectively" (defined as meaning that the Utilization In Secondary Schools: -\teport teacher "does not use a 'complete' series, Based On a Synthesis of the Responses but picks and chooses programs from all To series ..."). an AIT, Request." The sampling, while \`not scientific," was "representative," in AlTs In a -tighter breakdown, the council noted judgment. The replies, taken insum, sug- that of the 47 per cent, 35per cent used gested "one possible conclusion" that: \ ITV selectively, ten per cent used one to secondary school televisionis underused, seriesa week, and two per cent worked with more than two series a week. under-financed and unexciting . Out of the research came another quanti- Byand.large, the survey showed, ITVuse in high schools is "extremely low." Some. of tative not Total' secondary "member- ! the individual answers were sobering: ship" in the council amounted to about 70,000 students. Rut' because,, thesame :1One-thirdoftheK-12population student might _see more than one series, watches ITV, and-one-third of thatpopu- the total of student viewings came out to lation is in secondary school. 716,272. 2,In one area.- 61 of 239 teachers said As another facet of the 1975-76 survey, they did use ITV, but 105 could not and the council discovered that 54 per cent of 54 didn't want to. all secondary-level teachers using ITV said they either taped the show, or had it 3.Another reply said simply that there was no current contract to provide. ITV taped by someone else, for later use. for any secondary school in the area. Where does "reality exist" in all this,as AIT put it? The agency concluded that it 4. Eleven per cent of all teachers using could be found: ITV were in secondary schools, but only one of nine teachers ,inthe state was ...in the pathetically low data on viewership using ITV. and teacher use, in the reluctance of state and local legislators to turn loose funds for 5. Fifteen per cent of all student vie equipment and in the generally low-key but Were in grades 8 to 12. continued. cries for help from ITV people at There were brighter signs. In the Hunting- the secondary level. 34 However, the statistics that support this conausian divert the eye from whatappears to be the !nest important ingredient of the utilization. ptocess. That is the human touch. It' can, be the makingor the breakingof better ITV uses in any part of theK-12 spectrum, At \NVIZ, Cleveland, late in1976, fie0 engineer hoe Vapenik .describedwhat he does and what hesees as he makes his rounds: /WI out 70 per cent of thetime, taking care of iris channels. The schoolsare very re- ceptive. They're glad we're aroundto help solve problems. I've. seen on increase inseveral school systems, from just having TV in classtoa cornpl system with a couple of closed- circuit'set-ups, doing theirown origination. Especially the high schoolsare going into The series.Vegetable Soup, researchersfound, this closed-circuit. did bring about -attitudinalchanges" in young viewers. I've seen quitea feuv more videocassette players in the schools, andmore recording' tionsincluding CPB, PBS, the Children's the air. Most of the outlying,'suburban Television Workshop, and AlT havehad schools /lave this off-air capability.Its dif- staff directors of research. 'Then,too, major ent in the elementary schools,but they're projects have generally hada research corn= starting to get into VTIts,too_ portent although, as.one ITV directorput it, she had not seen much sign ofsumrnative' AlmosCevery day, foe Vapenik"oneofresearch ("perhaps for lack of fundri. my better. salesmen," says WVIZ Assistant As one example of this researchorienta- Manager Man Stephensonisout; wheretion, the Bureau of MassCommtinica.tions the ITV action, is, joining the fieldcoordi- of the New York State EducationDepart- nators of the station. Vapenikrepresentsment decided to test the impact of its Vege- instructional television'snew looand what tableSoup,a':.multi- ethnic ".children's they call "servicing the account"cf.t .Ken- series made with ESAA. funds. Firstoffered tlicky Educational Television.It'stough in 1975, the series was airedthat year over work. But in the seventies,it has p_ roved its 265 TV stations (the NBCnetwork.plus Vorth. Merged with all the other Processes PTV outlets). The research exercise: 'Of contemporary utilization,this kind of ,. person-to-person contact is helping greatly Sixteen programs were shownto 200 tar- at long Jigt:to bring ITVout of its getage(elementaryschool]children dwelling plod -in the 'equally divided by sex and ethnicback- ground. On the Research Side After viewing, "several basic The hunt for statistics explicit attitudes" in the above of the children were compared withthose pages and in Dr. Palmer's articleon The of a control group ofnonvievers. Electric Company illustratesa clear point. The'eatire process of researching in ITVhas Researchers learned. accordingto Osborn been widely adopted and refinednver the Segerberg, Jr., thatthe series "did, bring past half-dozen years- Thismore sophisti- aboutattitudinal change in itsyoung cated approach has been usednot only to viewers." Further: assess the effectiveness of programming but ''If change was evid enced afterviewing also to measure the entireservice of several statewide ITV systems. 16 programs, without teacher input, then it may be safely 'assumedthat One measurement of the commitmentto research is that several national much greater percentage of changewi organiza- be manifested with theuse of the previ- 35 v calmly tested learning concepts incorpo- phrases and sentences appeared on the rated in the teacher-training materials." s cy_een ;" Another ESAN-supportedIstnipsLInPnity All the teachers questioned approved of Factory. also came under scrAny: Ateam the series in its content, variety and struc- of four studied eight programs; the findings ture; were published in June 1976 by the Educa- tional Development Center. The teachers considered Readalonga "dynamic television teaching tool and asa Team members worked up these questions: most valuable'instructional aid;" and Did Infinity Factory shows hold children's The children, in terms of "absolute lik- attention? pia they appeal to students? ing. for the series, gave it a "high rating."- Did the- eight programs meet objectives Meanwhile, in the past several years, an- in learning math, attitudes to math, and other kind of research has emerged in 'the social attitudes? form of investigation' of a total statewide What did teachers think of theprograms' system. Recently, two statewide distribution usefulness? agencies underwent probing analysis. This was the nature of these investigations. The answers were markedly encouraging. Mean percentage of attentionwas "very A six-person team from Battelle-Columbus high" (91.3 per cent). -Ratingsfor appeal had the asaignrnent from Georgia's State were also "very high"all above 2.15on a Board of Education "to address the real 3-point scale. In math, "significant gains" day-to-day impact and problems of ITV were noted. As one item: as it is actually used in the classrooms of Georgia." Another issue was to assess Before viewing, 34 per cent could round the role of the simultaneous scheduling off two- `digit numbers correctly. Another of programs throughout the state. Inter 31 per cent left these questionsunan- viewers went to 37 schools, talked to half swered. Then the children watched the the teachers, and left behind a question- rounding-off show. Afterward, 62per cent naire (all teachers filled it out). gave the right answers. And seven weeks thereafter. more than 60 per cent could The team concluded that despite thepo- still tackle rounding-off and he right. tential in the $10 million statewide ETV network and high grades for theprograms, "the use of television in the classroom In attitude, scores did irnprove--"signifi- is minimal." An " "overwhelming'" problem cantly." But the team discerned that "atti, [familiarfar and wide)isscheduling. tudinal gains from pretest to pcst-testwere Growing departmentalization just stiffened not as great as those fotind on knowledge the inflexibility. Then too, only half the of math content." teachers had a set in their room. ITV was What of the teachers? After eight weeks, "likely to remain an alien" unless edu- 86 per cent of the 36 replying indicated their, cators in the field could have some sub- overall opinion was "positive." stantial role in working on ITV pattern` In_ Canada, OECA's Readalang was inde- and content. pendently researched in 1976. The object was to "evaluate the appeal and effective- Battelle-Columbus. advice: (1) the network ness" of the series from the viewpoints of should start a film and tape library and grade 1 teachersofbeginningreaders, use its lines for "instantly. transmitting, teachers of children having reading diffi- them when needed . ;" (2) an in-school culties, and grade 1 pupils. Researcher Dr. , recording - and - distribution- system should Harry Silverman. chairman of Special Edu- be piloted to "document its effecton the cation, Ontario Institute for Studies in Edu- use of ITV and film" and (3) one of the cation, found that: nine transmitters ought to be made the hub for a local planning effort, to work Childrenwatched "attentively, on the "problem of integration with local laughed, groaned or squealed appropri- needs and curriculum." ately in response ; "' Set up in 1974 by the KET Authority,a "most children read aloudas the words, Study Commission arrived -at some strong conclusions in uly 1975 final report on WGBH Inside/Outa unit called "Travelin' the Kentucky agency. It found that: Shoes," West of Boston, at -the Mitchell KET was created and has remained ancil- School in Needham, Mrs. Helen George's lary to, rather than an integral part of, second grade class watched raptly. The pp- Kentucky's system of public ucation. gram told about a family's move to a n'ew This is a fundamental issuew ich must city;the children had strong, divergent be resolved if the potential ofET . . feelings about the move. After the TV was is to be realized. turned off, seven-year-old Christine entered Further, the commission looked hardat readily, into the class discussion. Her family KET's utilization figures (in 1976,58 per was moving in a few weeks; she didn't want cent of the state's studerkts were seeing to leave. A classmate, Roger, had moved KET's ITV "on a regular basis," according four times. I-Xe was more blasé. AtFcess, to KET Executive Director Len Press).As the children took their discussion into the a Mull, the investigators urged that KET playground, talking 'animatedly. "substantiallyincrease"itsutilization This was Helen George's fourth year of staff, and itsfield technicians, as well. using Inside/Out. She had found that her There should be a step-up in providing pupils could identify with its people and secondary-level materials,a push to make events. She had seen that they could watch all programs "of the highest professional the same show more than once, getting caliber," and promotion and advertising rnething new out of it each time. Gradu- to boost viewer awareness of KET. ally, her second graders would become more aware 'of their feelings, more sensitive to One of the major outcomes of this study those' of others. was the so-called "equipment project." Almost from the start of her teachingca- Starting July 1, 1976, the Legislature made reer 15 years ago, Mrs. George has been available $1.1 million to match school dis- using ITV. Last Fall, she was using three" trict investments in TV reception gear. By series. ITV, she has found, can bring in a Spring 1977, 175 of the state's 180 dis- kind of enrichment unavailable through tricts,has decided to participate (they must other -means. Yes, using ITV may take extra put up 40 per cent of the equipment work; it may be inconvenient to geta TV cost). As of May 1, 1977, thiswas how set for her room and adapt to the WGBH the districts were spending themoney as broadcast schedule. But that's all ina day's of May 5, 1977. work for a teacher, she has decided. 1,162 TV receivers. (worth $539,730) had These past two years, teachers at Mitchell been bought; as well as 97 videocassette have been requesting the useof its 12 TV recorders (investment: $132,000); and sets more than before. Most of theuse has 77 been in the primary grades. -Because grades new master antennadistributionsys- tems have been contracted for, while 67 5 and 6 have been departmentalized, teach- systems have been repaired. ers have found it hard to work the broadcasts into class periods. Practically speaking, The scrutiny that all these studies ofpro- they could have used cassettes and recorder- grams and 'systems imply is a relative new- players from the Needham Media Center, Comer in ITV's world. .The results can hurt: but none at Mitchell in late 1976 hadtried a pilot program might fall flat in a test situ- that alternative. Nor had there been work- ation, or 'a system might be operating ina shops to close that loop; no one had asked blatantly inefficient way. If ITV ismore for them. visible these days, then it mustexpect This was the story in the 1976 -77 school and capitalize onthis investigativepres- year outside Boston, and undoubtedly Ma sure. On balance, the eventuarproduct and number of ITV-using communities. Fewin school uses of ITV can only be enhanced. e the ITV world could remain unaware of the potentials for change on the horizon. Out of Today, Tomorrow's Possibilities Thereis,for example, the matter of Far from the researchers' printouts, the school enrollnient, In Fall 1976, the K-12 realities of ITV in the fall of 1976 could be population amounted to 44,393,000, accord-, found in signal Areas all across the country. ing to the National Center for Education On an October morning, Massachusetts Statistics. That was 1,516,000 less than in Educational. Television was transmittingon 1970, And NCES projects a ten per dent de- Cline by 1984. Could a rise in educalion's in thenot`\too. distant future willbe.as u nit cost help ITV? .Or will greater mil '- ubiquitous 6s the audiocassette. We'll be, tancyandpoliticalinvolvementamong distributing nationwide materiels that will teachers turn out to be a countervailing never be brdadcaston a cassette, or into a force, stiffening opposition to more media cable head end, or -on ITFsystem. ,use? A dear view of the education community's stance might be drawn from an In the field, a state ITWprogram coordi- April 1976 speech by National Education nator reported a "quickeping" in areali- Association President John Ryor. Exposure braries. They seemed to have more playback equipment available than she had seen be- to commercial TV, he charged,-,had ,led students to "expeet to be entertained and never fore. She also found a greater district4evel bored by learning." Then he added :' commitm9t toequipment purchases.In 1976-77, one district, which had had no, gear we don't intend to package classroom before, decide to equip each of 20 schools leering as Sesame Street for a TV genera- with videocassette players. Another decided tion and put Big Bird in every elementary to install these players in each of six junior classroom. high schools. Looking further down the Very likely this kind of_ comment scarcely road, this coordinator had high hopes for jostles the women and men of ITV. They eventual satellite use: "It Will- allow us to have heard much harsher camments and consider some possibilities that we were have known much harder times. not privileged to, consider before." In other areas, the bonds between educa- On the Road Ahead. In rural Taylor County, tion and 'instructional broadcasting Were Kentucky, and equally rural Richmond improving, in the eyes of several. Said HOW- County, Virginia, the schools have one TV ard Spergel of the Eastern Educational Tele- receiver in each classroom. In Fall. 1976,'a vision Network: regional taping center opened in South Caro- line's Barnwell and Bamberg Counties to I see greeter coope;ration with the education feed ITV lessons to 11 schools thrbugh three community. ITV gtarted outside the frame- locally scheduled channels. At the same Work of public education. We diditfor time,those schools could tap into four them but notlwith them.-I see greater part- statewide channels operated by South Caro- nership coming-now._ lina ETV. In a similar Vein,' Shirley Gillette of WNET, This kind of evidence suggests that some New York, described in April 1977 how districts in America may be closer to the beneficial a reorganliation of the station's futurethanothersmanyothers.As ITV' committees', had been: Expanding and WVIZ's Alan Stephenson put it, "Utopia is diversifying their advisory committee and one TV set per classroom, but the yellow curriculum utilization group proved worth- brick road hasn't come along yet." In the while. "They' are far more valuable to us, Cleveland area, schools have one receiver now than ever before,"Ivirs. Gillette ex- for 78 children; in Virginia, there's one per plained. "They have a lot to say to us -in ; 100; in Kentucky, you would have found guiding the directions of the Education Di- one per 81 in 1976. vision." These realities have not prevented prac- The trend toward high-quality production titioners from looking beyond tomorrow in will .continue. Said Spergel: "I don't think search of trends. And while this report has the quality of production is, as much of an not aimed at bringing back alive al clinically issue as it was when I carne. into the busi- pure sample of nationwide opinion, certain ness in the late sixties." responses over a six-month interviewing There has been a tendency to believe that phase serve as harbingers of wh'et at least the job of high7quality programming could some agencies and people seemead. very- well.be left in the hands of consortia. On the technical side, Donald R. Quayle, As a state coordinator put it Senior Vice-President for cr.p offered this forecast in late 1976: There's a well-initiated commitment in ,the consortium concept. The more -audacibits Television is getting more involved in ITFS, steps we take, the more our capabilities and the possibility of multiple channels via grow. Now, we're into Essential learning cable in the community, and videocassettes Skills! 46 es

The program, "Last Hour Clash," from The Heart of Teaching series that dealswith Issues common to teachers is produced and distributed by theAgency for Instructional Television. am another state came the report ofa Dr, Malcolm Davis, Director of the.Office of away from local production and toward Education's Division of Educational Tech- consortium products. Energieswere swing- nologyand to others ing there toward as wellthis has concentration on better seemed "restrictive." A teacher "shouldhave utilization. That, said the ITV.program di- the program on the shelf foruse at the most rector.is where the emphasis. should -go appropriate time," Dr. Davis added. Hence, over the few years. Spergel added this his office Iriftituted in early 1977an audio- observation: visual rights-and-usage policy foreries it The issue of teacher acceptance is stillan funds. Two of the requirements: issue. We're going to have to figureout 1. A series must be cleared for six years' various mays and strategiesso that ITV use on public TV; and becomes accepted inthe classroom.It's going to be a slow battle. 2.It must be available for 12 years'use One unique step toward improvingaccept- in in- school situations (includingtrans- ance:"licensee involvementin teacher train- mission Dye? education-dedicated cable ing. WNET conducted a three-credit grad- channels, and ITFS), uate course in 1976 in conjunction with New Elsewhere, a" ire toward one-year use Jersey'sWilliamPaterson College.The rights has become visible. TheCentral Edu- course ran five weeks and offered 45 con- cational Network approveda policy in Fall tacthours.Its basic aim was to help 1976 that its members must havea minimum teachers understand the place of ITV in the availability of at leastone year on ITV pro- classroom. gram series purchased for CENgroup buys. Another trend may help make ITVmore The same policy has beenput in place at the attractive to the ultimate user. This Is the Southern Educational.Communications As- move toward loosening the -limitations on sociation. At EEN, most series have hadthe usage rights. n recent years, some ITV series,',seven-day limitation, but increasingly the have often lad h seven-dayrestriction. To network has negotiated for extended,-one- year rights. At KCPT, Kansas City, the part Television Workshop stopped productionon. played by rights availability in increasing The Electric Company. This series worked. ',secondary-school ITV uses was cited by Children learnedtoread better through Dian Molton, Supervisor of Instructional watching if. Yet, hemmed in by mounting Television: costs, CTW had to make a decision, one Among (the reasons) has been the adoption reported by Robert Davidson, its Director of of a policy to obtain full conveniencere- Broadcast Relations: cording rights for the full schoolyear of Rather than cut both Sesame Street and all secondary .programming .. rn 1975 at The Electric Company into much smaller the insistence of our SeCondary Curriculum endeavors, we chose to put The Electric Conirnittee, we purchased full convenience Company intostraightrerun and keep rights for- all series, enlargedour secondary Sesame Street at the same level of strength. programming offerings and began extensive In- Service at the secondary level. Theutili- The effect of this decision:as of October zation figures more than doubled ina single 1977,TheElectric Company goesinto year. straight rerun .(stations and t.:TW have already paid for rerun rights through the So, in various respects, the climate for. process of PBS's Station Program Coopera- ITV seemed good in 1977, Program content tive bidding). By October 1960, the rights :and quality were continuing to improve. The will expire. consortium movement, one key to improved Can ITV ever upstage that act? Perhaps quality,-was expanding. Researchwas getting notor not, at least, until largersums of betteras one national observer put it, "be- regular funding become available for chil- cause the- schools demand it." Stepped-up dren'sinstructionalprogramming.. Mean- 'field services were certain, to translateinto while, there is some consolation in the fact higher numbers of K-12 users. Andmore that the ITV pipeline has anothertype of media applications could be seenas one out- reading-instruction series coining along. The come of the drive to make education, faced Essential Learning Skills project willbe with higher costs and dropping enrollments, ready for air in September 1979,even bemore cost-effective. .fore The Electric Company fadesfrom With it all, ITV still facesas very prob- public TV channels, ablyitalways willstretchesof tough In K-12 ITV, the moral wouldseem to be white wet% downstream. It must adjust to that the good is getting' better. But this kind o even reality,. In 1976, the Children's the best has no guarantee that it willlast.

40 Structures in ITV'sWorld

iscussions of noncommercial tele- Definitions vision invariablyturn toand 1. Public Television ,Licensee: A PTVli- ornetimes iget last inquestions censee is an organization holding oneor of "structure." The preoccupation more licenses to,_ operate an educationalor with this subject is not hard to understand: noncommercial television station..Lieenses The sheer number of organizationsis ton- have been granted to fourtypes of organiza- , fusing to the outsider, and the relationships tions: community 'non-profit televisionor- among those organizations are vitally im- ganizations; institutions-of higher education; portant to the.professional. The danger, of local school boardsor authorities; and state course, is that too much talk about structure boards, commissions,or authorities. may mean too little talk about performance. 2. Public Television Station; A PTVstation We have tried to minimize that problem is the unit that transmits by organizing thii report around a single channel.. kinds of Each station has its own singlenorictmarnel.7, learners rather than kinds of institutions. cid television signal on transmitter, channel Nevertheless, many readers may.find it use- number, and cell letters; eachserves a com- ful to take-,a concentrated if brief lookat munity covered by the !broadcasting radius the players in ITV'sgame and see where of the transmitter (plus translators and cable they stand in 1977. Thosequestions are systems). Thus, the Georgia ETV Network "addressed' here. _ operates stations. in eight different locations. The crucial conveyor of ITVremains the 3. Public. Television Broadcaster: A PTV single-channel noncommercial station.As it broadcaster is the organization (or was in the beginning,, so it remains today. organiza- But the station no longer needs tions) responsible Ifor a sin le scheduleof to go it programsinthe lboncommercial system. .alone. Such schedulescan be broadcast by one or Over theyears, new structures have many stations, but a single schedule de- evolved to share some of theburdens of scribes .a single broadcaster. One licensee the entire ITV transaction. Earlierpaged may be responsible for two or more different told of some agencies- that produceinstruc- schedules; and in two casesa pair of lip tional programs for the national market. censees are jointly responsible for the sched- Other structures also help. Theyrange from ule of a single station. Thus,a "broadcaster" state and regional networks to clusters of may represent one or more stations, institutionsthe consortiaanda national interconnection system (PBS). Of them all, of course, the single station has thelicense The Nature of Different Licensees to televise ITV or any other programming. Perhaps the most comprehenSible part of Definitions do get a bit fuzzy here. Some the entire ITV process is the station itself support agencies have a distinctly dual role: sometimes a program producer, always a they produce programs and transmit them, transmitter. In recent months, there has been too. Others trinsrriit only. Still some ferment in the station field. it has more dis- affected certain outlets licensed to school tribute electronically and standon the verge boards; it has also touched severs of productngprograrns.Theconsortia, of the meanwhile, pro =duce programming but community. Stations. do not The small band of school board station operate an interconnected distributionsys- tem; stations have to get their materials has faced change in the last few.years, per- through library procedures. haps edging toward the minus side. goloncl For purposes of some added clarity, E. Fenz, PBS's Coordinator of Station we son, has provided some rierspective. He re- ffer some specific definitions fromPublic ports that 87- new PTV stations havegone Televigion Programming byCategury:.1976 that should establish on the air since 1970. Of them, just three a standard. were licensed to school boards. in the yea 41 since 1970, one school stationsplit into When Ward B. Chamberlin took over two two separate licenses, two became com- years ago as President of WETA, in munity-licensed, another seemed headed. for Washington, D.C., he found the ITV serv, community-license status, and three went ice had been "cleaned out." Transmissions under. The 17trfiaining school stations still from PTV outlets in 'northern Virginia had some brigt sets, to talk about, suchas and central Maryland saturated its signal. these: Instead of head-butting with the com- Fresno County fornia, with its school petition, META opted for a daytime mix station, KMTF, has been on the air since of public TV fare, adult series, CTW Spring 1977. For years, the school board shows, and selected ITV series (sUch as has been operating an ITFS system. The Cover to Cover, Made at WETA). Said step up to an open-circuit station came, in Chamberlin: "I don't sense it's any loss at Fenz's words, after"the school board all. Once you get locked into the school realized community_ pressure,was great schedule, it has a lot of disadvantages..." enough for them to go ahead and commit WTTW, Chicago, moving to a daytime themselves." Evidently to broaden service assortment of public TV fare, has dras- beyond ITV, the school administration ,has tidally changed its approach to instruc- formed a 36-member communitymanage- tion since William J. McCarter's advent ment board for its station. as President in 1972. Finding "enormous Inthree years, KTEH, San e, has disenchantment with the traditional ITV boosted its budget from, $400,000 to $1.4 notion and product", among local educa- million,' has doubled staff (to22), has tors, he elected in 1974 to build a new moved into a plant with 'five timesmore kind of education service completely sta- squaie footage, and with the Educational tion-funded. VVTTW, would carry just Broadcast Facilitiesgrants, has bought those ITV series its staff found 'to be of three new VTRs and three colorcameras. "super quality." The viewpoint of Maynard Orme,man- As a further step, WTTW urged schools ager since 1973: to treat both educational to buy cassettes and, set up libraries. It and community TV programming "with advised them on what programs they equal concern and respect." Happily, his could tape off-air. As a result of the overallboss.SchoolsSuperintendent, changes, McCarter believes WTTW -has Glenn W. Hoffmann, a member of the moved further ahead and has achieved A1T Board, is "pro" ITV. As- his station "dramatically improved" relations with diversifies, Orme has staked outa course the schools. toward "spending more money todo Covering almost 95 per cent of the state, -fewer local programs of higher quality," the Connecticut Public Television (CPTV) At least one, ITV - committed station, faced Network has a potential market of 650,000 with oblivion, seemed -to be reviving itself K-12 pupils. But the network's ITV serv- inthe winter months of 1976-77. Twocom- ice'-has not flourished as much as top munity' stations had taken themselves out management had hoped (annual budgets of the traditional ITV business. Still another averaged $83,705overthepastfour years). licensee was moving 'to regenerate itsserv- ice. These were the details:- In mid-1976, CPTV brought in Milton Licensed tothe Oklahoma City Public Hoffman as Director of Educational Serv- Schools; KOKH was_ under a storm cloud ices. A long-time staff member at Great in Fall 1976. At least one school. board Plains National, Hoffman was to "adda member, favored shutting it down. Seeking sales-like approach", and get ITV "mov- outside counsel, the public schools brought ing ahead." By Fall 1976, Hoffman and in SECA President Robert C. Glazier. He his one associate were steppingup con- urged a new "philosophy of purpose.. tactswith superintendents,starting new professional management . ..im- workshops, and developing a teachers' proved "communication withits many newsletter. publics ..." During early 1977, under new management, KOKH was still in business. In certain states, a statewide network has taken on all the functions ni the typical 172 per cent increase over the year before e station elsewhere. There is, as one and worth $54,000 in savings through the example, the Maryland setupfour inter- group-buying strategy. CEN/ITV's 1976 connected transmitters operated by the workshop drew 70 participants. At a later Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting. long-range planning session, Lucas found The work of ITV is the province of Angela "very heavy support (for) educative serv- McDermott, Director of the Division of ices (from) station management." His de-. ITV, State Department of Education. Her duction: CEN "is, going to be in the ITV office, she reported in Spring 1977, usually, field for a long time." has four lengthy ITV series in production Eastern Educational Television at, any one time. Not always are they for Network (EEN) gland's school children alone. At least four fairly .recent productsall Thirty public TV licensees from 13 on read- eastern states and the District of. Co- ing--have gone into national distribution. lumbia. along with ten stations in other Another' structural form, one which has parts of the country, belong to EEN. This served both the ITV .and public functions of agency actually has its own electronic in- the noncommercial broadcasting community, terconnection system, which operates 24 as been the regional network. As the flame hours a day, transmitting (along with implies, they operate at a broader level than other programming) 30 hours a week of statewide networks. Thesewere some of ITV series. A member station so minded the facets of the ITV operations withinre can simply pick up those 30 hours from gional\networks during1976-77: EEN and broadcast them immediately Contra Educational Network (CEN) over its own air. Or it could tape-record About o third of all work in the them for 'delayed broadcast. ra1 Educa4onal Network has had to do EEN has gradually increased the magni- with ITV. CEN's ITV Council -got going tude,of its ITV services for member sta- in mid-1973. Its purposes, outlined by CEN tions. In 1971, it began acquiring series ITV Coordinator Ted Lucaswere ex- for them -. -a practiCe now widely labelled changed through\network and library of "group-buying." By negotiating with com- shared programming, group buying and mercial or noncommercial program dis- running Workshops to train staff.' tributors:on behalU of these individual CEN's 340 per cent increase in ITVpro,; stations, 'EEN can and does save them gram activities during 1970, in Lucas's valuable dollars. At last count, EEN had view, reflected the health of ITV in the more than $300,000 invested in acquisi- region. In eight of CEN's \ eleven states, ', pans for members In. 1974-75,itdis-

"all ITV services have expanded .11 ; tributed 51 series for ITV use; in 1976-77, Preparing for the 1976.77 yeah, CEN laid that figure had risen to 101 (representing out $266,897 for instructionaleries, a- instructional series produced by members , and acquisitions from outside suppliers). Along with other instructional broadcast- inVagencies, EEN has been involvedin what Director of Educational Services HoWard Spergel calls a "bignew trend" inuser rights. Hitherto, many ITV programs were confinedtoaseven-day \ period: a station could recordan EEN- \transmitted program,- but then had to play it within seven days, Many parts of the ITV community haveseen this as far too limiting. It has only mademore difficult the already-complex dilemma of achieving a flexible broadcast schedule. During the past' year and more, the trend spotted Three horactera on the. Book, loo And Listen by Spergel has been to get extendedone- produced by the Maryland Deportment year rights when a series is leased. Thus, ofdueation: a station could rebroadcast the *grams at much gre 'ence within a people, Glazier also had it in mind last year. fall to "do something with institutions of EEN has offered t vices, as higher learning to build in among teachers well: a necessary tolerance to use ITV." 1. Each summer (in July), it previews Western Educational Network (WEN) for. ITV personnel as, many as 90 pos- Another regional grouping,' the -Western sible instructional series. This becomes Educational Network has served 22 sta- a great time-saver for ITV direetors and tions in Nevada, California, Oregon, Wash- curriculumadvisors; who otherwise ington, Alaska, and HaWaii. As a practical would have to call in, all these series matter, WEN's ITV services for members an individual basis. have beets, in the words of Program Chair- man Paul Corbin, "nonexistent up to now." 2. The EEN library provides a But in early Spring 1977, he was looking anistn for the- free exchangeamong forward to consideration by members ofa members of any ITV series -produced by plan to merge WEN with the Rocky Moun- any of them. (The best of these pro- tain Corporation for Public Broadcasting's gramsarealsoofferedtostations association of noncommercial stations in around thenation "not to compete the mountain states. Corbin was hopeful withtheotherlibrar.es."explains that the merger might be coMpleted by Spergel, "but to give people options.") January 1978. The Southern Educational Communica- Should merger be accomplished, it would tions Association (SECA) bring together some 35 licensees. It would SECA represents more than 100 stations also open up eventual access to "fouror in 17 states, serving them witha five- five" satellites, thus providing the member person staff and through three member stations with their own interconnection mannedcouncils.RobertGlazierleft routing. And it would clear the way for KETC, St. Louis. in 1976 to join SECAas a range of ITV servicesgroup-buying, president.-, program exchange, possible funding of Late in 1970, part of SECA's energies program production, area -wide public re- fixed on experiments with the communi- lations, workshops, and availability of, caons Technology Satellite (CTS). Ten postproduction facilities. if the two-agency SECA members were putting up themoney merger is agreed upon, the composite net- to buy the downlinks for signal reception. work's headquarters will be in Denver. Nine were to be in place when CTS dis- Generally, these regional groupings of tributions:--12 hours a week of ITV and Lions have been expanding their range of PTV showsbegan. An ITV Users Com- ITV services for membersor, at the very mittee has been refining a satellite-trans- .least, have set about planning to establish mitted ITV schedule for September 1977. those services. At the same time, another structure in the noncommercial broadcasting LAccess to the satellite, as it evolves, will offer SECA stations several distinct ad- world has also been augmenting its so-called "educational" services. This is the Public vantages. It will provide a highly flexible alternative to normally land -based dis- Broadcasting Service, the presence of which tributiori systems. deserves comment at several points in this report, To start: SECA has set up a "floating library" of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) - both ITV and PTV programs. Some 63 The Public Broadcasting Service is the series or program units Were available member organization_ of the nation's 154 as of October 1976 without charge to public, television licensees. Owned and members. By "group-buYing." .SECA had gover,mcl by the licensees, it serves both saved membership ITV budgets $90,000 as the national distributor of programs to in 1975-70. 272 local public television stations andas At the same time, the network continued the coordinator of numerous stationserv- to lean on staff rainingone of its "prime ices. purposes." according to Glazier. Annual PBS has increased the morning schedule training sessions have drawn 400. or more from two rpre-school and one primary- grade progra 4 program series generic paragraphs of that account would in 19764977 an be used at every deal with the nine consortia formedby instructional pre-kindergarten National Instructional Television and its schools throu es and adult exten- successor,the Agency forInstructional sion courses, Television. In the ITV sphere, one Of PBS's functions,_ AIT Executive Director Edwin Cohen and has been todistribute certain instruc- his associates got 'into the consortiumgame, tional series during school hours. Stations in his words, "to accelerate the diffusionof have the alpine of transmitting thepro- desirable change in education." Fora graMs as the signal arrives fromPBS or the combining ofresources from different of "delaying " tape- recording the arriving organizations was hardlysystematic, Then program for local playback at another Cohen and his colleaguessaw that: time. In this category of its educational ,. what we ought to do is regularize the services, PBS transmitted just three series process, rather than-aadach project on an during 1973-74 for possible schooluse. By ad hoc basis. Let's getan organization dedi- 1975176, it was sending out 22 series (four cated to pooling ofresources, _governed by of them for collage credit) between9 a.m. the key agenciesthe state education de- and noon. The list had grown of 24pro- partmentsAdsee if we con cut it on our grams or series for the 1976-77 school own! year. That formula dictated the _structure of AIT, To heighten program effectiveness, PBS and the agency has cut it. Step by step,con- has encouraged the development ofancil- sortium ITV series investments wentup lary study materials and has coordinated from $1,500 a program, to $500a "minute, to the distribution of these materialsamong $1,000, a minute. Ripples was budgeted at the many- agencies" involved, from de- $270,900. That was consortium numberone, veloper to consumer. A conservativeesti- .gssential Learning Skills, the project of the mate of the number of ancillary materiel ninth grouping, willrun up to the level of distributed to 'accompany PBSprogram- $4,250,000. ming in 1976-77 is 160.000. Looking backward, AIT summarizedin PB_S:either funds nor produces television 1976 the characteristics ofitsMaterials. programming. However, the staff reviews They should have these pointsin common: program proposals submitted by the sta- tons and by independent 1. High qualityinstructional, creative, entitiesto and technical. funding sourcesgovernmentagencies, foundations, corporations, CPBand en- 2. An integration of ITV with other courages the development of an educa- portant materials to comprisean tional component accompany those lesson. ties 'which pip in-depth learning opportuni 3. A significant body of material,i.e., at least one lesson per week, for half all The role of the Public Television Library the school year, of PBS has helped expanding formal learning for adults 0 Well. 4. Content "new enoughtofacilitate change in classroom practice but notso Age of the Consortia,. ithin the past dec- new as to be-beyond the grasp of teachers ade. still another structure has taken shape and schools..." in the ITV industry. This is the consortium, variant of an organizational alternative evi- 5. The subject must `representa real dent for half a century in higher education. priority of the schools,. The whole key is the pooling of institutional Another aspect has, materializedin the leadership, strengths, and money topursue shaping of the AIT model: itsstructure has mutually agreed-upon goals. embodied a cure to r the "We -ITV, They- The effective application of this formula Educator" headache. Theagency is essen., tp ITV probably amonnts to one of the most tially governed by chief state school°Moen, _ portant chapters in any account of in- For 1977, six members of the18-person,. structional- hroadcaating's progress during Board are chiefs in their respectivestates; the seventies. Of necessity, much of the two others are county supprintendents. This arrangement has led AlT to make this frank aerial must also include the. Tale of the assessment of its stature: federal\ government, specifically the Office The consortium development procitel of Egucation. The Atory of ESAA need AIT in the marketplace of education, be. told ;But like the books of the Old Testa- ing AIT a partner with educational agencies wont, it covers many hectaresMore than in 'the process of curriculum improvement enough for the pre-R and K-through-12 sec- and reform. tions of this report (far both of which it is relevant). So the story must be told selec- Without question, the premise ging tively, educators into systematic association with ESAA began with passage in 1972 of an instructional broadcasters makesannifest act---the Emergency School Aid Act, its nseand AIT's track record, with its nine toryline leads to a dilemma DOW being apn- -group-sponsored projects. substitutes fronted in many. of the DePart- teal results for thetheoretical. ment of Health, \ Education, and Welfare come to stand as a model for possible ernula- (PHEW). The discussion) hayeeto' do 'Iwith lion elsewhere. how, and how much, andlieWlmuch longer Under the mantle of _the Eastern Educe- the federal, government should supportichil- . tional TelevisioneNetwork,a parallel "col- dren's TV programming. Like the Dutcl- Elm laborative" -(as EEN's -Howard Spergel labels disease,thesequestions have" become the it) has been under discussion forsome two target of allsearch for remedies; bike the tree years. In Spring 1977. Spergel expressed the blight, the dilemma will still be around when hope that this new agency would-be incor- this report is issued. porated by August 1977 and "active" by that ESAA grew-out of perceived Social need. fall. In the words of Dr. Thomas Fagan of USOE, The agency's title is the Eastern Regional itwas to: CoufraTrIol EducationalTelevision, Inc, It will be open toiall state departments ofedu- assist school districts ry out de- cation in the northeastern states. Initially, segregation plans, to encourage reduction of this partnership between broaclOst and minority-group isolation, or help overcome _educators, will have about tenstates repre- the adverse educational effects of minority- sentedinit.'Spergeldefineditsbroad group isolatipn. purpose: As Chief, Special Projects B h, Equal What we want to do is toproduc uca ona ppor un y ro;rams.Dr. programs in the EEN regionhci.sed Upon Faghn" administers both the "dieeretionary" common curricular needs identified by the/part of the act and the edu al TV facet state departments of education. We will. of the program. 1wlajor responsibility for create these projects with them. One tibiae' operating the ESAA-TV program, including tive we have is to 'integrate- TV into the development of guidelines and setting forth fabric of curriculum design. resolution to policy matters, rests with Dr. Dave Berkman ESAA-TV Program Officer. The consortiumtrendhasitsreal ESAA sets aside A minimum of threeper strengths. In it lies the probability that ITV of its total appropriation for TV proj- .materials of genuineTly high quality will be ects. Normally between' three and fourper tunced out. Yet there'may be concomitant Mt' of the appropriation is used for this hazards. AIT's Robert Fox explainedone of purpose. To some, this' "set-aside" Is for these in late 1976: children's television. Not Ao,says Dr. Fagan. As projects become more andsnore Rather, "it's money to carry out-one of the prehensive, the decision-making /eve purposes of the act, of which television be- -getting involved in (them) has togo up and comes a vehicle." up and up, ITV is being forced up to these Ilylate1976, Dr, Pagesofficehad high administrative levels to the people who awarded $44 million in gran, since thein- make decisions. In a way, it's ,very good, But ception of ESAA, foract-relced TV series. it can be very bad if channels don't exist in As theseklielsen figures implied, preschoolers a state and you have to work for a year to have watched the product, whether thepro: develop them. ducer had that precisely in mindor not.

Dr. Fagan offered an important cl;Sii.aclp.il_ 7'ESAA's Progeny. Reurces for prog about these series: We made a decision early on to develop KLRN's Carrascolendas, 130 Spanish/Eng- shows that would stand by themselves and lish shows for youngsters three through have u good deal of use in nine; broadcast time, as opposed toto ITV, We've downplayed in-school purposes out ofa be- Villa Alegre, a product of Bilingual Chil- lief that the mechanism of delivering things dren's Television, which will addup to tohicls in-schoolisjust not functioning 105 half-hours for Anglo and Latino chil- well. dren three through nine; Special Projects Branch has had no locked Mundo Real, project of the Connecticut commitment todistributeseriesthrough Public Television Network, providing 30 public 'I'V aloneVegetahle Soup, product half-hour bilingual units for thoseseven of the New York State Education Depart- through twelve; and merit, ran in sustaining time on the NBC net- La Bonne Aventure, which the Maine work at 8 a.m. Sundays. Dr. Fagan's office Public Broadcasting Network is producing has been much more concerned about reach- for children four through eight who have ing children, through either public orcorn- a French-Canadian heritage, and mercial TV, and thinks its chancesare better in nonschool hours than in-school. Que Paso, USA?, which focuseson the When Dr. Fagan's staff launchesa Request generation gap in a typical Cuban-Amer- for Proposal, it reflects the act'sconcerns ican family, is designed fyoungsters 12 for "integrated children's TV of the cognitive and above and produced by Community and affective type." In the firstyear, only Action and ftesearch Corn any in collabo- national series were funded. After that, the ration with WPBT, Miami, Florida. Branch solicited regional projects, "directed Under the act, projects, must hiremem- at a minority indigenous to a particularre- bers of minorities for "responsible positions Rion." An applicant has had toprove his in development, production, and administra- concept by doing a pilot, evaluating its im- Live"staffs.According to ESAA's Dave pact on target audieng, then running the Berkman, this has meant that between 00 results before' the Special Projects Branch. and 70,per cent of those working ona proj- Seemingly, Dr. -Fagan and his associates ect will be "non - Anglo," In fact, 15 to 17 have had a special kind of problem. Limited project directors hired were representatives to ten projects a year, theoffice has an easy of minority groups. decision when one takes a header: the proj- While the Special Projects Branch.' does ect offider just "cuts it off." But, as the Mielke not control content, this employment man- Study noted, a success gives the Brancha date has -resulted, according to the Mielke more stubborn headache. Even the bell-ring- Study, "in USOE officials forcing grantees/ ing winners, so to speak, have to resubmita,contractees to make personnel changes." proposal every year to earn continued fund- However, Fagan and Berkman indicate they ing. In some cases,' previous winners have "are aware of no personnel changes which come up losers. Vegetable Soup was funded have resulted from ESAA funding" inany the first year, then not\ funded in the next operation. They also indicate that Dr. Mielke year in which it applied\ and in Fiscal Year ignored the ESAA-TV legislation thatman- 1977 it is being supported once again. Pro- dates that the series producers "will-employ ducers have a hard enough time without that members of minority groups in responsible kind of on-again, off -again underwriting. in positions in development." Dr. Fagan's words: Another issue which ESAA raisedcon- There's nothing statir in thi d. We don't cerned program rights. A producer is obliged decitle these things lightly. e try to get a to buy long-term rights and clearances, thus lot of inputfrom US, primary dis- precluding payment of residualstoper-. tributor, and,others in the field. We make formers. The ESAA position here is that an effort to find' out hers are doing buying long-term rights does not "preclude" something'we might o, then try to payment of residualsit simplypays them avoid that. inadvance. Hence,therights purchase "pays" persons for residuals before theyare Ofthe projects funded since 1972 or now actually earned through rebroadcast.This in the works, certain ones have had a basic obligation Jed CTW's Robert Davidsonto bilingual character: say "we could never have produced Seme 47 Street under an ESAA grant." Kentucky major thrust here," explained Dr. Fagan,.. Educational Television's Executive Director, will be the award of a contract to promote 0. Leonard Press; was even more emphatic: commercial station carriage of the series. Produce under an ESAA grant? No thanks! Among the tasks which the contractor will I wouldn't even let the state dictate like perform in furtherance of this effort, will be that, and don't. We don't let the Department visits to each commercial station in the larg- of Education executive-produce. est 69 markets, plus presentations at each of state broadcaster association annual meet- Still, the ESAA-TV set-aside holds allure. ings. The major input in the operation of the With national awards available ofup to $3.5 contract will come from the producers, not million. one can understand why: dollars of the Office of Education; the contractor will, that magnitude can rarely be found else. in effect, be the agent of all the producers where. and will be acting in their behalf. In their fifth year now, Dr. Fagan and his At the same time, ESAA was setting .out staff know of some changes they'd liketo to study the audiences, "We have very little make. They want better dissemination of choice," explained Dr. Fagan. "It doesn't do product. Says Dr. Fagan: "I think we need to much good to spend millions to put stuffon get much more into th,listribution end of when you have very little idea as to how this. We need to look harder at commercial it's going." By Fall 1077 Dr. Fagan would usage on a sustaining basis." hope to have some answers "on wherewe To promote several ESAA series thisyear, want to go in distribution to geta target the office was going to go commercial. "The audience,"

48 Appendix ff A Sampling of thilizationData

it.s Chapter III noted, teacher usage used film; 24 per cent used audiotapes: of ITVisbeing:Studiedmore and 12 per cent used TV; closely at the local level, Although 4.Attitudes toward theuse of ITV pro- these local studies vary in design grams came out being more positive and quality and cannot be assembledinto than the extent of their use in the class- satisfactory national data, theyare important room; in their own right. They provide thebest 5. Almost half the comments showed information we have on how muchITV is that scheduling was the "single most in- used, and its impact in the classroom at least fluential factor" in determining theuse until the national CPB School Television of ITV; Utilization Study is completedin the late 6, Only 12 per cent had had some train- Fall of '77.' ing in ITV use, but 58 per cent "indi- This section summarizes few of the in- cated interest;" vestigations that have been completedsince 7. The majority of comments said that 1974. "ITV was an excellent educationaltool which they would usernore oftenwere "Connecticut Instructional it not for problems involved in using it; "" Television Survey" 8. Conducted By: the New England Instruc- Personal interviews added weight to the survey, showing soft spots incom- tional Television Research Center(NETRC): Dr. Bernard Z. Friedlander, Director, munication between station and teacher, and that ITV "suffers froma less than shin- Harriet S. Wetstone, Research Coordinator. ing image" (thanks to commercial TV), For: Division of InstructiomlServices, Con- that secondary teachers "almostcom- necticutState Department of Education, pletely rejected the educational broad- June 30, 1976. cast schedule," and that TV, "marvelous as it may be, is only one experience Here, the purpose was to analyze "the among many to be fitted into the school extent of television use in Connecticut day." public and parochial schools andfactors 9 influencing use or non-use." In its method, "An Assessment of the Utilization NETRC surveyed 2,133 teachers in 711of Instructional Television Programming" schools. Respropses came in from 65per onducted By: Barbara Cole. For: TVSec- cent of the s)ools and 1,190 teachers a, Illinois Office of Education, 1975-76. (55 per cenfl game 665 added personal comments. A report form went to 84 districts in the Chicago suburbs, each with 3,000or more The breakdown of answers was this: students. Thirty-four replied. Thepurpose 7.Sixty -eight per cent of the teachers was to see how much the districts were have access to a TV set (always, 43 per taking advantage of IT_ V seriestrans- cent; sometimes, 25 per cent); mitted by WTTW, Theanswers from 40 2. While 68 per cent have access, only per cent of the total showed: 30 per cent wereusing_the set more 1. On a list of eight ITV series broad- than once a month; cast, Bread & Butterflies ranked first, 3. At the elementary level, 70per cent with 188 teachers in 22 districts using it. used film strips most often; 45per cent Some 101 teachers were working with Insic/e/Out, while 70 were using The Preliminary data shows a very high response Wordsmith. acrossthe nation by Superintendents, 2. Twenty-fourdistrictshadmade Fri pals and Teachers. Preliminary results guides available teachers; three had are described in Appendix III, p. 53. tot. 49 3.Sixteen districtsreported thatall dents had viewed its ITV. These undupli- schools had TV sets for classroom use, cated pupils amounted to 58.29 per cent of while 14 answered "some schools" had the total potential. Grade by grade, the TV units. One district said no schools numbers make interesting sidebars. An had receivers. (lOE's Television Section Ivory-pure 99.30 per cent of Special Ed saw that it would need more data on pupils watched. KET Research Director sets available.] Patty Jones inferred that teachers of these A second survey was conducted in two classes "may have the TV on all the time areas of Illinois (downstate, and Chicago because at least one child can benefit." suburbs). The objective was to develop a Nine of ten fifth graders were watching sample of ITV-use data. Eighteen district 190.17 per cent), and more than eight of administrators were interviewed. Some of ten fourth graders (83.44 per cent). And the results were: while an expected slip-off occurred at I. A total of 27.5 per cent said their grade 9, the high school viewership is still schools used a "substantial.or maximum of interest: two out of ten ninth graders, amount"ofoff -airITVin1975-76. 16.22 per cent of tenth grade students, Another 22 per cent used "a mini- 22.07 per cent of the juniors, and 15.03 per mum of the ITV programming (plus a cent of seniors. considerable amount of other media re- Kentucky's teachers were most responsive sources...)." Then 5.5 per cent used in sending back KET's questionnaires. In cable, in the main; another 5.5 per cent 1973-74, 99 per cent came back. The next used local production combined with year, 87 per cent were returned. Then, in cable, and 16.5 per cent used no TV or 1975-76, 15.952 of the 24,600 classroom media, or almost none. teachers (or 65 per cent) responded. From 2.About half said that the distribution their replies, KET conducted that: systems available did not "adequately" serve possible users. 1. Over all,52 per cent have used KET's transmissions. Of those having a "ITV Utilization in Kentucky" TV set in class or accessible, 66 percent Conducted By: KET. For: Kentucky Educa- made use of KET. And 79 per cent of all tional Television, November 1976. those actually having TV in: class have KEN intrastate research efforts represent used the Lexington broadcast \service. perhaps the most substantial analysis of 2. What were the major reasons for ITV uses since State of the Art. A moun- nonuse? Some 42 per cent said it was tain of data have been collected. Much because they did not have a set. Next, have allowed comparisons across three schedule conflicts (30 per cent) was a school years. major reason. Inapplicability of KET programs, 24 per cent, followed as a The findings must be looked at in the light reason for nonuse., of a dip in school enrollments in Kentucky. 3. :Broken out by subject area, social In 1973-74, the total stood at 709,764; the studies teachers turned out to be the following year, it was 701,373, and then in largest KET consumers (42 per cent of 1975-76. the numbers dropped once more them). Then, language arts followed to 691,612. In that same period, students with 34.8 per cent; science, 35.5 per using ITV have increased. In 1973-74, the cent; math, 30.3 per cent. The lowest average number viewing a single series consumer group was vocational educa- was 33,477. The next year,itrose to tion with 5.4 ber cent. 35,207. And in 1975-76 the average per 4. KET cut the usage figures another series was 36,323. way. It found that 70 per cent of the Over those three years, public schools Special Ed,first,and second grade have shrunk (from 1,455 to 1,407). But the teachers used ITV. Next came 65 per percentage of schools using KET's ITV has cent of teachers in grades 3, 4, and 5. held firm -74.77 per cent in 1973-74, 75.10 About 56 per cent of sixth-grade teach- the next year, 74.58 in 1975-76. ers were users, and three of ten assigned to grades 7 and 8. At the high school For 1975-76, KET found that 446,126 stu- level,ten per cent 'worked with the 50 broadcastsalthough two of ten have investigators to conclude that "school TVs in their room). principals do not consider a lack of op- 5 As for awareness of ITV-related erating TV sets to he the major problem p nt materials, KET users in Grade I restricting ITV use." print materials, KET users in grades 1 through 6 reported this way; 80per cent In its teacher survey, the department re- knew about the materials, and 20per quested a log of TV use, for fall, winter, cent did not. As for nonusers in those andspring.These were some ofthe grades, 57 per cent were aware of the results: guides, even though they didn't work I.In elementary grades, nearly 60 per the broadcasts into their classes. cent said they made some use of ITV. KET took another tack. It surveyed super- At the secondary level, 27.8 per cent intendents throughout the state. Of 182 reported some use. In total, 41 per cent superintendents(79percent)replied. said they take advantage of ITVfrom These were some of their responses: less than one hour a week to more than two hours weekly. 1.To them, the biggest reason for non- 2.Under programs actually logged, ele- use was the headache of scheduling mentary teachers showed an average of (four out of ten opinions). 1.4f1' programs a week, while those at 2.Nine of ten judged ITV as being de- the secondary level averaged 0.49pro- signed "to improve the level of instruc- grams a week. The average for the com- tion in the classroom plete sample: almost One program a 3. Seven of ten said they talked up the week. uses of KET school telecasts in staff 3.What hindered their use of ITV? meetings. Scheduling (49.1 per cent) and lack of 4. The superintendents said they had appropriate programming (34.1 per cent) been visited by a KET person about topped the list. Lack of receiverswas once a year. Six out of ten felt that KET checked by 19.1 per cent. would do better to have "direct contact with teachers,"rather than with an As to the concern over appropriateness, intermediary. secondary teachers decked that problem, more (46.1 per cent) than did those at the "Use of Instructional Television elementary-grade level (24.9). The investi- in R.I. Public Schools, 197546" gators expected it might be surprising for Conducted By: Research and Evaluation, somethatmoreelementaryteachers State Department. For: Rhode Island Depart- thought scheduling was a problem than ment of Education, October 10, 1978. did those in high school grades (58.6per cent to 26.9). "Perhaps scheduling is nota This was a pilot survey of principals and problem," they suggested shrewdly, "un- teachers that assessed use of ITV. less you have a program you wantto Fall, winter, and spring .mailings to princi- schedule." pals drew 301 replies; or more than 80 per cent of administrators in the state. "Utilization Survey" Among other responses, this one had links Conducted By: Wisconsin Educational Com- to surveys done elsewhere: munications Board, 1975.76. 1.Queried on the main firnitatrons to In a survey bridging instructional TVat ITV use, 65 per cent identified schedul- radio the ECB reported that 56per cent o ing difficulties as the main one. Next, the elementary and secondary school d 31 per cent cited "available program- tricts in the state were using radioa' ming not appropriate," while723 per TV instruction. cent blamed "'poor reception." In fourth More than one-half of all studentswere place: operating TVs not accessible (16 involved in instructional broadcasts dur- per cent), Teacher resistance ranked ing 1975 -1976; 652,748 pupils out of a total fifth with ten ner cent. These answers school population of 1,136,689. merged with others in the survey, led

51 Appendix III School IlrUtilizationStudy: Preliminary -Findings.

ust as this nook was going topress, enrollments of 300 or more. It also involved the preliminary result of the School a sample of elementary school teachers and TV Utilization Study (SUS) became principals and superintendents from Cath- available, Although these findingsare olic dioceses (representing the privatesec- still tentative at this time andrepresent only tor).Questionnaires were designed,field a small portion of the SUS data which will tested, modified, re-tested and sent to 933 be reported inora fully in 1978, itwas thought superintendents, 1,850 principals, 3,700 class= important to include them since theyrepre- room teachers. After three rounds of follow- sent the best data on the currentstatus of up (which included a postcard reminder, television for instruction inour nation's ele- mailgram and telephonecall)usable re- mentary and secondary schools. sponses weie received from 899 superintendents(98,4 per cent), 1,648 principals Background (89,1 per cent) and 3,152 elasproom teachers One function of the Office of Educational (85.2 per cent). ActivitiesattheCorporationfor Public Responses were carefully checked 'mann- Broadcasting (CPB) is to gather information ally and by a computer editingprocess to about the uses of noncommercial radio and guarantee accuracy of the data. Westat Re- television in instruction.\ Another functionis search, Inc. assisted in this and the sampling to document ITV's sucises 'land failures phases of the project. and to encourage the formulation of policies and practices which yield maximum benefits Preliminary Findings from these Media to learners. The provision Detailed analysis''of all the findings will of timely and accurate dataon the condition require six months to a year. The results of of education is also one of the missions of those analyses will be described ina series the National Center for Education Statistics of publications to be prepared jointty by (NCES). CPU and NCES. A few of the most important After reviewing more than 15 statewide preliminary findings are described here. Al- , studies conducted by school systems, State though the data presentedare based or Departments of Education and public tele- samples, they are not likely to differ bymore vi.iion licensees, it became apparent to both than a few- percentage points from there- orga- zationthat it was impossible to aggre- suits which would have been obtained from gate he.findings in order to derivea nation- a complete canvass of all public school dis- v spective. A nationwide study had to tricts, schools and teachers (in districtsen,- designed and implemented. The study rolling 300 or more students) and allCatholic was implemented by CPU and endorsed by dioceses, elementary. schools and teachers. the American Association of SchoolAdmin- 'Those numbers' are estimatedto include istrators, AsSociation for Educational Corn-;. 12,000superintendents,90,000principals munications and Technology, Council of and 2,275,000 teachers. Specificmeasures of Chief State School Officers,NIatienal Asso- sampling reliability of the estimates will ciationofElementaryScho Principals, appear in forthcoming reports. National Association of Secondary School A somewhat broad definition of "ITV" Principals, National Catholic Educational As- was used throughout_ this study. ITVwas sociation, National EducationoAssociation, defined as "any in-schooluses of television and the Public Broadcasting Service. (either broadcast or recorded) forinstructional purposes." Study Design The study invo veda stratified random 1. 'Attitudes Toward ITV. All respondents sling. -of all public school superintend- in each group (i.e. superintendents,princi- nts, principals and classroom teachers in pals, teachers) were askeda series of ques- All school districts in the United States with lions which provide an overall pictureof 53 current attitudes toward ITV. In one in- is available to approximately 880,000. This stance, they were asked to agree or disagree issubstantially higher than the number with a list of nine statements about ITV. (585,000) earlier reported to have cassette/ Most agreed with the positive statements film/videotape as a major method ofrecep- and disagreed with the negative statements, tion in their classrooms. Since both of the thereby exhibiting positive attitudes toward questions asked something slightly different, ITV. Distribution of responses was similar it is possible that both estimatesare correct for superintendents. principals and teachers. 880,000 have videotape equipment avail- Teacher estimates are shown in Table1. able, but only 585,000 view itas a major 2.Usefulness of ITV. A list of 12 potential source of ITV programming. uses of ITV was presented and the respondents were asked to rate each as important,. 7.Use of ITV. "Regular use" of. ITVwas unimportant, or neither. Again, there was defined as using approximately 75per cent of all lessons in at leastone series. Approxi- general agreement among the threetypes of mately 727,000 teachers respondents. Teacher ratings of theuses are are estimated to use shown in Table 2. ITV regularly. We estimate that651,000 could name the series they used andprovide 3.Facilitators and Hindrances. All respond- additional iniormation about thatuse. ents (both users and non-users) werepro- Of all those using any ITVseries, 58.4 vided a list of 12 factors whichwere con- per cent reported using two ormore series. sidered to facilitate the use of ITV insome The survey instrument asked teachers cases and hinder its use in pthe7s7 They who use ITV regularly 'to indicate thenum- were askeclto check only those which were ber of students with whom theyuse each the major actors in theirown use of ITV. series. This did not provide an unduplicated (Some were viewed as facilitators bysome count of students since thesame student teachers and hindrances by others.) Table3 might watch two ormore series with one shows the factors and their estimated fre- teacher. Two methodswere employed to quencies. estimate an unduplicated count. First, ifone 4. assumes (a) that the 727,000 teachers who Availability of ITV. All respondentswere use ITV regularly use it with their entire asked whether ITV programming is available to ihem in their 'classrooms either di- class (which most do) and (b) that thena4.- tional pupil-teacher ratio is20.5:1, thenthe rectly on-air or by videotape or film. It is estimated number of -students who watch estimated that ITV programming is available ITV regularly is about 14,900,000. to 1,627.000 in their classrooms.' The second way in whichan unduplicated 5.Delivery Methods., Where ITVprogram- countofstudentswasestimatedwas ming was available, teacherswere asked to through a parallel studentsurvey which indicate the delivery method(s) by which it used a subsample of 375 publicschools to was available, (Since programming is ,some- reach students directly. That study (which times available from more than onesource, was funded in part by the Agency for In- the sum of the following teacher estimates structional Television) found that35.2 per will exceed 1,627,000.) Thesesources are- cent of all the students viewed ITVat least

shown in Table 4. . once during the preceding four week period. This converts to approximately15,400,000 6. Equipment Availability. It is estimated students, an estimate within that TV sets are available to 1,497,000 teach- 2.9'per cent of the estimate derived from themain teacher ers throughout the country. Approximately survey. 991,000 have only black-and-whitesets, 237,000 have'-only color sets and 269,000 8.Training. Approximately 17per cent of have both black- and.white and ,color sets. the teachers surveyed reported that theyhad At least 42,000 teachers who haVe ITVpro- had "training in theuse of a specific ITV gramming available do not have TV sets series or the use of ITV in general." Most available to them. Some respondenindi- of the teachers with ITV training had Wight cated that they brought their perso al TV for more thail three years (see Table5.). In sets to school for special occasions. fact, more than half hadmore than ten Teachers were asked directly whether years teaching experience, This pattern fol- there was equipMent available in the schoo lows the pattern for the total teacherpopu- to record and/or playback a TV program It.- lation. 54 61 For those teachers with ITV training, the in-service workshops on the use of ITV and type of training most often receivedwas approximately the same number have some- throughcollege comparedtootherless one who has been given responsibility for formal approaches ouch as in-service work- ITV in the district. shops (see Table 6). More than half had More than 50 per cent of all educators received their ITV training within the last expressed positiveattitudes toward ITV, three years; less 030 one - fourth reported while fewer than ten per cent view itnega- that training was Mquired by State/local tively. There is still a large body of educa- authorities; less than one-third reported that tors (approximately 40 per cent) who have college credit had been earned for ITV train- notformedstrongopinionsaboutthe ing and one in ten reported that district in- medium. service credit had been earned for ITV train- A major implication which is apparent ing (see Table 7). even at this early stage is that ITV is being When comparing the attitudes toward ITV used regularly by 15 million childrenap- of teachers with and without training,a dis- proximately one out of three school aged tinct pattern seems to emerge. In nearly all children. of the potential uses of ITV, proportionately The findings indicate that ITV is available fewer teachers with than without training in some classrooms whereno equipment is felt "neutral" toward the use of ITV. The available. They also show that almost 30 training seemed to increase the endorsement Per cent of the classrooms in thiscountry of ITV. do not have access to ITV programming. The influence of ITV training may be that Further breakdowns of these figures bytype it heightens awareness of and commitment of school (elementary, secondary, middle- to a specific ITV activity or position. Teacher junior high) and further analysis of the rela- attitudes may crystallizeeither positively tionship between these variables and the ornegatively 7 after- orduringtraining extent of ruse will lead to recommendations rather than remain indifferentor neutral. and policy considerations. New or added information gained from the training may tend to promote distinct posi- Further Analyses tive or negative attitudes. Detailed analyses of these data willcon- Training also seems to be related to the tinue into 1978. The findings will be released amount of use of ITV. Proportionatelymore in a series of publications from CPB. and of the teachers with than without training NCES. Upon completion of thosereports, were more current users of ITV (see Table the data will be made availableto other 8).. They also spent more timeper week serious researchers who might wishto pur- using ITV (see Table 9) -and devotedmore sire some questions further. time to integrating ITV with other classroom For the first time In the history of theuse activitieF -lee Table 10). of television in school,a comprehensive data base exists which describes thestatus of Implications instructional television. It is the hope wad With only the preliminary analysescom- expectation' oftheorganizationswhich pleted, only general implications can besug- funded this study that thwdati will beseen gested from the findings of this study. How- by educators as baseline data and thatthere ever, some patterns are beginning to emerge. will emerge from the studya sense of Approximately 30 per cent of all teachers urgency to continue to develop television use ITV regularly. Slightly more than 30 per for instruction and to monitor theprogress cent of all school districts make available made.

55 Table 1: Overall Teacher Reactions to ITV(Teacher Ectimatea) Please indicate your reaction to each of thefollowing statements. Agree Disagree Neither a. ITV shows great possibilities for stimulatingulating 1,207,000 155,000 913,000 teacher creativity.

b. Teachers, when using instructional television, 182,000 1,436,000 657,000 lose some of their importance in the classroom setting.

c. The personal relationship between student 283,000 1,234;000 757,000 and teacher is lost when instructional television is used. d. The development of more instructional 55,000 1,756,000 4E14,600 television programs is a waste of time.

e. Teachers don't make enough use of 1,119,000 164,000 991,000 --)nstructional television. f. The use of instructional television makes any 1,145,000 246,000 883,000 subject matter more interesting.

g. Instructional television inspires students to 1,p91,000 128,000 1,056;000 greater curiousity and learning.

h. Instructional television is all right butI feel 277,000 867,000 ,'10 it has been over emphasized. i. Children watch-enough television at home; 226,000 1,173,000 676,000 they don't need to watchmore in school.

Table 2: Tpacher Ratings of InstructionalUses of Television (Teacher Estimates) Below is a list of uses of ITV; Rate each forits importance. ImportantUnimportant Neither a. To extend the range of experiences available 1,723,000 47,000 to students. 505,000 b. To present new materials- 1,694-,000 98,000 482,000 c. To provide different approaches for 1,870,000 43,000 363,000 presenting material.

d. To reinforce material taught in otherlessons. 1,797,000 80,000 398,000 e. To bring new resources and/or pere `0 1,833,000 79,000 the classroom. 362,000 f. To motivate students' interest in a 1,749,000 , 85,000 442,000 g. To lighten the teaching load. 7-1 539,000 898,000 837,000 h. To allow the teacher to observe thestudents. 778,000 649,000 847,000 1. To allow teacher and/or studentsa brief time 542,000 961,000 to relax. 771,000 ti j. To permit individualization of instruction. 1,010,000 403,000 882,000 k. To present subject matter here there is not 1,225,000 335,000 713,000 a special teacher (e.g.mustforeign language). I. To serve as a suitable teaching alternative 776,000 707,000 793,000- in emergency situations (e.g. schoolclosings, long-term teacher absences). 56 Table 3: Teacher Ratings of Factors Which Facilitate OrHinder The Use of ITV (Teacher Estimates). Check the factors which have been most facilitativeto or which have most hindered your use of ITV.

FacilitatorsHindrances Both Neither a. There (are /are not) programs available 798,000 859,009 12,000 008,000 which meet my existing curriculum needs.

b. Broadcast schedules (and/or not) 476,000 1,036,000 6,0.00 757,000 convenient.

c. Equipment (is/is not) available to me 030,d00- 783,000 3,000 558,000 and in good repair when needed.

d. Reception (is/is not) good inmy 834,000- 546,000 1,000 895,000 classroom e. There (is /is not) much educational 965,000 343,000 966,000 benefit to the students I teach. - f. Schedules and guides (are/are not) 704,004, 6800 7,000 882,000 available early enough for planning. g. My school district (does/does not) 741,000 617,000 3,000 913,000 encourage me to use ITV.

h. Myprincipal (does/does not)encourage 782,000 477,000 12,000 me to use ITV. 1,004,000

Students (do/do not) like ITV. 1,077,000 141,000 5,000 1,051,000 Parents (do/do not) .think ITV isa 648,000 176,000 10,000 good idea. 1,441,000

k. Someone from the public TV.. tationor 332,000 789,000 5,000 network (does/does not) provide 1,144 helpful information.

1.Recording rights (are/are not available 356,000 594,000 8,000 1,3 7,000 for convenient playback of series.

Table 4: 'Teachers' Sources of ITV Programming Estimated Number of Source Teachers Public TV station(s) 915,000 Cassette/film/videotape 585,000 Commercial TV station(s) 408,000 Cable television 243,000 Closed circuit/ master antenna system 196,000 ITFS 52,000 - - Don't know 80,000

57 Table 5: Teachers with ITV training by years of teaching experience. (Askedof all taachers with training) Total of Total of All Teachers Middle/ Teachers With Training Elem. )HS SHS (2,275,000) (390,000) (196,000) (83,000) (111,000) yr. 2.6% 2.4% iv 0.6% 1.6% 7.9% 1-3 yrs. 11.0 8.3 7.2 14.2 5.8 4-6 yrs. 19.0 19.0 20.6 14,5 19.2 7-9 yrs. 20.1 16.7 20.7 15,8 7.2 10 or more yrs. 47 53.5 51.0 54.0 59.9

Table 6: Sources of TeacherTraining, 1976-77. (Asked only of training) teachers who reported ITV

Sources: Middle/ Total Elem. )HS SHS (390,000) (196,000) (83,000) (111,000) College course work 42% 32% 41% 67% District in-service 38 41 34 34 Televised ITV in-service series 17 20 11 13 Workshop by local PTV station 11 14 5 11 State Dept. of Ed. in-service 6 6 4 9 Professional Mtg. workshop 31 27 35 30

Table 7: Recency andmotivation of ITV training, 1976-77. (Asked only teachers who portedITVtraining), re-

Teachers with training (390,000) Per cent completing training within past three years 59% Per cent reporting training required byState/local authorities Per cent reporting college credit earned for ITV training 31 Per cent reporting district in-service credit earned for ITV training 11 Table_ 8: Use of ITV, 1976 -77. (Asked only of teacherswho have ITV programming and available)

Tewachhers Teachers without training training (335,400) (1,248,000) In past week 38.9% 25.2% In past month (but not week) 15.8 12.1 In past year (but not month) -21.8 21.8 Not in past year (but sometime) 13.1 20.9 Never \ 10.4 20.1

Table 9: Average Time Usedper Week, 1976-77. (Asked only of teac vho used ITV in past week, month or year) Teachers Teachers with without training training (256,600) (737,600) None 5.1% 5.2% Less than 1 hour 27.8 38.1 1 hour or more 67.1 56.7

Table 10: Time spent before and after discussingor preparing for ITT Series Used, 1976-77. (Asked only of ITV series users) 1;ief ore After Teachers Teachers Teachers Teachers without with without with training training training training (737,600) (256,600) (737,600) (256,000) 20.2% 15.3% None 5.0% 2:9% -53.0 52.0 10 min. or less 43.6 32.8 28.8 32.6 More than 10 mitt. 41.3 64.4

59 For the AdultLearner

The potential for serving adultsthrough the national service overwhelming. Rhea Sikes, Coordinator, Educ itionalServices, PBS We find a number ofareas where we can be of service in behalf of small audiences with specificallydefined needs. _Bennie F. Lucroy,Director of Education, Mississippi Authority for ETV. Nearly one-third of the Alvernostudent body (of 900) is made up of women over twenty-two who havereturned to the classroom to prepare themselves to entercareer fields they would never have dreamed °Nen-and fifteenyears ago, "Alverno College: Our Commitmentand Our Fute " Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1976.

t'gher education's days of euphoria colleges. Still, there is a genuine market are over. The wondrous era after or series of themfor PSE. In potential, it is World War II has been packed off very sizeable: to the showers. Post-secondary edu- H The 1970 Census showed that there cation (PSE) will survive. However, it hasn't were looked like its old self foryears. And it may 109 million adults over 25. just under half never again. (49 million) had three years of high school, Consider a few of the tensions in college or less. Breaking that down, 30 million education today. There is the serious finan- had not gone to high school at all;19 mil- cial aspect. A recr.ntsurvey, decidedly con- lion had attended for one to threeyears. troversial, estimated that almost one-half of Checking trends for 1974 to1984, the all acedornic institutions could be diagnosed National Center for. EducationStatistics as fiscally unlicidthy. Whether thisassess- (NCES) saw onlyone retreat among nine ment was exactly accurate or not, it remains PSE categories. There will bea nine per clear that the dollar strength ofmost private cent overall gain in post-secondary educa- colleges and universities has slippedin re- tion, said NCES, with a 14 cent years. In New York state per cent in- alone, 15 crease at the public institutions, againsta colleges have mergedor closed in the past seven per cent loss at the private decade. ones. Four-year colleges would moveup two per Beyond the bursar'sconcerns, another cent; two-year ones, 31 per cent:And full- question has arisen. Does a college educa- time students ,would holdeven (a zero tion 'mean what it once did? Alan Pifer, growth), while part-timers wouldgo up President of the Carnegie Corporationof 24 per cent. America, wrote in Today's Education for November 1976: "Higher educationhas be- By 1972, the adults in continuingeduca- come the object of widespread skepticism tion outnumbered the degree-seekingstu- ... (D)oubts are being voiced as to whether dents. In that year, perhaps 78,000institu- its benefits are not outweighed byits cost tions (colleges, churches, businessfirms) and burdens." At the sametime, many a were providing education for 24 million college has turned probing lightson its cur- adults. riculum, wandering if there should be a 1. The data ited here have been drawnin good return to "general education." part from Dr. Jerome E. Lord's July 1976report In certain ways, then, lifemay have, be- titled "Toward Lifelong Learning:Changes & Innovations in Post-secondary Educationin the come more bleak and less heady for the United S tates---1960-1970." 6 '0 The age of college' students has edged Frorn... the record° of the past half-dozen upward. Two years,,ago, out of 9.9 million years, it is quite clear that public television highec-cducation aspirants, one million represents another route to learningin fact were least 35 years old. Those 25 or or in potentialfor adults both young and older had risen 25 per cent over 1972. old. Without question, public TV could fit in In 1976, according to the National Center neatly with a lot of PSE. And, indeed, it for Education Statistics, at least 20 mil- already has. In the past severalyears it has been active in the following respects (some lion adults 17 or older were engaged full- of which will be explored time or part-time in learningacilvities more fully on uthe.r than those of a college ar university. subsequent pages). Do adult stigents want a college degree? Broadcagt CollegeCredit Courses Not to any large extent. In fact, the range In a Spring 1974 postcard survey, 53per runs between one and ten per cent. They cent of 144 PTV licensees responding said evidently prefer education that will ad- they were televising college-creditcourses. vance them on the job, or help them cope Aside from these 77 respondents, 21 said with life's hazards. they were not broadcastingcourses, but Characteristic of adult interest in learning, were designing and producing them. Four- 128,000 registered in 1975 for one or an- teen of the 21 were licensed tariniversities other of 4,200 continuing-education op- or colleges. It could be inferred that some tions at the University of California's Los of them were using closed-circuit systems Angeles Center. to spread the courses through a carpus setting. What other learning routes are open to adults? The National. Center for Education Arming the 67 not broadcasting courses, Statistics estimated that sin 1972 7,310,000 seven said they had done so before or ad were getting some education or expected to in the future. training through business/industry,. pro- Formed in J 1974rid based in Lincoln, grams. Nebraskan he campess University of

A student from. Michni-Dade Community College is "attending" the Ascentof Macollege- credit course from the Jacob Bronowski popular PBS serieson a "individualized, in study basis." pendent 62 Mid-America (DMA) has combined nine Business of Writ ng. completed in1973, is higher-education institutions in six states. now marketedy Advanced Systems, The common aim: to offer adults college- Inc., Chicago. K has earned more than. level learning. Public TV has beenone of $100,000 in fees. the delii.Try methods. As of Spring1977, more than 5,000 have enrolled in UMA Of course, public TV hardly has (hisfield courses since the start three years ago, to itself. The "competition" would include such firms as the Network for Like DMA, the Dallas County Commenity Continuing Medical Education, part of VisualInfor- College District has been'using public TV mation Systems. Each year, the network for three years as a way of bringing sends out 23"editions"of "televised courses to adults (both on- and off- medical education" to 750 hospitals. campus). The District 'began withone . course in 1974. -In Spring 1977,it was Remedial Learning for Adults !Tering seven over KERA (for about23 Through open-circuit public and cas- hourSof air time a week). For theseseven, sette playback, the Kentucky GEDseries some 4,140 were enrolled for' credit at the and Manpower Education Insrte's Your District's four campuses; 4,000more had Future Is Now have helpedprepare thou-- signed up outside. sands for the rigorous, ten-hourhigh school equivalency tests. College Degree Tracks Chicago's TV College accomplishedthis As public TV has realized increasingly, aim. By Spring 1974, some 400 individuals there are more ways to reachan audience hadearnedanA.A.deggeeentirely effectively than just throughopen broad- through open-circuit TV (public TVsta- cast. Typical of the alternatives: the State tion WTTW was the broadcaster). University of New York's Modu-Math, produbed in 1972-73 to helpmeet the During 1976, WNET, New York opened "remedial mathematics problem." an Office. of Higher and Continuing Edu- These units were expressly designednot to be cation and_began to study y-the possibilities broadcast. To SLINX, open-circuit of a degree-oriented project. use would deny the student- ,the"self-pacing" Credit in Prime Time flexibility he might have ata cassette This optiOn is, national inscope, as op- playback machine. posed to course- offerings by singlesta- Informal Learning Maris, or perhaps a state network. It has PTV has majored in this come into flower: since 1974, activity, and in , and has en- some -ways has turned it intoa fine art tailed building a credit-course around 'a form. One of the unique formats sequential .series not originally designed has been the "outreach" program. Usuallythis has forcredit r Use, and transmitted during been a single show about evening'. hours by PBS,. Beginning an issue of with social concern, suchas alcoholism; the The Ascent of Man in January1975, five show is carried by. PBS and is followedin PBS series have been ,moldedinto credit many areas by related programs produced options for viewers. and aired by local stations. In.service Courses The Puzzle Children, broadcastin October Hardly o new ph-onerneron for publicTV, 1976 over PBS, was emblematic of activily was tfpilled in Fall 1976 by these Clevelairj, events. This one-hour show dealt with :.=at as \VVIZ's broadcasts of children's learning disabilities; it The Charm,iiristic,of Learning Disabil- was produced by WQED,1-ittsburgh,starring Julie ities (prou%k.,,!1_,:. tile Learning Disabilities Andrews and Bixby. As the special Councii of i::rginia at WCVE-TV, Rich- mond). S, ne 70 teachers signed on PBS ended, hdtre than 114 public TIT up to stations did their own, locallyoriented view tht: series for in- service- credit. follow-up. ComNe-g for Euziness, As differentas theseactivities -might Inch ! aid Professions seem, they share strong relevance to post- PTV has long-at-rued these. Stationsmay secondary education. The' fact is that prbduc:;.! and 'rise a non- course. then make it commercial JV has ptft inmore than two available for lease nr sale. KET'sThe decades of ::service. to PSE. It is worthrecall- ing here that by the mid-fifties, institut In 1975, 394 courses were distributed in such as Penn State were trying to make the whole or in pot by TV, compared with best_ of astill-primitive device. Leslie P. 363 in 1974. The 1975 total was 75 per Greenhill- well remembers the trials with cent greater than the 1970 figure. Penn State's garage-built Dage cameras.. In respell to student credit hours (number Our thought was that you could /eke good of hours delivered by TV), they totalled professors and extend their influence to 69,659;,in 1975, an eight per cent rise over orger numbers of students through the use of TV. It is something of an eye opener to come In the Spring of 1955,-367 undergraduates a up against the mass-production statistics of Penn _State were enrolled in three closed- an institution such as Michigan State. They circuit TV courses. Ten years lator this was provide a springboard for certain generaliia- how the'uSes oeTv had evolves tai tions. 'In televised PSE, there has been a "tradition of using closed-circuit systems There were 7,506 students in 18 ivlevised to deliver formal learning in campus set- courses; tings.Itcontrasts with that other med'a No teachers had been fired as a result of tradition in which K-12 instruction has cus- " TV use; tomarily been distributed by open-circuit meas. More than three-quarters (78 per cent) of Now, new technology has come along,, to 3,000 students questioned thought TV was diversify the situation. Even on-campus, tie either "fairly good" or "very good" as a videocassette has becomea valid competi- way of handling large-enrollment clw, ses; tor to the closed-circuit system. But remove and post-secondaryeducationfrom : campus A university cost analysis showed a "sav- boundaries and the alternatives expand. inginfavorofLqlevisedinstruction There, a slim tradition of reaching learners through open-circuit TV has totalling almost $40,000.... new com panions. Wanting to review, the adult stu- Coming forward another ten years (to dent could see a televised lesson in cassette 1975-76), this was how the situation had form at a learning Tenter or library. Wanting shifted at Penn State: clarification, he could phone an instructor. . Some 10,594 .studentswere enrolled in TV In short, the paSt several years haveseen courses, which generated 31,746 student ahealthyincrease both indistribution credit hours; -and methods and in :the alternative ways of learning available to the aspiring adult stu- TV was used that academic year in 1 dent, In his article (in Section III), John P. sections of large-enrollment undergrad- Witherspoon, President of the Public Service uate courses. 'Satellite ConsortiuM, descrioesone of the By now, closed-circuit uses at Penn State directions these alternatives may take, in the seem to have hit a plateau. This is the judg- use of a satellite to create a continuing edu- ment of Dr. Donald W. Johnson, Director of cation network. \ the University Division of Instructional Sekv- ices. The "modest" ruble system on-campus it Break for Continuing Education. Beyond still has its users, but current practice tends the Availability fon fancy new hardware, to' lean toward sending instructional mate- another factor has come to the aid of the, r(alson videocassettes to individual class- adult educator. More and, more, society has rooms for playback at an instructor's option. started to require continuing education. This -At Miythigan State University, the applies, deVelopment can open vast opportunities to Lion orclosed-circuit distribution has shown the public broadcaster. Navjgorous.growth over the past few years. - In many states, laws now= require those in This was thr report for 1975: certain professions to be relicensed at peri- odicintervals. Take thedoctor. As of Some1,328 students were using ITV September 1976, the American Medical As- courses r, .1-campus, a 13 per cent increase sociation told what the practitioner faces in over 1970. iSorne of MSU's 41,500 students different states: took more t; an one ,course through the 1.Fourteenstate medical associations closed-circuit system.) , have a policy to "require continuing medi-

64 "W cal education (C a condition of proposed years ago by the National membership. Associa- tion of Educational Broadcasters'(NAEB) 2. Seven medical specialty Sbcie such William Harleyandvery probablyare as the American College of ergency closed to the future than theircolleagues. Physicians, had decided to requireCME as a prerequisite for membership. Among the Headjines Over 'the- pasthree years, post-secondary 3. An 22 medical specialty boardshave education gains set a policy "to provide recertification visual expression in aOari- ...' ety of ways. There have beendefinite wins, irteen had set dates (as of September a loss or two, and a project where the 1976) when that requirement would jury begin. is still out. In profile, theseprojects show Lawyers face this trend, too. In Minne- the greater ,dynamicsnow evident in the use sota, Iowa, Washington and Wisconsin, they of public TV for post-secondary education. must take courses for relicensure.Across all On the Inter6nnect. The 'professions, there is no fix advent of Public on the extent of Broadcasting Service serieswith a credit stale laws calling for recertification.How- option for the viewer r :er, in the words of Lloyd H. Davis, Exe- may well be one of the best public TV-in-educationstories of the cutive Director of the NationalUniversity past several years. Extension Association, "we knowthis situation is rapidly changing." The story began ve:lha remarkable .TV serifshe Ascent of 7v.:1n. When wordcame One example of hoe: this trendrr ifates to in Spri public TV could become 1974 that PBS wouldrun it the a classic case in following ary, a cluster of academic its, own CiSne. It greiv froma federal decision that Iwo million "prix, administrators at Miami-DadeCommunity to applicators" of College and UnivertitroECalifornia,' San pi-s,,ieicles be eerittied by October1977 in the Diego, began to step livelyin Most un- safe and effeztivt handling ofrestricted-use academic way. Teams of chemicals. In 1975, the Unb ersity instructors started of Mid- writing support materials toexpand the TV America set out to respond,It decided to seriesintoa de% elop "mediated training credit-bearingopportunity. materials" for Meanwhile, PBS called togetherall the dis- farmers. By April 1976, consortiumfunding grate components to was secured to produce a $141,488 package assure the best possible cooperation on the locallevel. It was a of materialsfive broadcastableTV pro- new game: an extraordinary level grams, a learner handbook with self-tests, of coordination was called forand largelyachieved. an article which could be run_ in agricultural To fortify the series fu$her, publications, and a user's Mobil under- manual. As of wrote the publication ofsome 75,000 guides January 1977, UMA already hadorders for for secondary teachers. 14,000 study guides. And the completed TV Jacob Brunowski's Ascent units were describedas "the best training gave TV a high films of this type that I've purpose and meaning. When January 1975 'ever seen" by rolled around, his magnetismwas felt at the James H. White, Chief of theEnvironmental registration box office. Miami-Dadeoffered Protection Agency Regional SupportBranch. the televised credit This UMA venture course on an "individ- can easily be projected ualized, independent studybasis." In the on a bigger screen. If recertification 'is realty Miami area, it drew gaining strength, an enrollment of 1438 then alliances between in its first term. None of that higher education and public TV institution's 55 would seem Open Collegecourses before or since at- to be highly justifiable. Theonly question traded that many. that remains is whether theycan jointly- In the Coast Community CollegeDistrict move into the marketplace before thecom of Southern Culiffnmia, it mercial entreprenuers do. was the same story. There, 2,843 registeredto take Ascent as a Even if the ultimate producteevekoes the light of open-circuit day, course. Only three other courses out of53 public TV still televised in the district sinceFall 1972 had could beas it has beenfullyengaged in more than half that amount. The, Impact designing,-producing, and duplicating visual of and written components. Ascent was such that in Fall 1t6,Dr. Marj- Those new em- orie E. Hoachlander initiateda ,Judy "to find barked ort this courseare making a reality of the "telecommunications out how and why (it) became'widely-used center" idea instructional focus formany courses in a 65 large number of colleges and universities." WNET issued a24-page, secondary-level Supported by CPB and the Center for Ad- teachers' guide. Grants from the National vanced Study in Educatiun at City Univer- Endowment for the Humanities and Atlantic sity of New York, Dr. Hoachiander sent her Richfield Company made it possible to run questionnaire to -institutions of higher edu- off 65,000 copies. All of them were distri- cation. (Her repoit on the results was dis- buted. tributed in December 1977.) In an historic year, Adams charmed people In any event, with Ascent, educators had and captured "student body," too. These broken the ice for PBS. A model had been were a few of its accomplishments: buil that, it became more and more A total of 30,000 men and women enrolled tinetotry for added mileage out of prime-time series by molding credit courses as credit students for the two 1976 offer- around then% InFall1975, PBS offered ings (winter and fall terms) over PBS, In Ascent again as a credit option, and along the winter, 305 colleges and universities WO it,Classic Theatre, amplified with a agreed to award credit to viewers in their specialhalf-hour"Preview."Institutions respective neighborhoods. For the fall re- could also treat as a credit course of their run, 386 institutions made credit available. own' th( .lecasts of Kenneth Clark's Ro- Various books on the Adams family bene- mantic liebellion. ilted from the upsurge of interest in the For the young Bicentennial Year, PBS was Bicentennial and in John Adams, his wife, ready todistribute WNET's The Adams and their descendants. The marketing of Chronicle s, which started January 20, 1976, these books broke down as follows: for enjoyment or credit(or both). Coast Community,College District had built up the 1. Some 22,000 copies of Jack Shep- creditaspectsto make Adams acourserUnr- herd's The Adams ChroniclesFour ver.Xy of California, San Diego, helped by Generations of Greatness had been sold 1.vriang a guide, for discussion leaders. Back- through bookstores by the end of 1976. ing' upitstags, the producing. station, 2. The World of The Adams Chronicles

1,6

John Adams is sworn in as Presideni onhe Adams Chronicles. With this program, the craft of turning a PBS Series. ,into. television educational course moved forward with a gratifying degree. Forging Our Nation, edited by David from the institutions which hadtaken the 1. Rothman, had sales of 8,979 during lead in assembling them. 1976. A new, high-budgeted series beingoffered, 3. The sale of The Adams Chronicles by PBS in 1977 shows theinterrelationships A Student's Guide reached 9,584 bythe involved. It is The Age of .Uncertainty,with Bicentennial Year's end, economist John Kenneth Galbraith.These are the arrangements: 4.Offeredtogether;a"prepack" these three books sold 11.094 copies. 1. The 13 TV programs will`be carried by PBS, starting in September 5. 1977, as a Still another volume, The Book of credit course. The interconnectiontrans- Abigail and John: SelectedLetters of mitted a "preview" in Spring1977. the Adorns Family, 1762 -1784 (edited by 2. Describedasan L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaendar,and "interdisciplinary telecourse" warranting threeor four credit Mary -Jo, Kline), had a sale of22,757 by June 15, 1976. units at the lower-division level, theseries features Dr. Galbraithas host. He also 6. One ironic--and still puzzlingfoot- wrote The Age of Uncertainty,one of note: many enrolled for thecourse, but three books accompanying thecourse. did not buy the books. Atone college, Houghton Mifflin Company has published 1,900 registeredfor credit,yetthere the texts, which will sellas a package for were only 300 book-sales, at most. about $20. With. Adams, the craft of turninga prime- 3. Coast Community.College District has time PBS series into a collage-levelcredit prepared the "academic and administra- course moved forward to a gratifyin:1 de- tive support manual" as a guide forin- gree. The producing station, WN worked terested institutions. Colleges anduniver- nine months before the seriespreJere on sities can buy it for $50. the academic components, collaboratingwith 4. As the work of planning evolved,these the two higher educationinstitutions on the institutions took part at one levelor an- West Coast. These efforts certainlyset the other: British BroadcastingCorporation, pattern for many a project tocome. Ontario Educational CommunicationsAu- Along with the repeat of Adamsin Fall thority, KCET (Los -Angeles),PBS, Coast- 1976, PBS made available (on Fridaymorn- line Community College, CoastCommun- ings) the poetry series Anyone forTenny- ity College District, Universityof Califor- son? Produced by the Nebraska ET_V Net- nia San Diego Extension, andHoughton work and the Great AmwellCompany of Mifflin. New York, this collection of poetry readings -5. Dr. lent itself well to adaptationas a credit Leslie Purdy ofCoastline was designated as coordinator for thetele- course. Then, on a more localized basis, course, morning repeats on PBS of NOVAwere used for credit insome places. Higher edu- 6, Those interested in usingthe series cation had the further chancein Winter beyond the open broadcast throughPBS 1977 to shape creditcourses around PBS's were advisedthatFilms Incorporated rerunning of Classic Theatre andRomantic would provide the course in four formats Rebellion. (16 mm film,three-quarter-inch video- A distinction has to be made aboutthe aissette, one-half-inchvideocassette, and credit uses of these PBSprograms. With off-air taping). "For the firsttime," pro some seriesNOVA `and Romantic Rebel- spective users were advised,"colleges lionit has been up to local collegesto de- and 'universities will he ableto obtain a vise an appropriate course synchronouswith legal license to make videocassettecopies the PBS telecast. from the PBS broadcast Then, in the case of four seriesThe By February 1977, a description ofThe Ascen of Man, Adams, Anyonefor Tunny- Age of Uncertainty as potential so nd Classic Theatrecentral college-level course course had been circulated far and wide by materials were prepared by small groups of Coast CommunityCollegeDistrict.All educators. Interested collegeswere advised parties had learned that this that they could buy the written was hardly too- components early to start local institutionsplanning for 67 m- a series filmed in 19 different countries over outlets in Spring 1977three of them public a three-and-one-half year period. (KCET; KOCE, licensed to Coast Community An adult-level educative service building College District; and KVCR, San Bernardino), on prime-time series such as these could and three, commercial (KABC, KNXT, and turn out to be one. of PBS's main growth KTTV). areas in seasons ahead. In late 1976, Rhea. The student growth curve since 1974 has Sikes,PBS's Coordinator of Educational been intriguing. 1974, 26,474 enrolkd in Services, explained the agency's outlookon five courses (four produced by TELECON, the matter: one leased). The nextyear,registration jumped to 61,680. Inothat The stations look to PBS for the mostex- year of 1975, nine cellent programming available onany level. courses were offered, three of them from With the satellite potential, there'sa real the PBS national feed. Then the numbers tumbled in 1976 to 35,317. The main challenge to find that material. .The na- cause: tionalservice can more easilyfacilitate a change in veterans' educational benefits. services to adult audiences than to K-12, No longer was this an "appealinggiveaway because the adult has a chffarent set of pri- program," as Ms. Beaty put it. In 1976, 11 ri:iesis---availaTe at different times, and courses were listed(six,cOnsortium-pro- has a very flexible approach to`education in duce& three leased from others;two airings which he's looking to his own individual of Adams). growth, rather than completingan institu- TELECON raised its sights higher in 1977. tionally prescribed course of study. It planned to broadcast 16.courses by year's end. Of three currently in the design/pro- PBS and committed educators have found duction process, an astronomy telecourseis that this adult will sign up for the national, a co-production by TELECON and consor- prime-time creditcourse. Solutions have tium-memberCoastCommunityCollege been written for many of the problems District.Itspilot won a 1976 "Best of which have cropped up. The big problem WEST." remaiNng is one that Sibs and others know In TELECON, forward planning isa must. all too well: where are the truly noteworthy By Winter 1977, production had beenpro- program materialsforcourses? Thatis jected to 1979. Ms. Beaty elaborated:' where search parties must put their emphasis now. We're very much committed to instructional design. This will make our courses much High-Achiever Among Consortia. Onecon- more acceptabletoother institutions.It sumer of PBS credit courses- has been a should stimulate cooperation because we're cluster of institutions in and around Los playing by the same ground rules, with the Angeles. Thisis "TELECON," the short- same standards o f academic and production form name far the'Southern California Con- excellence. sortium for Community College Television, directed by Sally Beaty_. The consortium- has begun lookingeven_ In business since 1970, TELECON has further into the futureto the mid-eighties become its own kind of establishment. Its to see "where we're going in curriculum 35 community collegesthey include the development." The commitment as of 1977: nine of the Los Angeles Community College to produce at least three -courses a year. District and the three of Coast Community Two will be in general education; the third, College Districtrange over six counties in an area of "popular appeal and need" from Bakersfield to Palm Springs, and from (like personal finance). It happens that this Barstow toMission Viejo. option is in the works in mid-1977: itwas at in the years since TELECON's start in the top of viewers' requests. 1970, it ha., enrolled more than 170,000 in Sad Day at Mac's Place. When it set to plan- ciledit courses delivered through open-circuit ning Feeling Good, the Children's Television TV. (Strii_tly F:waking, some of TELECON's Workshop knew there was a public need for customers :nay have taken more than one a health-information series, even if there course.) While the consortium bar, not had might not have been an explicit request for its own TV facility, it has had atapleaccess it from viewers. to TV transmission capability in the Los In the words of Dr. Edward Palmer, CTW Angeles area. In fact. was using six TV Vice President for Research, the series-.was "an ambitious attempt to useelevision in it above average prime-time PBS programs." in valive ways to influence health behav- It also produced "a number .of significant, io Twenty-six weekly hour-long shows measurable effects..." As just one sample, were to start airing in November 1974. CTW 40,000 wrote in fo a `;cookers' Quitters' Kit. hoped for a broad audience--all socioeco- That put CTW in a bind: it only had money nomic levels, including, but not exclusively, for 25,000, so it had to pursue a grant to viewers from lower-income circumstances." print up the rest. More time went into designing segments for Boiled downAhis was CTKs postmortem lower-income viewers, "simply because their judgment on Feelg Good (as voiced by Dr. needs were seen to be greater and corrective Palmer): action more difficult to achieve." The planners also Mined toward "popular" TV for- .. we now s y consider whether any mats -to compete with popular cu air ercial weekly, half-hour, extended series on preven- tive health, presented in expensive enter- programs . '' The start was shaky. After a dozen shows tainment formats in prime time on public televisioncould had aired,the "only question"inJoan attractagreat enough Cooney's mind (as recalled by Robert David- audience to justify the investment... Even son, Director of Broadcast Relations for Season B .. failed in our view to achieve CTW) was "whether to cancel completely, a combined reach and impact great enough or if we had time to save it." Revolving towarrant continuation in light of its very around a studio home base called "Mac's substantial costs. Place," the cast was beginning to reachas The investment had beensubstantial. many people as the "top one-third" of the More than $7 million went into the series, adult series on PBS. But for CTW, the prod- about $1 million (which CTW paid itself) uct still wasn't good enough. Feeling Good for repair work after Season A. Even if the was pulled off the alt....and sent back to the series has made it, CTW would have faced shop for repairs. a major problem, one directly related to the Through late Winter of 1975, a new CTW funding issues explored in the preK chapter: team reworkedtheseries.Those were how was the Workshop goiiig to pay-for it in agonizing weeks. Bob Davidson explained a second season? But that issue evaporated. the impact of the temporary shutdownon Embalmed after one season, Feeling Good the local PTV stations: was, to Davidson, "an example of what is Very few stations did not laud the decision possible on Fry that never could happenon to try to make the series better. But it left commercial television,It was a high-risk them with a technical problem of what to experiment." do with .their schedule for 13 weeks. We Forestalling Failure. In 1973, the widely re- wouldn't le rerun the first shows. spected educator Dr. Cyril 0. Houle tooka This tendecto destroy the momentum look at "The External Degree: How'to Deter- the outreac programs. mPie Who Wants It, Who Needs llt." He CTW had couraged public TV licensees built his answer on a foundation of these figures: to preSentl health information as an accompaniment to this series. "When we As of 1971, he reported, there were 18 withdrew the show," said Bob Davidson, "it million dropouts in America. By 1990, threw this effort into chaos." there would le 20 million. After 13 weeks, the mended Feeling Good went back on the air. Dick Cavett was host a Those with ,a high school diploma but no in a half-hour format. No more Mac's Place. college experience numbered 38 million Topic emphasis swung toward "dramatic" as of 1971, Two decades from then, there issues, such as cancer, heart disease, alco- would be 58 million. holism. As for those with some college but no In spite of the therapy, the "Season B" degree, there were 11 million in 1971, with version of Feeling Good did not make it. So 22 million projected for 1900. CTW decided to scrap it after one season, even though there had been some important; In short, adults by the million could be- positive findings. The series,Dr. Palmer come consumers for some type of education; reported, "attracted enough viewers to place and the millions are increasing. While failure could torpedoany adult, it's had grossed about $1 million. more liable to broadside the person who never made it through high school. For that KET's GED series had been usedin a va- individual, the "GED" tests of high school riety of ways -in Kentucky, In theopen- equivalency have become a usefulcounter- broadcast phase, some 2,000 enrolleddi- move. And broadcast TV has turned out to rectly through KET. When playbackgear be one way of studying for thosechalleng- was installed at ten leOning sites, "enroll- ing exams. rnent retention and progress" increased. In the mid-sixties, Manpower Education Meanwhile, all of the state's correctional Institute, New York-based, madea 60-part institutions had used theprograms over TV series to help G9ED candidates brace for an 18-month span. One result: instructors the tests. Later, the Institute brought ina had "overwhelming enthusiasm"for them. second-generation version, Your Future Is Evaluations of severaluses of KET's GED Now. These programs have playedin many package have been summarized by states for more than five years. One place William Wilson,Cambridge'snationalutilization where they have been used has been in specialist: northeastern Alabama. In a five-countyarea there, the Top of Alabama Regional Educa- 1. From 1973 to 1975, the Appalachian tion Service Agency (TARESA)serves eight Education Center at Morehead StateUni- school systems and a :pepulation,in the versity analyzed achievement of adultsin overall, of some 200,000.'llt is typical Ap- the PED track. These 'individualshad palachianMountainteratory.This was studied for the tests in differentways. TARESA's experience with Your Future Is The overall judgment held that: Now "No single teaching/learningcondi- From 1972 to 1976, the agency hadthe tion - appears to bemore effective or series broadcast, and offered with itco- efficient than another ...." ordinatedtexts,learning-centerstudy, home tutors, and diagnostic tests. Achievement seemed to be hingedto "the nature of the client...." The first year, therewere 600 GED re- "ETV teaches, and doesso as well as cipients. By 1975-76, there were 1,600. existing systems do," and The total for the fouryears: 5,000, KET's series seemed to contain "all David Marxer, Director of- the Huntsville the basic ingredients for instruction." ETV Center, described the seriesas "a highly effective educational adult educe- 2. The Oregon Division, of Continuing _tion series in Alabama Education had these conclusions about Of prime significance in thecase of this KET's GED: series (and a lot of other instructional TV was the best recruiter- for GED materials as well) was this further point study, followed by newspaper ads; by Marxer, noting. that there had been: Enrollment in KET/GED was "effec- Statistical proof that its greatest effective" in helping individualspass the tiveness is "accomplished when there is tests. Out of 1,500 enrollments,a ran- on-site coordination and visitation by dom sample of 100 showed that41 had --trained staff .. The successful.comple-- _taken and passed the exams; tion of the GED series is increased by as Much as tenfold in the areas where Generally, students thought thepro- such coordination has been provided. gram elements and instructional strategies had satisfiedtheir reasons for By September 1974, Kentucky Educational signing up; Television was ready to broadcast a like seriei:usually known as Kentucky GED. The Only ten per pent were reluctant to following January, KET put the 34 half-hour concede that they did not havea high units into natior-al distribution. Six months school diploma; and a "clear majority" later. It turned over the marketing to Cam- was m'arried and had children; bridge Book Company, witha percentage The students were "not looking for return to KET. Through Winter 1977, sales entertainment. .. ."They preferred a 70 direct, approach co learning. This was small (1,755,000 as of 1975) and quite dis- "seriousbusiass nottobetaken persed, with only ,seven cities over 25,000, lightly," Still, a very young effort to use TV for Among his recommendations, Wilson credit-course distribution seems to be catch- calledfor an ongoing awareness drive ing on. The beginnings coincide with the keyed to CED. Further, he saw the need first PBS broadcast of The Ascent of Man for -some kind of minimal support" for in January 1975. That same month, Michael the broadcasts. Reflecting the point made Helmantoler arrived on the scene -es Instruc- by Huntsville's David Marxer, it had- be- tional Media Manager for the Office of corrm-alear to Wilson that "person-to-per- Radio, Television, and Motion Pictures at son contact" was the "critical element" to West Virginia University. Since then he has gain student, involvement and eventual been appointed Program Associate for Mass achievement. Media forthe American Associationof Certainly Kentucky CED has had its fol- Community and Junior Colleges. It was his lowers acrd/.; the country. Based on book task to work back and forth between the sales and station reports, Wilson hair esti- three PTV stations and the state's 24 colleges. mated that 150,000 watched the sE,cies in At first, very little happened. Only one 1976 to prepare for the tests. college did anything with the first run of Ascent. For guidance, Helmantoler visited Over West Virginia's Hills. At West Liberty the Maryland Center for Public Broadcast- State College, Wheeling, West Virginia, the ing. That Fall' of 1975, the program gained PBS telecasts of NOVA have become a con- energy. Ten colleges made use of five broad- tinning college-credit course. It is a circum- cast courses (including Ascent and Classic stance that could have real meaning in other Theatre from PBS), and enrolled 567 for states. credit. Various courses were offered in 1076, Like colleges elsewhere, West Liberty has and by year's end, according to Heiman- had its problems in keeping enrollments up. toler, colleges were inferring that the tele- NOVA may not be the only antidote, but vised Ascent had led some students to take the evidence suggests thatit' could- help more traditional science on-campus, while chane the picture. Capitalizing on 'NOVA The Adams Chronicles had guided otherno broad6asts over WWVU, Morgantown and sign tip for American History. WQED, Pittsburgh, just to the northeast, an In Fall 1976, 11 colleges made use of the enterprising professor turned the science broadcasts of the University of Wisconsin- series into an interdisciplinary course. In Green Bay's Consumer Experience series. Spring1976, he had 35 enrollments; the Some 161 took it for credit. As a sequel, a following Fall,50; and bySpring1977, move developed among the higher-education there were 45. institutions to expand the uses of TV. Out Overall, West Liberty has had more than of a new statewide committee came a 200 enrollments in academic year 1976-77 in to use; a series of six courses in the 1977-2e TV or newspaper courses. And the college academic year. Two of them (The Age of is beginning to note that TV students are Uncertainty and Anyone for Tennyson?) showing up on campus, evidently willing to would be PBS-delivered. As of Spring 1977, commit themselves to learning of a more 75 per cent of the public and private col- traditional kind. leges in West Virginia had agreed to take In more ways than one, West Virginia part in this concerted effort. would not seem to be a likely place for post- Fortunately, public TV course deliVery secondary-education delivery through TV. fits well with the state's "Regents B.A. De- The ever-present hills fight good reception, gree program," started in February 1975. from the state's three public TV stations, More than 2,000 adults have enrolled in this one a VHF (WSWP, Beckley), the other degree- byexam program; 516 degrees had two, UHFs (WMUL, Huntington; WWVU, been awarded by Spring 1976. TV has be- Morgantown). The stations get the PBS feed, come part of the accepted distribution sys- but there is no state network. Hence, tapes tem for courses. must be bicycled from one to another. Right Looking to the enlarged delivery planned away, that can -become a nightmare for any- for Fall 1977, Helmantoler reported theco- one trying to plan a coordinated promotional ordinating committee'sestimatethatas' campaign. Then, too, the population is fairly many as 200 students per course could be 71 anticipated. That would mean 800 a semes- Master's in Engineering sequence. Thissays ter using TV as their vehicle for learning. nothing, of course, about the other types of And it would draw an exciting growthcurve educational activity in ETV's schedule of in a state where these efforts are less than 130 programs each day during the school three years old. year. One of ETV's in-service products, The South Carolina ETV. For hyone concerned Teacher As Manager, has played tomore about network output, South Carolina ETV than 2,000 of the state's 24,000 teachers. becomes an absorbing case study. In 1976, During 1976, 333 viewer-users were surveyed it was stillbuilding,stillgrowing, with about the course. On the strength ofan 80 bigger projections for the future. A few per cent response, investigator Ronald G. numbers tell the story: Midkiff of Columbia College reported these findings: a Students for higher educationcourses: up from 5,407 in 1975 to about 6,000 in About 86 per cent had certificate or degree 1977; reasons 'for watching the series for credit; Teachers-taking in-service courses: from Three-quarters of the respondents had 5,552 in 1974 to about 8,000 in 1977; been teaching anywhere from one to 15 years, eight per cent had taught for 16 to An estimated 19,000 enrollees in medical 20 years, and 11 per cent had been-a education in 1977, against 8,875 in 1974 teacher for more than 20 years; (the increase attributable in part toex- pansion of the health-education network); Comparing the TV course with others taken in the traditional way, 87 per cent Law, enforcement: stable at about 3,500a year; rated the TV as the same or more valuable; GED and like programs: 19',500 in 1974-75; About 88 per cent thought the T_ V series edged closer to 18,000 in 1976; a0 had been "about as" interesting or "more" Business men and women: around 53,000 interesting than conventional instruction will be served in 1977 by the network, they'd received; compared with 47,000 in 1974-75. More than nine out of ten (95 per 'cent) . Lumping all ETV's students togetherat said they would take other, releVant TV all levelsthe total has climbed from 384,458 courses; in 1976 toward about 445,000 in 1977. Com- -- Almost all (97 per cent) found the TV= mented Robert E. Wood, Director of ETV's taught concepts and skills "workable" Tor Division of Education: "That's quite sub- them; .and stantial when you consider we only have 2.5 million people in South Carolina." Questioned if the course had made them At the higher-education level, ETV's lines a better manager, 92 per cent checked off have been used increasingly to inchpeo- "Yes," ple. The University of South Carolina has offered a televised MBA degree, forex- The survey covered other provocative. ample. In it, 14 subjects have been televised territory. Six out of ten said they hadnot live. Those watching in different locations met with a teacher during the. 26-segment throughout the state have a chance toquest. course, Of those who had, half saw an in- tionthe instructors through atalkback structor twice. Twelve per cent met witha mechanism. Several times a semester, stu- teacher once. Seven out of ten felt theyhad dents meet on-campus for a weekend'scon- had "enough contact" withan instructor. centrated study. Texts, papersand tests Summarizing, Midkiff inferred from his data that buttressthelive TV transmissions.In 1976-77, some 1,000 had enrolled in this . .it appears that' the convenience o MBA program statewide. ETV course was what motivatedmany of the By the end of the Spring 1977 term, ETV students to take the course. Teachers who expected to have transmitted all of 75 col- were not willing to drive at night to a cam- lege-level courses this academic year, in- pus or who had small children and could -eluding the 14 MBA series and 28 ina not leave them at night found this ETV Course an answer to their desire to take a Only short months beforehand, Franklin graduate course and were grateful for it. G. Bouwsma, Miami- Dade's Vice-Ptesident In round numbers, The Teacher As Man- for Instructional Resources,was chairing ager cost $110,000 in out-of-pocket charges a CPB/ACNO task force on Post-secondary (forconsultants; actors,filmprocessing, Formal Education. Virtually alone, he had transfers to videotape, evaluation). Actually, drawn together the resources, human and that figure represents an investment of $55 otherwise, to create Man and Environment per student-user todate. And, according in the first two years of the seventies. This to the evaluation, the couroe works. So, it adult telecourse became, in variousways, has to be seen as a bargain. Fortuitously, a prototype for 9ther course generations to some of the original expenditure will be follow, such as The Ascent of Man. coming back to South Carolina. In early These three itemsinvolving Drs. Luskin 1977, Syracuse-University began using the and Chamberlain, the LIMA people,. and course on a lease basis. Frank Bouwsmahave this incommon: the individuals concerned believe in applying Ado ocates for Open Learning media to reach off -campus adults with col- In February 1977, two California educators lege learning materials. In eachcase, their were on the agenda for the Atlanta meeting work in this cause hascome into focus in the seventies. One conclusion is of PBS members. Dr. BernardJ.Luskin, sure: they President of Coastline Community College did not get as far as they have by thinking small. and an officer of KOCE-TV as well, and Dr. Martin N. Chamberlain. Assistant Chancel- Writing in Planning for Higher Education lor, Extended Stud_ ies, University of Cali- in August 1976, Barry Schwenkmeyer rein- fornia, San Diego, went to-Atlantaas pro- forced this conclusion. In visiting Coast ponents of adult-level learning through TV. Community College District, he had found During that same month in early 1977, "a strong flavor of educational entrepre- officials of the University of Mid-America neurism" in one Coast Office, i.e., Dr. Lus- still a child among America's higher edu- kin's. The justification seemed clear. Putting cation institutions--met with the Director together top-notch adult telecourses of the government's main educational R is big business, but Luskin and his asso- agency, the National Institute of Education ciates have ldarned (as, have such other (NIE), to talk about short- and long-range institutions as Great Britain's Open Univer- funding for DMA. sity) that if education is to get the most

One of the advocates for Open Learning has been Miami-Dade Community College,Florida. One of its .educational television series in distribution is Man andEnvironment. Above, a elan crew on location. from TV. educators have o -think big, and ve,sity joined. This broadened thecon- learn to deal with the forge -scaleproducers sortium to include nine institutions in six and-distributors of -televised material. states (Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, Kan- One Schwenkineyer'sconcluding sas, Missouri, and. Nebraska). "Rules of\ Thumb"lessons that Coast and While the consortium has gained strength, Dr. Luskin could teach other inztitutions its enrollments have yet to show the kind of was simplY this: "Be bold when circum- volume that UMA would like.. Going backto stancesdemand it." Then he added: the start in September 1974, the total enrollments have added up to somethingover -The Coast district would not be whereit is 5,000. The first semester, 680 registered for today were not for a few imaginative two courses. During Fall 1975, the figures men who were fascinated with the potential peaked, with 1,260 signing up for eight sub- of various insicuctional technologies. jects. In Fall 1976, 750- registered for14-- Thrice-Told Tale of UMA. Thevery same, subjects. UMA knows all -too well theim- with adjustments for climate andtopog- portance of building a larger constituency in its six-state area.. raphy, could be \said for the Universityof Mid-America (UMA). Were itnot for the Who have been the consumers? inpro- vision and persistence ofmen like President file, the first 2,000 looked like this: D. B. Varner of the University of Nebraska They had 'a mean age of 37; and UMA Executive Vice President JackG. tvicBrideand parallel vision in foundation More than three-quarterswere female, and 79 per cent were married; and federal-agency afficesUMA mightnot have survived bl..zard andscotching winds Just under half hadan annual income as Well as it has.- (before taxes) of less than $10,000,while UMA's story began in the sixties when 68 per cent made less than $15,090; "Woody" Varner got the idea of using Ne- braska's ETV network to sendcourses to Some 46 per cent had hadseconrAry, adults at home. Three monthster, a study trade or business school education,or commission had filled in the blanks. Itrec- less; one-quarter hadgone to college, 15 ommended forming "SLIN"theState Uni- per cent were college graduates, and 12 versity of Nebraska. Planning began. per cent had taken some graduate study; On July 26, 1974 SUN\ underwent x.. meta- For 74per cent. it had been at leasta morphosis. What had beena Nebraska-only year since they had taken part in formal venture turnedofficiallyinto multi-state education, while 47per cent had been UMA. Federal funders at the NationalInsti- away from academia for at least five __tate _A]f_=Education_ had_b,ome___convinced___years; and that only a regional institution couldattract- enough enrollees to justify HEWgrants. About 37 per cent hadno interest in a de- That fall, the first twocourses went into gree, while 63 per cent hoped for "some distribution(in Nebraska Quil)Account- degree." ing I and Introductory Psychology. Since its start, UMA has producedcourse Slowly the bonds tightened between UMA packages itself or, whennecessary, rented and Washington agencies. Thenew con- them from otitside. By early 1977,it had sortium came to represent HEW's largest mpleted three courses, and Was produc- open-learning experiment. As of June2, ing six more; eight others were in thecon- 1976, $7,059,238 had- been spenton SUN cept stage. and then UMA; of that. $4,741,940 had come There have been tough blows alongthe from three HEW offices, Not until March road. For one, the National Endowment 1977 did UMA staff in Lincoln get final word for the Humanities (NEH),, decidedin mid-1976 that for_the fiscal.year =beginning October not to put any more money Into production 1976, NIE woult) allocate another $1.2 mil- of a UMA-initiated course, GreatPlains Ex- lion to the institution (NIE hadprovided a perience. As it was well into the project by tide-over grant of 4200,000 in Fall 1976). then, UMA decided to go ahead withit "on The institutional \size of UMA hasgrown our own .. bit by bit. In January 1977; the " Since then, NEH has decid- University ed to put $185,000 into anotherseries also of Minnesota and Sccuth DakotaState Uni- well along, Japan: The Living Tradition. 74 8t, As a' footnote, surely one of UMA's big- of the Air, has produced and broadcast gest hurdles almost from its very first day telecourses to help its students meet their has been trying to track down adequatere- requirements for an A.A.S.1Alegree. These sourcesto make high-quality courseware. are individuals, in the main, who'are inter- As of June 1970, the institution had raised ested in vocational-technicalcareers. Over money from at least 15 different sources for a five-year span (through 1976), MATC ofcourse development. fered 44 telecourses (includingsome re- Almost no outsider has beep; closer peats), with these results: UMA than NIE's Dr, Jerome Lord, Chief of itsOpen Learning systems Branch and The courses had a total enrollment o_ f project officer for NIE's grants to UMA.He 11,258; cites several big accomplishments by the Over tcie five years, completions averaged Univ rsity of Mid-America: 82 percent; As much as any institution, UMA has Sasic Economics, produced at MATC "kept at the forefront of people's think in ing about the possibilities of 1973, was broadcast five times, and 2,155 open learn- tiidents completed thecourse: a social ing . . . particularly open learning that science course tided American Institutions was consciously allied to use of -mass had a registration total of 2,200for six media." broadcasts. Further, "One of their particular strengths As of Winter 1977, itwas theoretically in UMA has been in managing themulti- state grouping." possible for a student tp meet almostone- third of his degree requirements(21 hours At the same time, Dr. Lord hasseen a of the 61 needed) through. TV, and histran- need for certain changes. UMA, he ob- script would not reflect the fact inany way. served in Fall 1976, should switch to"pro- In the first years, MATC has concentrated ducing research that is of general utilityto on completing the core courses that every the outside world," Then, the "management student must takehence Basic Economics capability" should be reinforced. He argued and American Institutions and Commuaica- too that UMA should narrow thegap be- tion Skills,It hes also put some of its en- tween learner and the project, which is ergies into-producing vocationally oriented based inLincoln."This project belongs series, such as Police Science and Introduce right there with your students," hesaid. tion to Commercial Art. "They've got to localize ...." Perhaps two-thirds of MATC's College of A six-state collective of this nature could the Air Courses have been produced right hardly spring into being_ fully armed, fully at MATC's public TV facilityin color; fol- protected,against the ancient quirks of lowing instructional design precepts;using higher education. Amongmany, Dr; Lord filmclips,videotapeinserts,role-playing has seen that UMA could not completeall and other means to distinguish the product its castles in a year or two. In fact, he said, from the standard lecture forrnat. MATC "evidence of organic substance won'tcome has been turning out aboutone course a until the end of the decade." year at a cost of roughly $60,000. To round out its inventory, it has acquiredcourses On the Associate Degree Track. Inmany from Chicago TV College, Great Plains, ways a young institution, the University of UMA, and Miami-Dade Community.All Mid-America was stillgrappling in mid- MATC's courses are being distributed by winter 1977 with whether itscourses should CPN. lead a student toward a degree. Elsewhere, A Milwaukee resident, whether tricu- that decision had been facedsome years lated or not, could easily pickup MATC's agO. and telecourses have been worked into courses over Channels 10 and 36; the two students' degree-seeking directions, transmit the credit series (with at least two One such siteisthe Milwaukee Area repeats for each) for a total ofmare- than Technical College; Operating on fourcam- five hours a clay, five daysa week, Do stu- puses, it meets .some of its outreach needs dents like the TV alterriative? Surveys have through two public TV stations, WMVS shown a poejtive response "all theway." (Channel 10) and WMVT (Channel 36). according to WMVS /V3MVT ManagerOtto Since September, 1971, MATC, College F. Schlaak. "Students like it. Many feltthey 75 8 were too -old to come back to school. But Drawing on- what it learned with \Ascent, they found theycould,do the work. TV's Miami-Dade developed a course togo with been a leader for us." ABC's Roots in January 1979. Executrve Oranges, TV and the Computer. Far to the Vice President Robert McCabe wroteto col- south, on farm fields, urban renewal sites. leges about the unique challenge posedby and an .old Air Force base, the 60,000-stu- Roots: dent Miami-Dade Community College has put together its own "Open College" over . these gripping dramatic presentations a six-year span. Providing courses with TV, should leave millions. of Americans witha radio, phone, and computer iupport, Open desire to learn more. Whata beautiful op- College has counted 19,319 enrollees since portunity to attract students to your course! Winter' 1971. That would seem to spell good Miami-Dade,surviving_well in a land of acceptance anywhere. bravado, believes that Open Collegehhs Like UMA, Open College has felt anum- been a success. To support that, Dean Kelly ber sag over the past two years. The Fall cites these figures: 1975 total was 2,219; then, in Fall 1976.it *--skidded to 1,495. The College's Dean for 1.It costs Miami-Dade $1,400per full- time equivalent student, while. Administration, and Open College, Dr.J. Terence Kelly, pointed to several caeqes for 2. A TV course can be offered "ata cost the, decline--a rise in college tuition, tighter of around $1,100 per FTF student." veterans-benefits regulations, elimination of a 100 per cent fee. waiver for teachers in As for faculty productivity, hereports- that the local schools. But by Winter 1977, there one full-time teacli\er "produces" 400 credits were signh of new vitality. In the second per term. In the open-learning program, one semester of 1996-79, 2,675 signed up for person doubles thaf.output, with 800 credits 12 Open College courses, a "substantial" in- a term. crease over the same semester the year be- Apart from -eteintienics, what makei-Open fore, at-:-.1'ng to Dr. Kelly. Colleae "so K Equii,I with broadcast-worthy TV gear, words,isthe "RSVP" component. RSVP staffed tit good part by commercial TVes- stands for Response System with Variable capees from the cold north, Miami-Dade Prescriptions. In a sentence, it is a "faculty- has been quite able to do itsown produc- computer partnership directed toward indi- tion thing. Man and Environment came first; vidualizing instruction while managingup 5,628 students have taken it- at the college. to5,000 students in any single course, Since then, Open College has adapted other whether the course is presentedon campus, materials or brought in acquisitions. It has as independent study, or in a remote:set- offered. Ascent six times (four times by ting." RSVP was started in 1972. As of De- open-circuit broadcast, twice by cassette cember 1976, the collegewas ready to sell its software to others. for independent -study purposes), drawinga total of 2,742 'registrants. Quite simply, RSVP reacts to information For all TV-based coursessuch as Classic it gets from a student by "giving himpre- Theatre, Ornamental Horticulture, Writing scriptions for the questions he missed and For A Reason, Introduction to Psychology, commendations forthose answered cor- and Cultural Anthropologydeveloped by rectly." Term afterterm, students have other institutions, Open College has warked given "the highest rating" to this Open Col- up support services(radio, phone inter- lege component, according to Dean Kelly action, computer). These extras, said Dean and Research Associate 'Dr. Kamala Anan- Kelly, help "learners at a dista ce" feel less darn. Does itaffect performance? Miami- lonesome, more motivated. Dade researched that for -Fall 1975: The manufacturing side of Open College Among RSVP participants (67 per cent falls into Frank Bouwsma's domain. There, the whole) : a producer might build a whole course. Or, Dropout rate was 11 per cent; as with America; staff might make a cur- For grades, 20 per cent received A's, riculum "allied unit by unit with the video- 28 per _centgotB's, 18 per cent had tape episodes... (America will be ready C's, seven per cent were at the D level, for use, as will a similar adaptation of anc1,12 per cent had an F or an incom- Civilisation, in January 1978.) __ plete. 2. Among those who did not takepart believes that utilization in adult educa- in RSVP support (33 per cent): tion -is teetering on the brink ofemer- Some 46 per cent dropped nut: gence or abandonment as a teaching/ In the grading, the lust looked like this: learning system of considerable irnpor- A's, one per cent; 13's,four per cent: tence." Writing in Adult Leadership for C. six per cent; D's, threeper cent; December 1976, he added thatsome F's, six per cent; incompletes, sevenper pel.son-to-person contactis crucial to cent: student involvement, retention, perse- For the rest-71 Her centthey missed verance, and achievement. one or more Exams, failed to request 3. How will the adult pay for his learn- incompleta, and wound up with an F. ing? 9..an Kelly has 1:`lied RSVP "the single Dr. Lord of NIE has cited an American most useful component of allthe compo- Council on Education report that "part, nents in the opQn learning system, includ- time students on the whole aremas- ingtheactualtelevision programs." The sively discriminated against in federal moral? Fligh-class TV roftymotivate, but and state student and institutional aid the evidence seems to callfor other in- programs . " gredients in a total learning package. By 4. Who knows what is the best vuayto now, Miami-Dade has playeditsRSVP educate an adult? games carefully enough to give firm validation to that kind of statement. Exploring this, Dr. Lord recognized that " here is no one particular alternative Except for needing accessto nuncom- merc.ial air waves and promotional to the in-school, face-to-face process support, that works for most people." However, Open College has grown up asprogeny of Miami-Dade. In many other cities, the public "something works for everybody, but we don't often trouble to and out what TV nutlet 'has been the lead horsein tele- it is." Yet, wrote Dr. Lord,the variety visedpost-secondaryeducation.As Dr. of available methodologies isbreath- figures declare, there's enough to do taking." in past- secondary education for both public TV and colleges alikeworking separately, Recognizing all the problems,one point or. one would hope. together. 9f cven greater magnituderemains: the needs among adults for post-secondaryedu- Problems Still Persist cation are immense. In the October 1976 For its part, public TV over theyears has Change, Walter F. Mondale, thenn Vice- offered innumerable learningmoments and Presidential candidate, asserted that sequences for adults. However, it has not built up enough escape velocity to leave We mustnow return to the job of prril _ding behind these problems: greater access to learning for all Americans, regardless of .age or social and econoiiic 1. There is only No much air time dis- position. y. imsab;e for adult'learners. Could cassettes help with the jobs at hand? Slioimld PTV We have obviously not finished this task agencies gear up further for ever more. when.. one in five persons cannot add flexi101ity, based on a rigorous!' assessment well enough to understanda help-wanted of-..a target audience's needs and unique ad, one in three cannot figureout how to traits? read a newspaper grocery ad, andone in six cannot perform the most basic of writing a. PSE needs utilization fully as muchas skills. And there remain untold millions, ITVmayblit more so: often in mid-career, nearing retirement,or George W. Eyster, Extcative Director past retirement age, for whom learningis as of the Appalachian Adult Education crucial a need as for those ftraditional Center at Morehead State Univerrity, college age.

77 a

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ft Educ ation Through Rodi AStatus .Report Every Saturday and Sunday morningI awake with woncicr and expectancy for your fine broadcasts which bringme knowledge through listening. A listener to National Public radio'sOptions in Educotion. I like these radio programs betterthan T.V. The children listen :enter end form their own ,ictiuresin their mind. I really like radio! 1- Primary scho,-: te4cher, Greenwood,S. C., about the new in- stfuctianal con;0i Cv!o.e in that state. l'he "Higher &location Applicationsof Radio" project proves to us that the way in higher education'is by radio,not by television. Every time we breathe in higher-educationtelevision, we lose a fortune! ill,Director,VirginiaPublic Telecommunications Camel!, et :_,her 1976. Forty-nine stations (26per cent) have not provided educational services in '75-76 . but indicate they will either independently pihrt or will, be coem.e.agedto begin or expand a service if (No- tonl -Kibbe Radio) providesprograms and print materials intended for local development ofeducational activities.... National Public Radio's Educational/InstructionalVOTAB sue vey of 189 public radio stations, Summer 1976.

hen it comes to vying fora trend that hap begun to take shape else- student'sattention,chances where in public ,radio,a move toward a arethatinstructionalradio broader c-oectrum of services. knows better than other media Inniatherseemingtrend,subcarrier whit the word "competition"means. For transmission and the use of audiocassettes one ling, stations offering this service have for aural instruction gave evidenceover the been at it for many years, ina, part of the past two years Of being on the increase. In broadcasting industry that facesits60th her article, Dr Elizabeth L. Young, Director birtoday only .two years from now. Some, in of The Ohio:=;'-.atoUniversity's Telecorn- fad, have been doing good works fora very munications Center, exploressome of these long time indeod. alternatives. In early 19: 7, .'his 'lee of noncommercial Coupled with them has beenan intensi- radio for instruction and less formal editca- Eed use of instructional designtecbr'ques tion received a potentially important boost: to improve the product. National Public Radio began to 'consider In at least one st34,eSouth Carolina what its role in education might be. The instructional radio I As taken 'a nt step problems facing NPR as it ponderedmany forward since 1974,our 100,000-w At stereo options ranged far and wide. Nevertheless,stations began broaricaSting classzoomma- it decided to scp.;,___e cif against alternatives terials there in February 1976. By thatspring, through an intensive educational stuays the Educational Ika-lio Networkwas meas.:, theh were other hints oftaring its audience in the thousands. change. The Office of Newark ',N.J.) Studies All in all the climate for instructional moved closer to conve.ting that city's 28- year-old school station to a full-service pub- A study on the use of subcarrier transmission and audiocassettes by Newark Schools will lic radio outlet! This was consistent witha be available in the Winter of 1978. 61 ra have moderated a bit. The first year, they had to have at leastone full- n changes give advocates an obliga- time and four half-timeemploy_ees. Some tion to look more closely at what their role 93 met that test, and therefore receiveda should be in the future, gra n tof $7,500 apiece. Part of the Scenery fly 1976. Thodlified- stations had to have atleastfivefull-timestaff members, and For years, radio has been ing,ra'r..;s1 in the broadcastit minimum of 18 hours a day, American way of life.- We bwn U-Irr,.e than 305 days a year. At the end of 1976, 175 half the radios in the woilfl Airncst 99 per publicradio cent of our homes were radio-equipped in stations had reachedthese goals,earningabas'..:grantofatleast 197c-,;the typical household had at least $22,890 each from CPB. The average run- fivesets. As an average, adults lister to time staff had grown to 13, and theaverage radio three hours and 20 minutes a day; budget had passed $165,000. The roster of eight out of ten tune in to radio atsome point mcommorcial stations had swelled, ton every day. from in 1969 to more than BOO in early Narrowing the focus to public radio,it 1977. has undergone real growth during the sev- The results of this growth and change erities. In 1969, only 47 per cell,. of the na- have become highly visible in Minnesota. tion was being reached by public radio. There, Minnesota,Public Radio (MPR),a net- Eighty of the 457 noncommercial radio sta- work I9f stations reaching nine-tenths tions then operating had'a permanent staff of toe populac-, has come to he something of at least three. The average budget was of ashim,. 'for noncommerc4-1 broad- below $10.000 annually. Mire thin hair the stations were ten casting. Budgeted at $1.9 million a 7ear, the - wafters. In other words, network tram,,.t;; 163 how s of programming the service, as earnest as it may have been, a week. was not widely edible. of those hours ---- exploreth. ,rto-inn arts; the balance, Operating unde,r its legislative mandate, news an? -,. Used as a national CPS came forward in 1970 to juin with the producti in uoider for .'.mama, the Network stations in atrengthening the noncommercial m -noe-_.ration with alp University of Wis- radio community. Certain criteria were Set consinproduces' EAF1PLAY. This major down; licensees would have to meet them project ..reates contemporary radio dramas, to qualify for CPB dollar support. In that . sustained by handsome budget wirr- kw= looliMmo ''

'Teachers in South Carolina find instructional radioa valuable teaching tool. Shown above, a graup of pnpiis at Spartanburg, S.C:'Clifton ElementarySchool isten to one of the 'educational radio programs. 82 Et For FY 1978). In another important activity, tended to "begin anew service or in- the Minnesota system's Radio TalkingBook crease the present service." Network turns out 19 hotirsa week of readings for the visually handicapped.using the c) A sizeable .egment (128 stations)re- network stations' subchannelas the means plied that they would be "likrAy to Use of delivery. NPR Educational Services." Public Radio and Education d) Of those 128, 104 would havea "de- Noncommercial radio has beena. work in pendence" on NPR for these services. American classrooms for decades. justhow e) Indicative of the impact such NPR much, though, has beena real question. A service might have on licensees; Hollo- concerted search for ananswer began in way a' , !,10, at more than a 1976. It grew out of 1 'mber 1975 deci- quartet at made available any sion by NPR's Board z .rectors to study eclucatic,_ awes in 1b75-76. Yet they how the agency migt,i the educa- said they plan on them, or would tional side of itsser- in's. With CPR aid, begin or augment a service, "if NPR NPR made plans for a'-:duceional Services provides progr arts e,rprint materials Study Project, and hued DonHolloway to intended for local development of edu- direct it. cational activities. . Among other steps, Holloway setout to Realistically, the survey was limitLd in conduct aten-question survey.Itsgoalsdimension. Yet its results showed clearly were these: to see boiA much public radiothat e.t least some public radio stations had stations had been doing in educationand a definite interest in instructional services. instruction during 1975-76 and thento learn This response called fora closer investiga- how likely, it was that these licensees,work-tion by NPR of the alternatives available. ing on their own or with NPRsupport, would increase their output of Actually, six-year-old NPR has beensup- an educa-porting educational activity forsome time. tional type over a two-year periodor begin As one instance, it has maintain_d ',hatactivity. With persistence, Holloway an In- structional Programs Service, i.e.,a library got ansv,:ers from all 189 stations 2on his of school-usable series producednot by list. This is part of what they toldhim: NPR :iit elsewh re. The 1970-77 catalog 1. A total of 85 stations (44,percent) itemizes 43 series-20 for the elementary transmitted educational service "for either grades, six for high schooluse, and the bal- K-12, post-secondary formalor post-sec- ance for the grades in between. Nine stetions ondary informal education." and the Wicconsir. Educational Communica- 2.Of the 189, 44 (23 per cent) performed tions Board had developed the prograynning. services for the K-12 spectrum. Leading the list with 11 series: WNYE, New 3. York; RBPS, Portland, Oregon; andKUOM, Thirty (18 pr:-: cent) both producedz-,.d Minneapolis-St. Paul, each turned out eight aired program n; for post-secondary-educa- of the program nnekages. tion credit. A Spectrum -;e, icr, 4.Alrnosthree rrit of ten offered pro- In some place- i 18: public radio played grams for adult informal education. the role of . :t wainstructing 5.As for possible expansions of educe- grade-school 8.. . of Oregon and South tic.,nal activities, these weresome of the Carolina. clt wa-- serving doctors, dentists, nurses, end paraprofessionals in half a dozen northeastern states. It was bringing .college- a) Some 61 stations hadno plan to be: credit sources to adults in Indiar-1,Ne- gin a new ' ducational serviceor !Aster hrnsk:i, and other midwestern wha, they were doing. states. Demons.1i;ng public radio's be b) A largergroup -71st,- ions satility, ;A (Subsidiary Communications Atithuzizatirin) and andiocasse.ttes continued Defining terms, the project :irector noted in to his summary that a decisiohad been made ''to ke r.n assigned educational duties,as treat each transmitter and its potential audience offshootsofopen-aircuit,man-channel as an independent entity for a total of 189 sta- delivery. Cassettes became partnersto TV tions Hence, "station" here egum. "trans- and texts in bringing creditcourses to adults mitter." at home. As a reciprocal, slides and film emhellished audio in conlinnirm education. tardy brought radios from home." In time, These were a few of the activities that matching funds were generatedtohelp drew on these many means during recent schools buy fix-tuned receivers.(they're less months: tempting, shoeld vandals visit). On the K-12 Scene. The 7 Joklet had the In May 1976, three months after the kick- imprimatur of Smith Carolina's first citizen off, a survey was made to see how many of public education. Dr. CyrilTi.Busher!, were listening. The staff learned that: State Superintendent- of Public Instruction 1.All of 10,502 students were using class made his outlook very clear to teachersre- ceiving the 1976-77 Smith Crinoline litstruc- room radio; teem! RodinResourcescatalog: 2. They were in a total of 998 classes; Itis with profeesionnl pride that the State and nepartrnentof Educationannounces the ad- 3. Totalradioseriesenrollment was ditionof a neW and exciMe medium to 23,938. veer resourceeINSTRUCTION11, RADIO. Beyond these basics, teachers rated all of . Letme urge each of you to utilizethis new instructional the series they had used as "good.to excel- medium. lent." A number wrote to say that while Joined asanet, ek in February 1976, they could not hote,ipment for that first FM statinn:1 in Crere..ille, Charleston, and season, "1976-77 vulrsee radio as an ip,7 Columbia. and a 'r,esreitterinSumter, tegral part of 1.1-,2ir school plan." brought IC-12 series school systems from Gearing up for the 1976-77 academic year, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. the Office of Instructional Television and Pfourth station was to he on the air in Radio produced a 117-page catalog. Here, a 7;t3. 'u others were slated for 1978 and teacher could find a crisp rationale (drawn 1979. Withthis new development. South from he National Educational Radio Task Carolina. a dominant force in ITV for years, Force Report of 1973) for using radio to in- has new drawn the attention of instructional struct: redio i-eveinlists in many places. he work came into being 1.Re:El invrtives the student Ily stimu- tint err Viand of the existent ETV lating imagination, Ni flip academic work= - course ac- Radio helps to teach listening skills; quisee, development, field utilization fell to the Department of Education's Of- 3. brings immediacy into the class- fice of instrectional Television and Radio. room;' Clyde H. Creen,-Director of the office, had 4. Radio mitts newest curriculum brought in Ms. Pat A. Conner in mid-1975 approaches; and to get tIe radio venture launched. Felt' the network's February 1976 debut, Radio permits use of a variety of for- the State Board of Education approved the mats. acquisition of 20 series for the K-12 grades. This followed "widespread" evaluation of Evidently, teachers heard the message. As of May 1977, Pat Conner had in handan the choices by teachers, students, and-others interim report on the useof instructional across the state. But that was only part of radio inthe network's second E.Zademic the work. As Conner recalls, peepie were year. Across the board, there had been a still saying " instructional what?" This de- highly gratifying 152 per cent increase in all manded an awareness drive "that rivaled categories over the year before. This was the London blitz." Press releases, promo the 1976-77 breakdown: spots, cross-plugs with TV, interviews, un- counted speechesthey were all aimed at 1.Sonic 20,287 students had listened to telling school personnel that radio could do radio courses,a93 per -Not increase over a job, too, and that it was about to becorne 1975-76; available. One big deficiency was receivers. Many ' In the September/October 1076 MB, Conner schools, hit her a budget pinch. were "so wrote an absorbing description of the network's beginnings. Her "Letter From South Carolina" highlymotivatedto incorporateradios;" Wad-a very useful.source of some of the infor- Conner remembers, "that teachers volun- -rnatint7 that follows. 2.Radio was used in 2,048 classes, 112 the Curriculum Requirements of the per cent rise; Defined Minimum Program. In other words,after 3.Enrollments had gone up by 106per curricelumweaknesseshadbeenpin- . cent to 49,419; point the Office of Instructional Tele- 4.Schools using radiothey numbered vision and Radio suggested specificseries 92 in the first yearclimbed to 232; and to help meet those needs. 5,Where schools had 153 radios the first In only a matter of months, Conner and year, they owned 609 in 1976-77, a 300 her associates have put some real substance per cent jump. behind their effort to prove that radio isnot only alive and kicking; it'sa mover and At the start, the network had had to de- shaker in South Carolina. Some proof pend on outs ide course materials, such is as already in hand in the form of lettersfrom Makers of the American Revolution,pro= teachers. In March 1977, elernentar school deceit l'v WNYE-FM, New York. The Office teacher Jan Hartz of Brunson, S.C., wrote of ITV and Radio saw, however, thatit this endorser.' rat: could not depend wholly on suppliers elsewhere. South Carolina would have to have My classes have really begun to listencare- its own series "to meet local needs." By the fully. The programs are presented in sucha Summer 0:1976, that process was underway. lively, humorous, and interesUng sty]'r;-1-rt Thi(first homegrown series dealt withvo- they wont tolisten. The programming is cabulary skills for middle-school grades. varied and versatile so that itcovers %any To attack this task, Conner formeda pro- grades, subjects, and interests. The students duction team: a producer /director,a writer, want to know every day if we will be lis- and herself as executive producer. After tening to the radio. Some have asked for the brainstorming, draft scripts wen'to reading station col! cumber so that theycan listen committers of teachers and stucldnts. Why at home. the latter?"It would be foolhardy,"ex- Many Signals for Young Minds --,,Llined Conner, "not to maintain=tact More and more, flexibility is the password. with the ultimateconsumer of a product." Purdue University's work with the Gary Following rewrites, the scriptswere routed high schools explains the point. to subfect--area consultants, and then into production. Next came classroom To give fast-track seniorsa le, up toward testing college, Purdue has sent them, nine taped each program before releasing thepaAage for distribution. This, in its radio courses, along with tw,ion videocas- very first pro- settes. They crin 7 d .:AayeKback at teacher duction,the new network staked outa commitment to the latest design techniques. convenience. A phone opttan helps students interact with instructors at Purdue. As Stimulating schools and teachers touse a radio called for no less "sales" device, the university has alsopro. an intensive push. vided a special videocassette. On To aid the network in utilization,a six-mem- it, teech- ber team of consultants has been ers of the audio courses explain what they put to cover in the sound rJeries. ieork. Writer Conner: "Theypreview programs, recommend strategies jar individual- izing radio resources, andserve as facilita- :ors in areas of technical concerns." She has found their presentations "essentialin integrating instructional redid' into the educational mainstream of South Carolina." Meanwhile, a utilization filmwas in the works early in 1977. It was being designed to shoW students rpacting to 'radiocourses. Once the film has been finisher;, Conner will have it presented over the state's eightETV stations and close:'- circuit system. Sr:'vide use of radio has hadan added lift !Ire September 197: publication of a hr. titled Guide for ;sting Instruc- Pat Conner ftl conducting one the in- service radio r.10;10rS for. tecchein South tional Teievision cr.-19-ad. Resources to Carolina. Then there is the programming generated winner in October 1970, covered pos- so perstsumtly by KBPS, Portland, Oregon. sibly problems with using credit cards, This is onof 10 school stations on the air and such experiences as dealing with in Winter 1977, ot these, ten have used door-to-door salespersons. their maiiichannel to air classroom instruc- Whatcha See Is Whatcha Cotwon tion. the first CPB children's program award For its pnrt, KBPS is licensed to the Port- in -1075, Using a tongue-in-cheek style, land Public Schools and is based at Benson itdealtwith consumer advertising, Polytechnic School. A 1,000-watt AM, it niit4 other subjects suchas supply and operate.; 18 hours a day, seven Ilays a week. demand =ii the oil business. Its weekday marketplace is 125 schools. In recent years,the student population has 3.Foi..ithernatics materials: slipped froni 80,000 to 60.000, with families Meth 'N Bock featured a local NBC moving to outlying areas, Another deyelnp- disc jockey,current rock hits,and ment has been dececirdizatiol.. Thi-s has tough math problems. Listeners were meant the loss 'of various central curriculum to work on the math as the ruck heat supervisors; many teachers have turned to pulsed. KBE'S as a source or expertise in theseareas. 4.Fm' values clarification: Station Ntans:.!,Patricia L. Swenson is To explain this tricky subjectto accustomed to this kind of challenge. At the children in grades three to five, KBPS outs.', she knows what the boundaries am came up with Who Cares? A planning An audio resource, if it isII:, undergird your team(aprofessionalinvaluing,a curriculum, has got to fillrteacher need. writer, and three teacher /consultants) It has to he something tl :C'can't get in ary made this one of the station's "most other way or os quickly, Otherwise, whyuse expensive" series. Oven-ended zillem- radio,' !:rat things we have done have alas in dramatized form set forth the issues. (KBPS won a 1975 Ohio State ',-shave an expressed n- a push in an area award for this project.) c., akness. 5. "a make up for the loss ofsubject- cad c reati ely, Pat Swenson draws area supervisor: on her own e.:perience, as well as die tal- Inart,the station came up with ents of two s :aff members. One "does all Arnie's Art Shop. Children were asked the creative Lama with children, and is the to look around and see the sizes and shapes of classmate's heads. Or Arnie utilization s.,eciast, too," The other isa producer, -. "technical perfectionist," would paint a person, and listsming ac- pupils would, too. Every school had cording to Dr. Swenson. The stationmay an call in a freelance writerperhapsa teacher Arnie's Art Gallery. Teachers were so (KBPS has money to cover release time). pleased with the series that KBPS did another 1>.: units. Then, there is "no end of acting talent"in the Portland schoolsar,d community at In music, Catch a Sound also was large. the response to loss of a supervisor. Mr. Note, who lives in a sound shop, Faced With 'leachers' needs, KBPS has is addicted to electronic music. At- produced these series (among others)over the past several years: ted by the sounds of a Moogsyn- thesizer, Melody and Clef come to the 1.For career education: shop and are invited in for some In Who's Behind It? the program be- musical experiences. gan with a producta bottle of pop, or KBPS also has a commitment to children's a pizzaand then fanned ant to dis- drama. Two mornings a week; the studio cover wh a made it, and how it was is done. assigned to live productions involving children. and afternoons often find other For a higher grade lovpl, This Could stu Be You sent two high school students dent dramas being produced Dr. Swenson is delighted with KBPS's creativeabilities. to inter.. JW people at work. She only wishes die had "an equal amount 2.For consumer education: of money for classroom utilization Wise Choices, a "Best of WESTT" ;st." Her conviction, probably gratifying to 86 field . . tive'sears,isthat a Who were these individuals? Three-quar- person isto be coveted at the ters of the credit-seekers turned as a Erie writer/producer. onto be full-time P_.rdue students. Therest were Radio-Delivered College Credit off -campits learners. Many of thelatter "Dear Listener," the letter began. "If this is (boated, according to Forsythe,that "ra' the first time you hive thought about taking provides the only means for themto con- a university course by radio, you rr,'ht be tinue their eau,cation." surprisedto learn that Purdue leads the Until recently, Forsythe pickedup courses nation in this type of instruction." virtually as they were presentedin lecture Then. Richard a Forsythe, Director o'; halls. Now, stemming froma reorganiza- Purdue's Office of Instructional Materials tion within Purdue, he can apj135 designpro- Development, ,,vent on to explain that the cedures. Reflecting th.-t. he concentratedin university's AM station, WIMA, 5,000 watts the Fall of 1976 onpr" acing one course strong and 55 years old, was "broadcasting for 1977Personal Finance. Inthe previous more courses to more people than any other year, they might have had four in the works at once. radio station in the United States. ." It has been immersed in that type of program- It will take a year to finish Personal Fi- ming since Fall 1969. nance, Thiv is not hard to believe,as you In Fall 1976, listeners to the West Lafay- look at the ten "Procedures" that Forsythe's ette. Indiana station could have signedup office calls for: for ,our credit coursesWomen and the Sci- 1.Draft content outline and behavioral ences. Human Development. American Hu- objectives. mor, and Introductory Sociology. The first 2.Project team review, carried one credit: the others, three each. Registration was just S5 acourse [along 3.Revision. with a $25 examination fee forpart-time 4. Advisory council review. students), and there was no penalty for fail-. 5.Revision. ure. Going back to Spring 1974, Purdueso. t- - Script program and manual material. marized this use patternover a two-y, 7.Record actualities and get releases. reriod of WBAA course broadcasts: 8. Produce program. 1. Some 38 (.nurses were offered over the 9.Evaluate program and manual material. span of six semesters. There were repeats: Personal finance ran three times, then, 10.Revision. after revision, twice more, Forsythe projected that the36-program, three-credit course would be 2.In that period, Purdue took 1,654or- available for ders for course manuals131/2 per course. use in the fall of 1977. From hisdescrip- tion, it will be "a farcry from going into a '3. Some 1,121 took the tests, thatis, PB classroom and miking the professor," per cent of those ordering manuals. Of What lies ahead for college-creditradio, them, 771 passed, or just over 68per cent Purdue Ptyle? Dick .Forsythesees: of those who tried. . much mor,,, iostrubtional design,much 4.L nve of the 38 courses, all of those higher quality, much better developedma- who took the test passed. terials.I see us establishingpew and dif- 5. The course with the bestresponse: ferent criteria forour radio courses. Now Marriage and FLimily lielationships.Some we hove many other deli; cry options:tele- 97 ordered t.)6took the exam, vision, film, print, our IndependentStudy and 59 passed. Next in linewas Human Center, and various audio-tutorialformats. Development. We'll look at radio deliveryas something unique. We don't have rely on it V. Going back to 1969, Forsythe's figures the total job any more: We'll lookfor show that by June 1976, 33 different courses courses that seem to do best by audiotl,:at, had been offered ove- radio. A totalof 9,523 ment. We'll do fewer Ctirtgs, butwe' -ego bad registered. Of ,;,em, 2,691 tookthe tests ing to be increasing the 61011. rod the and earned creditor 28.2per cent. spent. 87 Virginia's HEAR Project. 2. There should be more ontact with col- From the sound of it, the old ad hoc daysin lege representatives. instruction by radio are over. Or at least they seem waning, if the design efforts at Purdue, 3. Given more time, the stations could South Carolina, and KBPS represent what is have found the right contact at each col- going on elsewhere. From the HEAR (Higher lege. "In many cases those appointed... Education Applications of Radio)project did not lave the time or interest required. account, one would have to say that they 4. One year for the project was not long have accepted the forecast in Virginia,too. enough. "Schools had to be introduced to In September 1975, the Virginia Public the capabilities of radio beforeany pro- Telecommunications Council (VPTC) issued gramming decisions could be made. Four- a final report on HEAR. This undertaking, year colleges need several years lead time VPTC concluded, "opened doors" between to introduce pew curriculum suchas a higher education and public radio inthe radio credit course." state, and was, in brief, "highly successful." 5. Planned as a year's exercise costingVPTC In the future, money should be budg- $62,055, I[EAR was to "experiment withand eted for faculty workingon a series. In develop continuinguses of radio broadcast- HEAR, instructors often volunteered their ing (and related audio forms). by whichstate- time because they were interested. supported institutions of higher education could more efficientlyfulfill their various There were counterbalancing advantages. 'off campus' instructional, informationand Perhaps more than anything else, HEAR culturalmissions." The contractees were made institutions aware"inmany cases four publicradio stations (WRFK, Rich- for the first time"of local public radio. WTGM, Norfolk; WVWR, Roanoke: These stations could perform servicesfor and MIRA, Harrisonburg). From, eachone higher ...:ucation, and at "minimum"per- the councit, proposed to buy (1) airtime, (2) studeni costs,' These other positive points studio production andprogram assembly were singled out: ,,me, and (3) the services ofa "producer/ for at least 80 per cent of histime. 1. The radio courses had led to larger Work began in July 1975. State;supported enrollments at several colleges. Asa re- colleges and universities in theareas cov- sult,they were leaningtoward more d by each of the stations were invitedto broadcast efforts. staui a delegate to a HEAR committee.As it 2.Stations found that HEAR had opened worked out, 30 of the 39 institutionsdid up "an area of activity and income" un- somethingproduced programs,provided tapped before, speakers, developed public service materials, andior used the series turnedout under the 3.Professorsgotsatisfactionindeed \R mantle. "greater recognition"from workingon a Cooperation varied. In the Tidewatersec- course. titan,only oneinstitutionjoinedin the 4. The projeet had led stations to course-making process. In as- contrast, both semble" "diverseprogramming" .which Richm,,nd and Roanoke committees agreed they would not have otherwise done. develop cooperative programs. Asone ,stance, four Richmond-area ,;alleges joined in ding Virginia and the American Revo- At the VPTC, the staff concluded thatfor lution. Each mike,- cnuk,use the series as slightly more than $62,000, Virginia hadre- it thought :test; usually, itwas the nucleus ceived quite a bargain. Thedollars had forafullcourse.Inill;se. an college bot"ht a greater variety Ofprograms, more courses came out of station-c1:21ege efforts interest in using radio for collegecourse, 11:..-kR. and a better exchange betweenstations and As the project wound down, sfatonper higher eduration. The auriclesformer sortnel laid out their cemmenta. the recto. George Ht ll,4 summarized theunder- lessons lea rnz.,1: 1. For sirnti..r orojectz, Hail now is President kr West Lena staff-al:Taber war. . ALOIS EducationalTcleconnrimication taking in an almost rhapsodic vein: inradio conferences. That compared We're hist delighted! That AmericanRevd. ,514 the year fore. Minn cierrQe tvos superb! We ht. Hinine 2. Doctors ratedti wnferdnces on a Molt biggest nomes in Amuricon one-to-four scale, 1,I' Elkton four high. Over titsfirm.o.orns were diverting, end two years, these w it judgments: tact ittivi The materials are nosyen on r :.-!:isolte in n number of school-, 1W'4-75 1975-76 a) New inforatm,on ,i. 3.01 and will be used for years, We couldn't received du:itu this happier! conference Messages for the Professional b) Value of ihe Y. 2,97 Itt.voulo remarkable to find someone in motion in praf,' public radio not familiar with WAMC'scon- c) Rating of the tinuing education broadcastsover ita sub- }atesentation 3.22 3.14 carrier. This FM of Albany Medical College, Albany, New York, reaches the nurses' conferences, attendance many miles 75-76 was 5,354. The previousyear, from its mountaintop' transmitter inMassa- as 6,587. chusetts. `I fact, they say this vantagegives the station "the second highestbroadcast 4. Among dentists,attendancedipped coverage" of any FM in the northeast. from a total of 766 in 1974.75to 595 in Another asset of the station: its gregari- 1975-70. ous manager, Albert P. Fredette. He has been 5,Dietitians declined, toofrom 1,117to on the scene since WAMC began broadcasts 930. Physical therapists showedan infor doctors in 1955. crease over the two years. WAMC reached For its interactive SCA transmissions to 469 in 1974-75 and 503 the followingyear. health professionals, WAMC by late1976 had linked 68 hospitals and nursinghomes Commenting on these figures, Freclette said in six northeastern states. Alongwith serv- that "the general drop in attendanceis due totl- ing doctors, the station was feedingout fact that a for line intercon- it ;Emotion through two-way radioconfer- nect' .1 expired and refore fewer hos- ences for six other groups (nurses, dentists, pite.,z,.a' "side of out"roadcast coverage physical therapists,radiologists, technolo- area t able to participate .tn the systemat gists, dietitians, and medical technologists). present, :,spospd to 1974-75." This outputis no casualmatter.All This WAMC service hasmet a need for WAMC's conferences have been okayedby but it does not pay for itself.In fact, an accrediting agencythe American Medi- Hon only receiveabout half ofits cal Association. and the statenursing asso- erence costs from practitioners. So it ciation. By listening, the health specialist as to knock on doors to raise the balance can earn real-time credit, right at his or her at foundations, pharmaceutical companies, hospital, The only element missing,says and other sources. "We try hardto keep the Fredette, is the "visual confrontation,and costs down," notes Fredette. "Intrying to as you and I know, that isn't essential." motivate physicians, costcan be a deterrent Actually, WAMC works in visuals,any- to their .participation." way. Oftentimes, slidesare used at each In the Fall of 1970, the Alban.,station was receiving location toaccompany the radio making a plan for the future. Itwas looking lecture. The listening M.D.'scan ask ques- "at those disciplines whichcan initially pay tions; there is printed matteras well. their own way"---banking andthe law. WAMC has become quite thoroughin tak- too, Fredette sees the station's using ing attendance, "We knowevery person A experience to feed creditcourses who's attended one ofour two-way con- a higher-education consortium. The fa- ferences," says Fredette. Every timeat r hazards of inter-iistitutionalcoopera- dividual ,shows up. he completesa being worked on during 1977 bya which includes an evaluation.As a rer.itt, task farce from 15 colleges anduniversities WAMC was abletoreportthatduring in the Albany area. 1975-76: Whether this new service materializesor not, WAMC's years of duty for healthpro- 1. Some 7,513 physicians and others took fessionals(anditssignificant broadcast schedule for the t:ct",'inly legitimize ink in l'ebrnu,1977, you could have the bold s:o ei0,1 on a billboard part of Cass Canlield's Sam Adonis' Revolu- beside the highway: tion, Two hours later, you would have been "Nei to Kill Time But to 1.;;riTiCh listening to The Vicar of 1-thefield. To the Messages for the Blind ginative and curious mind, these ex- week-nights inearly 1977 on SCA, the cursitns into American History and English .zadio Talking Book service in Minnesota Literature might have more than ,overcome had a timely offering for the 3.000 visually in themselves the lack of an instructional handicapped in its audience. Each evening, context. Neil Duffy read frmn Alex Haley's Boots. The, flailTalking Pooh -teaches" inan This put the listeners into closer touch with other way, as well. Through discussions what 80 million Americans hadseen on and interviews,itpresentsthe blind ref ABC-TV. habilitation altitudes, informat;on, and even Like WAMC's conferences, this seine skills. There might be facts about for the people of Minnesota and. South Da- community resources or job requir6ent4. kota has been around for a while. Minne, Through these means, th,t ilehvock tries to sota was the first state to start a reading -stimulate the imagination of the listener ro network (in 1960) on the FM stations' sub- ane ploralion and anticipation of hisown carrier, it joins Minnesota Public Radio and unrealized possibilities." flow does this dif- mesota State Services for the Blind and ferI tom education in thr, Visually Handicapped. The SCA transmis- Minnesota Public Radio, the conveyor of sions use the network's facilities for almost the Radio Talking Book programs, has made 20 hours a day. its mark tiroadcasting news. and Strictly speaking, is this education? That other cultural events. -Ire 4=ts-usc., f.:f :he sub- depends on your interpretation. On -a morn- channel for the blind, it has al-.o i wn in

John M w and Barbara Reinhardt, the new co-hosts of Education. the popular weekly sr es that was carried! by 82 per cent of NPR station in 7 90' an exemplary way that public i. d ocan be These were a few of the firi'dius: versatile. 6 1. The audience was youngish--55 Another Option per John Merrow cent under 41, with a median of 35.' (Producer, Options in Education): 2. They were split evenly between males Why shouldn't the schools just teachrend- and females, with 64per cent earning ing, writing and arithmetic, andstay out of under $20,000 a year, the rest? 3, They were well-educated: 79per cent John Ryor (President, National ducatioi had a college degree,or more. One-third Association): (34 per cent) had been in graduate study The concept o f reading, writingand arith- be';ond the Master's level. metic as the'sole function of schools is 4. Almost six of ten were in education. something that really hasn't existedsince One third taught. the forties. The fact of thematter is our society has changed. Whatwas adequate in 5. Asked to name the major problem an agrarian function 41 theone-room school education, they concurred that the house...1 think simply does notmeet the gest were: (1) lack of financial support, needs of an educated decision maker ini to- (2) poor curricula, and (3) parenal lack day's society. oynteres

This was a typical exchange' ina public 6. They were very loYal fans. Some56 radio series quite uniquP in national broad- per cent listened at least every two weeks. casting: a weekly_, hour-lo Re_as_s_essment_of than average._Only oneper cent said i education in America. This series, Options was worse than average. in Education, was being carried during the 7. Was Options in 1976-77 eason by 82 per cent of NPR qta- Education useful? tions. Thankrfo a grant renewal from the One-half (52 per cent) said theprograms were helpful in their teaching or profes- National lostitute of Education, thitpro- grams were going to reach listeners ,ihekly sional development; 80per cent said they throughout 1977. discussed the topics with others; and39 per cent had read more about the issues To the purist, Options in Education might taken un by the broadcasts. not be instructional; no sequential education here, with grades or creditas the ;brass 6. At least one distinct problem(for ring. But these programs do offer sequpntial NPR]: 71 per cent said they had found the illuminations, for sure. How better fora series by spinning their radio dial. Con- teacher to learn regularly about problem ceded au NPR staff member: "Ourpro- and solution in his or her profession(than otion efforts can be improved.' by listening to a professionally produced lirequently,Optionsin Options in Education? Isn't this whatcon- f Education has tinuing education is all about? treated top_ ies in clusters, On February26, To generate this series, NPR and the In- 1977, the show was the second oftwo on community and junior colleges. At another stitute for Educational Leadership at The time, there was a five-part subseries George Washington University have j ined on gifted children, Teacher Joy Copp of together.It began in lune 1974 as bi- Carol weekly.In November 1975it was icon- Stream, Illinois, was emphatic aboutthe verted to a weekly. By June 1976 itl had value of this group; attracted 3,500 letters, less thana dozen of The gifted series is terrific) 1am a school them critical. And more than 6,270tran- teacher struggling every day ,tomeet. the scripts had lieen distributedas of July 1, needs of 28 studentsinscience with I.Q.s 1976. (NPR makes them availableat post.) ranging from 78 to 147. I foundyour broad., With help from NIE and funds from the cast extremely enlightening. Carnegie Corporation of New York;, the ,With Options in Education, NPRis work- project staff designed a survey in 1976 to ing for an audience justas much in Aped of learn more about their listeners. A-ques- updating as doctors. It tionnaire was sent to 6,000 individuals. In is doing this for about $3,535 a week (exclusive ofNPR's time, NPR got 1,574 returns (33per cent). ; in-kind services, research, andpromotion -.._ funds se). And, of significanc=e, the but five ingredients to teach (text, study information the programs is directly use- guide, TV, newspaper features, and audio Teacher David t- feikinen of Hought,on, tapes). i'llrough an assessment, UMA gained Michigan^rote in to applaud the series: some valuable insights about the relation- motive show about jobs and ships of these media: schooling. ITun to discuss this topic inmy 1.Students in that course's second Junior Ili t i°tiool Social Studies classes. (Spring 1975) said that an theaverage they had not seen six of the 15 TV units. Log for Tttnrirrow Scheduling problems or other factors had For some tithe now, the educational facet gotten in their way. Further the students of public eatlio has been undergoing meta- had "moderately negative" views about morphosis.. The substance has unproved; the TV programs. They wanted greater it9v markets have opened up; changes have seriousness, more content. occ.arred in form, too. It is all pOrt cd public 2. As for Accounting's_ audio tapes, al- radio's effort to broaden service on all sides, most ail enrollees said they listened to all an effort that finds some of ilts men and of they women moving quickly to harness alterna- They were rated "highly in importance .nd general helpfulness. .." tive ways of delivering educaltion through Stu dents were "enthusiastic" about the helping aspect of these components. Their In the area cat substance, one need only negative reactions had to do with "enter- listen to a Paw practitioners to realize how much the progrron materialsare changing tainment" elements. As with the TV, the Pat Conner learners didn't care for non-instructional South Carolina citing the 'ap.:es in the audio. a middle- school series on vocabulary Dick Forsythe on Pur a.In IJMA's summary, "the text, stud-: clue'a-systern4lic, year-long preparation ofa guide and problem presentation portions credit course, ~Pat Swenson of Oregonlist- of the audio tap's were well received and ins the extra. help t--waht in to makea highly rated" for this course. values-clarification sent meaningfulfor The nub of this is that media- oriented primary- school pupils. educators indifferent places now seem Then, a rte* mix ofubstance and form ready to accept a paekage approach. Along has become more and more evident. It has with audio components, there could bea involved the use of alternativemeans in text, study guide, TV programs,- learning- instruction-bysound, that is rne.rods other center work. self-tests, mail-in written exer- thanopen-circuit, main channel transmis- cises, two-way interaction by phone, and sion. Illustrating the point, there is the plan computerized letters. There isno longer an being worked out by ).VAMC's Al FredetteTinsistence on a one-and-only method. for healtr: professionals: Just as substance is changing in public develop individual packages radio's educational activity,so are some of 'tars would pay for on an in- the forms. As an outgrowth of its 1976-77 fra worded huy the cassettes, Educational Services Study Project, NPR is recd.,r, and a Eeductian sifting through the choices it has for widen- iii otitioa, perraulorty in tcocningprograms ing its work in education. in-atitlYttirtorrimirnitiesr'Phe professionals-- NPR'.; broader role might includ.e tie-ins could make a choice of vorioo modesin- to institutions sucE as UMA, Weretharso, person. cassette, yadio,_perhapa even some NPR would have a big part in making audio televisia:. elements. components for UMA courses. Then, activ- y has already taken place with NPR work- For a certainty, this represents the h- ing on Courses by Newspaper in a new olio view. In early 1977, one did not.hear ies by Henry Steele Commager. However, much dogmatism about methods. Therewas NPR has a distance to go before makinga a readiness to pick media best able to do formal assignment of people and dollarsto the task at band, and perhaps even touse educational activity. What might be the several for one assignment. structure of an education office? What sev In its hi-St- COurseT-Accounting_I, the Uni- would- it undertake? What fypes versity of Mid-America (UMA) used not one production-a-and-how-muchwould it do NPR was hoping to have the answers to of cassettes and SCA distribution would these questions and others by Fall 1977.6 mean the greatest possible efficiency and Inevitably, such a change at NPR will be cost-effectiveness,in CPB'sradiooffae's accompanied by differences in opinion. So thinking. toois another shiftinform,- thatis,the Recently, some of the debate on this issue switch of a school-licensed station to the has revolved around WBCO -FM in Newark. broader portfolioof adiversifiedpublic Back in 1975, CPB Radio Activities madea station. This process was underway during planning granttotheOfficeof Newark late 1976 in at least one city_. WBCO-FM, Studies, an agency formed to provide staff licensed to the Newark (N.J.) Board of Edu- anci research assistance to the City of New- cation and inoperation since 1948, was ark and administered by Rutgers-The State being transferred formally to Newark Public University. Under this grant, the Officewas Radio.Inc,The procedure wastobe to study setting up a full-time public radio -rapped up by December 1, 1977, station. (New jersey had no full-service pub Thereisabitof history behindthis lic radio outlet, at the time.) WBGO-FM be- change. Nationally, 6.8 per cent of CPB- came the object of the Office's research. qualifiedstations are licensedtoschool This station had good coverage (20,090 boards. This means 16 in all. In trying to watts). Yetitwas broadcasting only 35 stimulate public radio's growth since 1971, hours of instruction a week, and nothing CPI3 has held that stations ought to offer more. After some discussion, the Board of more educational, cultural, and information Education decided in August 1976 to work programming. Its rule of thumb, %vorked out with the Office of Newark Studieson form- with licensees: a minimum of 50 per cent of ing Newark Public Radio, Inc. A station a station's broadcasts must he in those three Board of Trustees would includerepresenta- ca tegories. tives from higher-education in the city_,the Obviously, this does not,S y there can he Board of Education, business, and thecom- no .instruction atall. Rather, instructional munity at large. The new agency would be transmissions cannot be more than half cif--- charged with expanding WBGO's services the total. The whole idea has been toen- to 18 hour* a day, 365 days a year, witha courage public radio to expand its offerings mix of educational,news, public affairs and to reach beyond just one or two target and cultural programs. audiences. Of course, any station could Of particular importance here, thenew ignore this stipulation. By doing so, it would corporation "committed" itself, in the words forfeit CPB's community service grant. of Project Director Robert G. Ottenhoff,6to A few in public radio have fiercely op- broadcasting "at least 25 hours a week of posed CPB's criteria. Said one of the Corpo- educational/instructional programming." ration's most outspokencriticslastfall: Hence, there would be "no reduction in the "They have no righttoindicateto any audio instructional services" for Newark school superintendent or any institutional schools. Further, the Board of Education licensee what the Corporation prefers and the new corporation had decided to Its none of (heir business." form a joint committee to "review,approve, Was 'GPB, as some claimed, tryingto develop andinitiateeducational/instruc- drive the school stations out of business? tional programming." To formalize the li- Diana Calland, Associate Director of CPR's cense transfer, papers were filed in Winter Office of Radio Activities, explained: 1977 withtheFederalCommunications We're suggesting that they should probably Commission. expand their business by doing public radio One other aspect of this episode would far a generalized audience on the main seem to have significant implications for a channel and then also provide through alter- number of licensees. During 1976, thenew nate delivery mechanisms the in-school pro- corporation applied for and received from : gramming. 5 Frank Mankiewicz was named President of In that pattern, instruction could be pack-NPR in August 1977. New management will aged in cassettes and sent to teachers for have to sort out educational issues. flexible,individualizedscheduling.Also, 6He was recently appointed General Manager through the FM subchannel, a point-to-point of Newark Public Radio by the new Board of service .could be delivered,.The combination Trustees. CPR a grant of $45,000. These funds,as ex- commitmenttoimpri

plained by Ottenhoff, have been earmarked increase the usefulness . for studying "alternate delivery systems for for those who will he w the audio instruction," and amounted to "visible teachers, administrators, , bene- si ;ns of the corporation's commitment to ficiaries, the students. continue instructional programming." Staff For years, advocates of public rwiis tole will he trying to Bed ways to: in education have known 0.01' 1 encourage teacher acc.eptcv cc and t slogan used in early 1977 zationofaudio instruction, The study will vertising Bureau. "Radio is tl,o to :ter assess and measure, teacher and student at- native. It works!" the RAB titudes and utilization for four 'deliverysys Public radio managers, producersanti in- toms: FM main cheerio], FM subchannel, structional specialists have been saying this audiocassettes anct sc.iool intercom systems. right along.If any change haoccurred recently,it has been inthe di-1lion of The results of this analysis, expected to be making instruction-through-sound... rk bet- in hard 1)3, December 1977. could saya lot ter for wider audiences. By early VITthe to other public brozNicasyrs who also see teaching voice of public radio seen' 'd to "le themselves as oxprafidip,,1 !heir range of serv- stronger in certain respects that it had heea ices. The studyac'!,!,.;,uptoa.declared in years.

94 Public Radio inEducation: An Overview by Dr. Elizabeth L. Young 1,4 ublic radio in education:" The to date, but they tend to avoida key ques- phrase sounds importanteven tion: if instructional radio isa successful pravocative, but what doesit teaching tool, why does it remain obscure? mean? is public radio in educa- Surely, after all this time, thereasons must tion? Should it be? If so, in whatways and have to do with somethingmore than lack what goals? of support from school administrators.Per- Much discussion about instructional radio haps a tool that lms failed to "catchon" follows a time-honored pattern hi respond- after 50-plus years stands in need of radi- ing to these questions. The typical article cally new assessment. begins with some varidat of the assertion This is not to suggest that public radio that -instructional radio has been around has no role to play at various levels of the for over 50 years, but it is still largelyun- teaching-learning process. But its rolemay, known and under-utilized." The article then and probably should, depart significantly proceeds to document currentuses of in- from traditional patterns of instructionalra- structionalradio,attemptstoproveits dio use. Because of recent developmentsin value,and concludesoptimisticallythat educational-instructional technology, alter- there is a role for this serviceand that it natives to radio are morenumerous and should receive increased support. more promising than ever before. These Such articles have helped to keepus up alternatives must be kept firmly in mindas we assess what radio can do, and what it need not do, in the service of education.

Terms and Distinctions At the outset, we need to defineour terms. "Instructional" and "educational" radio have become umbrella descriptors fora variety of types of services. To clarify whatwe will be considering, let us adopt thefollowing stipulative 'definitions: 1. "Public radio" will be synonymous with "noncommercial radio" and willen- compass all services by stations licensed or performing noncornmercially. 2."Educational radio" has often of late been used to mean public radio. So,to avoid confusion this article will notuse the, term "educational radio." 3. However, education itselfcan be defined somewhat more 'broadly thanin- struction. Education will be taken tomean that realm of services and activities that improve learning, whether or not such services and programs are tied toa specific course, curriculum;or institution. atomPlONOLIPWIMP 4."Instructionalradio"willdescribe Dr. Elizabeth Young thosebroadcastservicesintendedto achieve a specific educational goal, often use audio tapes and discs rather than radio course-related, sometimes resulting in aca- broadcasts. demic credit and usually prescribed by a Suppose that what we think we know, school or other formal educational insti- en,isthat audio "works." What next? tution. We will recognize as instructional woimmediate questions come to mind. radio everything from elementary-second- First, what do we kno,V about radio as a ary programming to professional post- distribution mechanism versus other mech- graduate series. Thus, Wisconsin's School anisms? Secondly, is radio ever preferable of the Air, Purdue's Open University via to alternative distribution means? WBAA, and WAMC's (Albany Medical In his Educational Services Study Projebt, College) two-way medical programs will conducted for National Public Radio, Don- all be seen as facets of instructional radio. ald Holloway notes that "there are few com- A program like NPR's Options in Edpco- parative studies which deal with cassettes tion, while not instructional radio, can be or SCA as alternate distribution systems." 3 definedas an example of educational Indeed, as we have seen,'Most of the re- programming on public radio. search supposedly concerned with instruc- Onefurtherdistinctionneedstobe tional radio does not distinguish among stressed. "Audio" "is the. generic term re- distribution systems. We do know from this ferring to the entire range of programs, ma- research, however, that discs, reel-to-reel terials, and modules that are transmitted by tapes, and cassettes have been successful means of sound. Obviously, then, various in achieving educational objectives in cer- forms and formats of audiodiscs, tapes, tain settings. cassettescan be distributed by radio but To approach our two questions more care- also can be used apart from the broadcast fully, let us look at instructional radio in its mode. This distinction is obvions, but it be- two traditional rolestransmitting material comes important when we look at existing toelementary-secondary classrooms,and research regarding instructional radio. For providing college-level courses. we must begin to ask whether the research has really evaluated radio, or whether it has Elementary-Secondary evaluated the aural medium. Instruction by Radio While more and more public stationsex- Audio Distribution plore programming for higher education, the In his comprehensive monograph "Instruc- number of stations serving elementary-sec- tional Radio: A Position Paper," ' Richardondary schools has not increased signifi- Forsythe has summarized much of the avail- cantly over the past two decades. There is able research dealing with the effectiveness one notable new experimentthe South of instructional radio. This summary is still Carolina educational radio network, which reliable(as suggested by itsinclusion innow includes four FM stationsbut the other, more recent reports) because littlenumber of stations continuesto remain new information has been accumulated oraround 30. As we examine the servicemore analyzed since Forsythe wrote. closely, it appears that there may be further Forsythe'sgeneralconclusionisthat shifts in coming years. "radiois an effective instructionaltool." What are some outstanding example_s of This conclusion has also been reached bythe success of audio as a learning aid? others,' although the volume of research and experimentation isfar smaller for public 'Richard 0. Forsythe, "Instructional Radio: radio than for public television. (Research A Position PeiTk!), revised version, Stanford, on the effects of instructional radio has been California: thtb=''ERIC clearinghouse on Media very sparse in recent years, and foreign re- and Technology, December 1970. search cannot safely be assumed td_ ' See: Monty Stanford, "A Reviewof Recent compass variables or environments common Research on Instructional Television and Radio." State of the_irt, prepared and edited to the American educational experience.) by John P. Withertp on,(Washington, D.C.: When one looks more closely., however, ACNO, 1974), pp. III, '_0-22. Also: Donald Hollo- it becomes clear that even the limited evi- way,EducationalServicesStudyProject, (Washington,D.C.:NationalPublicRadio, dence we have often deals with the efficacy November 1976). of audionot necessarily radioas a dis- Holloway, op.cit., Attachment #1, "Re- tribution mode. In fact, some tests actually search Literature," pp. 5-6. One is the auclio-tutorial ,ipproach(origi- curriculum,Iwould like nally developed in to make tapes conjunction with ele- available to use with small groups."'(Em- mentary science secitiences1.1 in which the phasis added.) A number of public student uses an audio tape radio or cassette, plus stations broadcasting instructionalprograms other o:orking materials, tomove step byhave tried to overcome the flexibility prob- step through lesson or series of lessons. lem by encouraging off -air taping Another has been the use of tapes and and even cas- by providing equipment for thispurpose. In settes by the Wichita public schools.In Chicago, for example, radio receivers with Wichita, no public station carries instruc- built-in cassette recordersare distributed to tional programming, Rather, the schoolsrely the schools by WBEZ. Close ona to 4,000 such well-staffed and well-equipped In-receivers are now in as many classroomsand structional Materials Center to provide films, have replaced the older receivers thatdid video and audio tapes, much likea library not include recording capability.® Despite all service. In the school year 1975-76, forex- attemptsto overcome the problems, the ample, the city's six high schools, 16juniorbasic question still remains. Is radio broad- high schools, and 90 elementary schoolsall casting the best means of providinginstruc- participated in the use of some 1,500 audio-tional audio services to the K-12constitu- cassettes.5 These cassettes containedma-ency? terials related- to numerous subject areas. It would be naive to assume that thean- The majority of programs regularly involve swer will ever be determined solely on the use of workbooks and other supplementarybasis of empirical evidence about the relative learning aids so the audio doesnot stand effectiveness of various delivery systems. In alone. However, some of the tapesare used the "real world," polVical and economiccon- without other materials. An annualcata- cerns often have mare influence in swaying logue is made available to all teachers, and decisions than de test data. A numberof theuseoftheaudiocassettes has beenpublic radio stations now in existence de- growing steadily. A cable distributionsys- rive the majority of their support because tem planned for Wichita will eventually be of their instructional broadcasts. Manyare used by the Center for distribution,supple- licensed to scho,als and boards of education. menting the current mail and truck deliv-It is unlikely that these stations would eries. or should be radically converted overnight,and From the foregoing, itseems safe to say it would be unwise not to consider carefully that instructional audiocan be distributed their potential in determining futurepossi- with educational effectiveness bya number bilities for the distribution ofinstructio of means. We haveno evidence that would audio services. We will havemore refute this contention. Itmay be that in about their role. some sense a radio broadcast has "pres- Setting aside the political andeco. ence" that enhances the programmingand factors, the answer to theq .estion its effects. Further research mightreveal radio as the "best method" is proball' this and, would, therefore, be useful.In lieu qualified "yes." Thereason is that rube of such evidence, however,any claims for many programs presently provided by main radio as a superior mediumcannot be sub- stantiated. 4 For a description of this approach,see :. S. N. Postlethwait, J. Novak and I-I. T.Murray, If we delve further into past evaluations Jr., The Audio - Tutorial App_ roachto Learning of instructional radio,we find some weak- through Independent Study and IntegratedEx- periences,(Minneapolis: BurgessPublishing, nesses. A major problem inhibiting its wider 1972). adaptation (as with instructional television) Conversation with Dr. Ben Wolfe, Director, has been its lack of flexibility. AsForsythe Instructional Materials Center, WichitaPublic notes, "As a mass medium, radio mustcon- Schools, Wichita, Kansas, January26, 1977. tend with Forsythe, op. cit., p. 11. the problems inherent in the Comment quoted presentation of single,fixed instructional in The Listen-to-Learn Service, a brochure published by theOffice of messages to large and often heterogeneous Instructional Television and Radio, SouthCaro- groups." Or, from a teacher in South lina State Department of Education,Columbia, Carolina who is enthusiastic about thenew South Carolina, 1978. experience of instructional radio, "I feel that Conversation with Carole Nolan, Station Manager, WEIEZ(FM), Chicago,Illinois, January instructional radio has greatly enrichedour 26, 1977. channel radio might be better distributed by nate programming intended for use in school other means, certain types of instructional classrooms, programs 1:001(1 not survive without a stal- lion. This is most true of timely broadcasts, Post-Secondary Instruction by Radio e.g.. news reports specifically tailored for As soon as we talk about audio program- students and of broadcasts involving two- ming intended to reach beyond the class- way response. For example, public radio room, the use of radio as a distribution station WFBE in Flint, Michigan has since mechanism becomes more attractive. This is 1953 offered short, live newscasts produced undoubtedly one of the reasonst' col- for fifth- and sixth-grade students.° While leges and universities are beginning to form the format of these weekly 15-minute re- more partnerships with public radio stations ports has varied, the content demands live to broadcast credit and non-credit courses disseminationtostudents while intheir at the college level. As the program director classrooms. Follow-up discussions often en- of one public radio station explained.. hance understanding of the content. We were into college credit courses quite The dual-audio experiment conducted in heavily but got out five years ago when in- conjunction with WUHY, Philadelphia, also terest seemed to dwindle. Now, our institu- necessitated "real-time- broadcasts of the tion is pushing the idea of reaching the non- audio portion, since the audio had to he traditionalstudent,andtheconceptof available during the pauses and silences in life-long learning is surfacing, so our station televisionprogramsthatchildrenwere is back in the credit-course business again, watching simultaneously.[Inthisexperi- This trend is emerging across the country,. ment,however,childrenlistenedand Many states face close to zero population watched while at home, not while in school. growth and eventual declines in full-time The audio portions were "fed" on radio undergraduateenrollments, Atthesame during breaks in the TV dialogue. The audio time, the scope and nature of pest-secon- was designed to aid children in vocabulary dary education are changing: cornprellension.) Since 1969 more students have participated To cite another example, WNYE has con- in post-secondary education on a part -time ducted "conference calls" betweena roaster teacher and as many as ten home-bound basis (credit and non-credit) than on a full- time basis by a substantial margin.... Be- students following the broadcast ofan in- tween1969 structional and 1972 the number of part- radio program. Of course,it time students in post-secondary institutions would be possible for these studentsto increased at a rate of2.3times faster than listen to the programs on tape at theircon- full-time students.. In1972,for the first venience and then participate in thecon- timein American history, approximately ference call scheduled at a fixed time each half of the students (degree credit, non-de- day. And it is possible that these services gree credit and non-credit) in collegiate in- could be distributed on cable radio (very stitutions of higher education participated little used at present) or viasome form -of one part-time basis. . immediate, simultaneous distribution. Enrollments of collegiate port-time students are increasing Aside, from timely programs, two-way more rapidly in two-year institutions and in programs, and certain special services, there graduate programs than inothersegments would seem to be liltlrationale for proof the viding by main-channel radio many of the elementary-secondaryprograms nowof- Another factor in the changing educa- fered. The options are: cable radio, SCA, tional pattern is that of adults who want to reel-to-reeltapes,cassettes,anddiscs. continue their education. About half of these Broadcast radio is expensive. As we have dults would like additional occupational seen, it also may be inflexible. Considering t,' fining- =but they prefer to get such train- the modest costs of audio tape technology ingthrough employer-sponsored courses, and the concomitant flexibility, we must seriously consider whether it is in anyone's °Conversation with John Szucs, Public Af- best interests-- students, educators, or those fairsDirector, WFBE(FM),Flint,Michigan, January 26, 1977. of us who run public radio stationsto con- 1° Natiorial University Extension Association, tinue using main-channel radio to dissemi- Special Report, I, 2 .(March 1974), p. 2. I 0 community programs, or other "nontradi- reaching beyond the target student audieri.--?.. mld" means, rather than by participating With The American UniversitycouQes, in traditional campus study." some students registered for credit, some for I low, then,toreachthesepotential non-credit (they then paid only for auxiliary learners, especially those who donot wish materials); other listeners simply tuned in to to come to campus? Use media. Fortunately, enjoy the programs. Itis true, of course, radio is being included in thisplanning, and that college-level materialscan also be dis- it can be quite effectiveon its own or in seminated by cassette and other nonbroad- conjunction with television and other media. methods. However, a wider audience Don 1 lot lox% ay in his recent studyfor NPR can be reached as conveniently (and inex- suggests that NPR explore future relation- pensively) with ladle) in thiscase as ships with Courses lay Newspaperat the alternative distribution means. University or California-San Diego, and with In the public radio system, approximately the University of Mid-America.v2 three-fourths of all stations are licensed to The ,)olior of this article has hadexperi- colleges and universities. Thus, the stations ence twit'.thesuccessful production end have (at least potentially) a talent pool and distribution of college courses via radioat built-inimpetusto become involvedin The American University, Washington,D.C. broadcasting In the process of working post-secondaryinstructional on both music materials. Such outstanding successesas the and theatre history courses, it becameevi- .^..lbany Medical College's two-way medical dent that WAMU could produceprograms programming from WAMC (and its related that not only met specific academicobjec- networkofstations)and tives,but also succeeded thePurdue/ as entertaining WBAA experience in attracting studentsto general audience programs. In the1975-76 higher education via radio certainly illus- academic year,298 students enrolledin trate that this type of instructional service eightcollege-creditcoursesofferedby can be vital and enduring. WAMU. Thecoursesincludedmaterial about the ecology andwomen'sstudies." Other Roles for Public Another examplelistening to radiocom- Radio in Educatiton ponents of Great Britain's Open University In addition to the traditionalroles of in- also bears out this thesis. Ifa half-hour structional radio just outlined,at least two program about the history of Britain's labor other major services can beprovided to unions can be fascinating (and, complete education by public radio. with sound effects and music,it was), then One of thesewhich has not been much any instructional program can have wide appeal. in evidenceinvolves the use of stations to inform educational professionals and the If the case can he made for other-than- lay public about educational radio distribution of audio instruction matters. The at best examples are found at stationslike the grade-school level, then why dowe need WDTR, Detroit, which broadcasts radio to reach adult learners? There citywide are teachers' meetings, or WCTIE,. Columbus, several differences between the two situa- which carries the Columbus Boardof Ed- tions. First, audio for the classroomis for ucation meetings live. Some stations provide a discrete audience, virtually all of whom regular opportunities for school ad is- are in contained spaces(classrooms) at trators to talk to school personnel by io. fixed times. Thus, equipmentcan easily be These services, although often provided purchased and assigned to distribute by audio stations that also program in-schoolseries, tapes or discs in theseplaces. SCA re- could be offered by any public radio ceivers, too, can be distributed to sta- a finite tion, regardless of its commitmentto broad- number of classrooms but less easilyto a changing, heterogeneous audience "at home." (SCA receivers currently retail between $70 1' Results of a study conducted by theCom- and $150, depending On sophistication; mission on Nontraditional Study, reported in: an The. NAEB Memo-on Instruction, IV,2 (Feb- acceptable eceiver for a schoolroom could ruary 1973), p. 1. be acquire-for $7C fdr example.) Also, 12 Holloway, op.cit.: "Summary Findings," as we have noted; the adult course material p. 21. is more likely to have broad audienceap- Conversation with William Brown, Program Director, WAMU(FM), Washington, D.C.,Jan- peal, so that the programmercan plan on uary 31, 1977. 99 casting ccurricular materials. abroadcast service thatis quite localin Broadcams to parents about the schools' nature. Just as the student newspaper, the daily Nadi menu, about upcoming FTA debate foam and the football team do not meetings, and: other local information, also merelytrainpotentialprofessionalsbut fall into this iicitegriry. Such pi °grams have strengthen broader educational and social sometimes beenBilingual. At WHRS, in skills_ high s.:no] broadcast station can Boynton Beim E1,Floridafor example, mes- take its place as a worthwhile aspect of the sages to par nts were broadcast in both community and the school. English and pimish during the time the One such station is WSHR -FM, licensed station wasleliyering programming made to Sachem High School in Holbrook, Long possible by a special federal grant. Island, New Y irk. The station has 2,000 On the national level, information about watts effective radiated power, reachee a educational matters has been provided ef- population of wal over one million people, fectively by NPR's Options in Education, and has been on the air for ten years. The now a weekly program. The series focuses station is soon planning to experiment with on problems, developments, successes and nuadraphonic broadcasting." The author of research in education. British and European this overview conducted a study of the sta- observersof American broadcasting and tion's operations and programming after its especially of our public broadcasting sys- first three years and found that the students tem have found it odd that we do so little were obtaining a valuable learning experi- reporting about the educational scene in our ence, while the community didlookto country. Options in Education is a start. WSHR for local programming, especially Judging from requests for tapes and tran- for school news. Students hold all positions scriptsfollowing certain ofitsbroadcast at the station and are guided by a faculty features, itis :reaching a serious and inter- adviser. Those interested in political science ested audience." are encouraged to work in the news and Such examples of cTeporting about edu- public-affairs areas'and actually go out into cation are not abundant, but they demon- Holbrook and environstocover stories. stratethatsuchreportingcanbean Other students concentrate on management important service. and engineering. Those in the latter group The second major service public radio are helped to apply for and earn their third-,

-y has provided for education has been its use class licenses. Running the station is con-. as a training ground. Many if not most of sidered both academic work (there are tests the :noncommercial radio stations not qual- and course credit) and service to the com- ified for CPB support are run by students. munity. While the majority of these stations are not A number of the CPB-qualified stations linked with a academic department or pro- also train students. In a few, cases, those gram, a few are. Perhaps the most educa- students are of high school age (although tionally sound development in this area has the majority of student participation is at been the nucleus of stations, usually low- thecollege-licensedstations).Thus,the power, licensed to and operated by high public radio system has demonstrated that schools where a faculty member supervises a number of educational and service goals the training and activities of students who can be met successfully within the confines actually run the station. In a number of in- of a single operation in which students and stances, students acquire third-class broad- professionals combine talents. cast licenses, considerable experience and If one wishes to stretch the definition of even course credit. education, it is possible to classify such pro- Of course, it is not desirable to establish grams as SCA reading services for the print- such stations if their sole mission is to train handicapped as educational. There is no students for jobs that may not exist in an question that such programs are 'valued and industry that is already overcrowded. How- valuable. However, for the purposes of this eve-r, in situations such as the one about to article, such programming will not be con- be described, students and the public can benefit from the high school stations= The "Holloway, op. cit.,Introduction," P. B. studentsgaintechnical,managerialand 15Stuart Harris, -High School Station to Goi Quad for Tenth AnniversaryBrCodchst Man -: aesthetic knowledge that will be useful in agernent/Engineering, XII, 12 (October 1976); Many, later endeavors. The public receives pp. 52, 54. 00 lewd as directly instructional or educa- 1a:6mi:wed successfully with the delivery of tional .ind ihus he beyond our purview. post-secondaryinstructionalmaterialson SCA, so the necessary models exist. The Policy Questions The use of public radio stations to train If local and national decisions abbut public / future broadcasters can be challengedon s future in edu;:ation. sire to he made two fronts. First, the station is, of course, intelligently, they must -hie based on the best licensed not to train students but to provide possible data andoh an honest appraisal programming. Secondly,studenttraining of all variables,- Probablythe best" evi- can be accomplished. with closed-circuit fa- dence is nevei: available in one place at one cilitiesilnd carrier-current stations, How- time. Nevertheless, let ITS try to see where ever, a case can be made that a few of the we are at this pointwhat we have reason training stations now operating 'do meet to believe and what our questions must be. both criteria of service and training. There We know that available evidence supports may be no substitute in a student's experi- the thesis that instructional audio achieves ence for gathering "real" news and produc- resultsin certain learning situations. We ing "real" programs that go on the air even have also seen that there is inadequate proof if the student's ultimate career goal is not to determine whether one audio delivery broadcasting. system is better than another in terms of What are the implications of all that has educational efficacy. A number of delivery been saidforthenational organizations systems are currently in use, although there charged with furthering the growth of public arc no comprehensive statistics regarding, radio, specifically CPB and NPR? A bold for example, how many schools use audio suggestion will be offered here: thereis discs and cassettes. Over the past several little need for greatly increased central co- lecades. it has been observed that instruc- ordination or produCtion to interface with tionalradio servicesfor elementary and public radio stations serving education. As seconuarY schools have not increased sub- Holloway has correctly observed, "[a] basic stantially. On the other hand, radio dis- concept is localism of education.' used tribution of programs for higher education on the knowledge we have about educa- is growing.. tional policies and practices in this coun- We have noted that for certain kinds of try,it is extremely difficult to argue that educational,services,radiodistributicn educational programming policy should be seems indispensable. The following program set at the national level. Where a kind of types will probably always require "live or national cooperatirni has worked well (e.g., simultaneousdistribution:newsforin- with the AIT consortia programs for tele- school students; coverage of educational vision), one can maintain that this hasoc- events such as teachers' meetings; news for curred because the nearly prohibitive costs the general public about educational issues of .first-rate ITV production' mandated such and events. It has also been suggested that cooperation. And, interestingly, this kind of radio is the preferable (but not oily) .means leadership in ITV programming hascome of disseminating post-secondary audio in-.not because of CPB or PBS but through struction. Of the types of instructional and independent organizations, albeit with the educational services described thus far, it assistance of federal funds in some cases. would be possible to deliver all but the dual-. audio, the adult educational materials, and 16 SCA would not be optimal for the dual- the general-audience programs via SCA.16 audio projects because too many widely scat- tered youngsters must be4served. However, it is According to CPB research, there are cur- worth noting that the dual-audio experiment in rently SCA. services for the print-handi- Philadelphia ended because the public radio capped on 42 stations.'7 With approximately station involved apparently felt it could reach 180 ,'Of the CPB-qualified FM stations having a widermore affluent?--audience less specialized adult programming in place of the the potential for SCA (and there are some dual-audio. This kind of conflict raises a philo- 600 additional FM stations not currently sophical question about public radio's "proper" qualified), SCA must be considered a real role. In technical terms, however, main channel alternative to main-channel broadcasting for distribution of dual-audio works. any number of specialized programs. Sta- "Conversation with Cheryl Strange, Radio Activities Office, Corporation for Public Broad- tions-such as WAMC, Albany; WKAR, EaSt casting, Washington, D.C., January 19, 1977. Lansing; and WUOT, Knoxville, have ex- 's Holloway, op. cit., "Introduction," p. if the distribution of certain kinds of in- are being effectively distributed by, an instructional audio moves away from public creasing number of public radio stations. radio stations, itvv ill be difficult to justify CE13 may wan t to actively encourage such C:Pit's role in direct funding of instructional programming by production grants, regional audio production. CPU's mission isto de- conferences, and like activities. If the Gm- velop public radio and television stations, privation concludes that some stations pro- ;\ coordinated effort is underway within the vi ding dual student trainingand .public Office of Education, I IEW, to find funds for programming are fulfilling educational and support of new and improved instructional community-service needs, there might be a audio services, especially in their produc- special series of modest operating grants for Lion for K- 12 use. Indeed, many public- ra- such stations, over and beyond the Corn- din stations have previously received assist- munity Service Grants to CPB-qualified sta. once from various titles of education acts. [ions. Aside from these somewhat indirect The important thing is to see thata dis- support programs, itis difficult to see what tinction most he made between content CPB could do, given its congressionalman- (educationalmaterials)anddistribution date and its own recently adopted "mission mechanisms. CPU's objective is primarily to and goals" staternent.19 support one type of distribution mechanism: What of NPR? It, too, has a mission that public broadcasting stations. Naturally, this is primarily national in scope and directed objective includes concern for and funding toward public radio programming. The or. for programming, but CPB's programming ganizatioo was established to provide the support activities should be devoted to pro- kind of national public affairs and cultural grams designed primarily to meet the needs programs that local stations could not proof the general public outside the formal duce or obtain on their own. NPR has con- classroom. tinually reviewed itsrole in instructional/ itis always theoretically possible that a educational services, but few detailed goals convincing case after all, be made for have been established. Even the Holloway public radio asthe primary distribution report speaks more about the need for addi- mode for elementary-secondary programs. tional planning and exploration than it does The South Carolina system bears watching aboutspecificprogramsandactivities. as the only- recent attempt to retiitalize the Largely as a result of the Holloway recom- use of radio for instruction, If there is a mendations, NPR is in the process of adding national _revitalization, CPB will certainly staff in the programming department toex- want to look at increased, special grants plore further what can be done with instruc- and' assistance for stations providing this Lionel services. The Masks of thisnew office service. The Corporation may even want to are being defined, and one gathers the im- encourage more stations inthis direction. pression that an immediate objective isto Nevertheless, most evideace seeres to indi- facilitatecommunicationandexchange cafe a move away from the use of public among stations that are engaged in instruc- radio stations' main channels for instructional programming.' NPRisalsocon- tinual audio. sicteing a relationship with the University Even where educational services can and of Mid-America, which is housed in Lincoln, should be supplied by public radio stations. Nebraska, whereby NPR would assistin CPB's role should be confined to the fol- production and distribution of audiocourse- lowing areas. First, there could be special ware, grants over a fixed period of time (three to While there is room for exploration of five years) for stations that wish to experi- severaloptions, NPR and public broad- mcnt with, for example, increased local re- casters should not use the excuse thatwe porting on education and coverage of edu- know nothing about instructional services 6ational events. Secondly, CPB could be or public radio ineducation to postpone very helpful (directly or by contracting with making some hard decisionsnow. other agencies) in acting as a clearinghouse for an exchange of information among sta- IQ For Mission and Goals statement, see: CPB tions, and even by publishing handbooks Report, VII, 33 (November 22, 1976), p. 3. that would include models for types of in- 2° Conversation with Jae Gvvathmey, Assistant to the Vice President for Programming, National ,structional/educational services. Thirdly, if Public Radio, Washington, D.C., January 27, it proves true that post-secondary programs 1977. 102 1 E NPR has proved it can produce a first-logue among stations active in educational rate, timely national program about Nines-prngrarnrning projects.. In terms of acquisi- tumid issues with Options inEducation. tion and primary production of instructional NPR has acted and can act as an exchangeradio programs. however, NPR would be mechanism for stations wishing to share in- well advised to stand aside in favor of local, structional programs. Whether NPR should state and regional efforts. continue in this program exchange coordi- CPB, NPR and other national organiza- nator role can he determined purely on de-tions can provide funds and coordination ma nd and economics. not on any philosophi-for the educational radio services perceixted calprinciples aboutthe "worth" of the as optimal and growing. Care must be taken, materials. If the participating stations con however,to evaluate which services de- exchange their instructional programs moreserve this support. To continue a service efficiently by using another agency,they simply because itisthere, perhaps at the should seek to do so. NPR -may, however,expense of what could be there, is poor be the best agent for a variety of less-than- management. national programming, including specialized materials for minorities, the handicapped, Conclusions and other subgroups with specific needs. Public radio is a versatile medium, and it This type of activity can be an adjunct to isgrowing.Itsinitiativesineduce Hon the primary program production tasks. but should be most closely tied with loca' and for NPR to establish a new department to state entities and policies. But where sta- produce instructional programs for elernen- tions can benefit from 'national assistance, tary-secondary use does not seem at all they should not be shy about making their warranted.Productionof post-secondary needs known. There is a real question about materials can probably best be clone by local what agency or agenciesatthe national stations in cooperation with their collegeslevel should be concerned with the funding and universities, although a few of these of instructional audio materials, especially series might be produced jointly by NPR if one agrees that radio should not be the and stations if a combining of national and main distribution means for these materials. local resources seems useful. There are additional questions about the In one other area NPR could increase its funding of models for new educationalserv- serviceto education. The network could ices. But these questions must be tackled. work actively to ensure that secondary in- At the outset of thisarticle, we asked structional uses of its programming would whether public radio should be in educe-. be possible. NPR has had a contract with a tion. The answer is that it should be ifwe west coast firm that "spins off" certain pro- %re willing to accept the fact that its his- grams into cassette .form and markets them torical role will need to be reviewed and to educators and schools. The company has that its future role may change. Greatcare been less than aggressive in this venture.so must be taken to evaluate not only the cir- a new arrangement may be desirable, per- cumstances under which-audio is a desirable haps with an organization like the National learning mode but when and where broad- Center for Audio Tapes at Boulder or with cast radiois the most efficient medium. Great Plains NationalInstructional Tele- Public radio can do More to explain and vision Library.The latter now has the audio interpret education to its audience. Itcan audio (as well as video) distribution rights report on education just as it reportson foreightOpenUniversityseriesfrom national political and social issues. Mot Great-Britain. This is an area that requires important for the future,it can serve the further research by NPR. If itisItiund. to growingneeds,ofadult,. nontraditional haVe potential, NPR should be iencouraged learners. Public radio is just entering its to do all its program planning and produc- adolescence after a long childhood whenit tion with such secondary uses in mind. was undernourished and virtually ignored Early in the development of a series, for by many. What it needs now is explorers example, thought could be given toprint who are willing to, seek and fight for itsfu- materials that would eventually accompany ture. Part of that future undoubtedly be- piogram segments or modules to be used longs in the realm of education, from which, for educational purposes. Like CPB, NPR after all, public radio evolved and to which may want to encourage and facilitate die- it still has much to contribute. Summary: To Haress the Potential Without question the installation of the televisionsystem at Lin- coln heights ts (Elementary School) and the frequent and discriminat- ing use by the teachers has resulted in some positive happenings. The records show that reading scoresrose dramatically in at least two grades in a year's time. Marjorie McKinney. ITV Director, WCET-TV, Cincinnati and Wanda McCollum, Assistant Principal, Lincoln Heights; "AProject that Paid Off," January 1977. As instructional radio grows in South Carolina, we find ourselves continually refueled with enthusiasm based on theresponses of students and teachers, _Pat A. Conner, Instructional Radio Specialist, Office ofITV Radio, Sduth Carolina Department of Education. November1976. Television as a medium for post graduate and continuing professional education is gaining substantial acceptance, with 40-55per cent of students saying they prefer it to classroom courses. Dr. Stuart Cooney, Director, California Instructional Television Consortium, June 1976. No one ever queStions a teacher's using a film strip,even if it's 50 years old. But somehow you have to justify theuse of TV. - Marsha Rosen, member of Friends of Channel 13 Education Committee Speakers Bureau, New York, October 1976. Television, the most powerful medium ever, is here tostay.We do not fully understand its impact -and the degree to which it has changed our lives but there can be no doubt that it hasenormous power. We need to be aware of its hazards. harness its potential and recognize its possibilities. --Eda LeShan, author and family counselor; in WNET's"Tele- vision For Learning" supplement to The New York Times, Septem- ber 19, 1976.' n the Tuesday after Labor Day over the past three years). The assignments 1976, Hardy Sydner put in six were.quite characteristic for him as WCVE's hours on the road. As Technical engineering man in the field. On a given Utilization Coordinator for Cen- day, he might work on master antennae,or tralVirginiaEducationalTelevisionin recorders, or cameras. At other times, he'll Richmond, he had two appointments out talk to school people whoare leery about east in Middlesex County, borderingon technology. In a year, he may adviseas Chesapeake Bay. many as 300 different individuals in 53 It was a typical day. For an hour, Sydner school divisions and other schoolsserved showed the principal and teachers of Mid- by WCVE. ( dlesex Junior High howto use a videocas- For Hardy Sydner, it's a long day's jour- sette recorder;. at the Wilton School, ney. Yet, his is the kind of personal contact he checked out a noisy ITV system, found that the realistic educational broadcaster thewrongconnections,and made the knows is vital if the instructional service changes called for. is to be used effectively. Sydner's work'ex- It was one day's work in a month when emp,lifies the up-to-date approaches to TV/ Sydner would rack up 3,000 miles (he has roik education thatyou might have heard covered more than 112,000 mileson his job about in 1976. It was one of the hints of E better things to come in a field that has As for the health of educational radio, the needed all the help it could get forso many eye-opening growth of Minnesota Public years. Radio triggers this question: Cana stronger educational radio service be fart.ctehind? The Debate Goes On There's support for this inference ina corn- While the Hardy Sydners' plied their trade ment from Pat Conner, South-Carolina De- in 1976, the marathon debate about itcon- partment of Education's ctional Radio tinued. Was education-through-broadcast- . Specialist: ing alive, dead, or just comatose? Individuals disagreed, as they have for years. The latest state accounting equipment sur- The views of the debatersare useful here. vey reveo4ectwver a 300.per cent increase in They help define dilemmas stillto be re- radio receivers! Thil in a state that hadn't solved, and they play up .strong points.A heard of radio a year ago! It is a real tribute few of these commentsare worth reporting to the medium and what it can do for learn- for their dontribution. toa better under- ers and educators! And at long last, we are standing of the Astate of the art in 1976. into local production efforts. On the instructional radio side, the sounds Real numbers went from 92 receivers- to of contention have been more muted. There over 600.; has -been some tiltingover the stipulation In word, the fortunes of instructional that CPO - qualified stations must be Jun- radio do shrew sign's of itr provement, service in output, i.e., at least half of thebate over it, while existent, has beena broadcast hours must 1* in theareas of ed. more private than the joustingover ITV. 'math :in, culture, and information. There hL Pn the land ofeducation-through-TV, the been discussion too about how active Na- were more than a few pbints of view to di- tioftal Public Radio (NPR) should become in gest in the past several years. Oftentimes, developingeducationalservicesforits even the most optimistic attached caveats member stations. i 11 and some were far from -optimistic.

Members of the PTA share in listening to Nativird Public Radio'sprogram, Options in Education, q series that deals with educational issuerat al/yevels. 100 A

The man who put the first ETV stationon ricular tasks only if they emphasizemeas- the air 24 years agoDr. John C. SChwarz- ured learning and relate effortto outcome. walderhas a dim view of the outlook for This means that we should become farmore. educational broadcasting. Speaking out in selective and demanding about -the tasks 1976, he appraised the changes resulting we undertake, from the presence of CPB and PBS on the national scene. In his judgment, "Only lip Ifadvocates cannot putt her, "the service and tokenism [and very littleof conditions needed fora radically more effi- that) wille available for education, either cientcooperative eduationalparadigm," formal or informal." Then, in his windup, then, said George Hall, "our adviceto the he intensified the assault: political community and our admonitionto the educational community will be: turn off ziMr.Truman,(F.C.C.) Chairman(Paul) the technology--or at least turn it downto Walker and Commissioner (Frieda) Rannoch the 'visual aid' status which isa sort of are not around to see what has happened residual fate." (Those who know Hall might to what Miss I-lennock once called "the concur that before this happened, he would finest young school teacherever to come certainly be on the main line of resistahce.) to the aid of American education." Thismay The sentiment expressed by George Hall. be just as well because CPB and PBS have belongs to a family of argument thatsays: taken that young school teacher and turned "ITV is O.K. But it's going to haveto do her into a call girl for the country clubset. this or that if it is tc survive ,and be mean-" No less sharp in his criticismsover the ingful." AIT's Director of Research Saul years has been Dr: Frederick C. Breitenfeld, Rockman has written inthisvein,too, Jr.,Executive Director of the Maryland School television "is alive and well," he Center for Public Broadcasting. To him, the has said, and it has "a fine future.as part health of ITV "remains the same" in 1976- of education." Bht: 77 as it was in 1974. Elaborating, hewrote: 1.Public TV's school services must adap4- The obvious -conchisjon. is that undercer7 to "changing patterns of in-school tele- Lain circumstances, in certain locations:- be- vision use," that is, recognize thecry for cause of certain activities and people, ITV "nonbroadcast program use" and lineup is terrific. In too many cases, because of rights, accordingly. political circumstances, the people involved, 2. The stations must also begin adding etc. . . . itis, washy-washy,..ill-conceived, services, such as "better local program poorly executed and unused waste of people production to serve local needs mare ef- and machinery. What's-missing, and hasal- fectively." ways been missing, is the real commitment to educational services an the part of the 3. Other services ought to be expanded, bigdecision-makersmayors,governors, such as preparing teacher and student archbishops, etc. materials to go with instructional broadcasts, and utilization efforts by state, local, ,Following thisline of _argument, the key and station personnel; to greater ITV is commitment. (Later in this chapter, we'll examine some signs that this Some general assessments of ITVare commitment may be somewhat greater than quite pessimistic, compared with Rockrnan's it was, say, ten years ago.) qualified stand. Inclulded among the pessi- George Hall, former director of the Vir- mists is Dave Berkman, ESAA-TV Yrogram giniaPublic Telecommunications Council OfficerintheU.S,Office of Education. has applied this need for commitment in Berkman's outlook was epitomized by his Shaping his own argument on strengthening lead sentence in a May 1976 Educational ITV, He laid out his view in the keynote Technology article: speech to the 1976 NAEB Conferenceon It's not that instructional televisionindeed, Instruction. For ITV to be directly helpful, I would submit all of instructional technol- he said: ..ogy!is dead,for one cannot attribute We must realize our own mission objec- death to that which hasnever shown life. tives: that we insist on the primacy of What has been at thecore of the problem? learning- that we undertake significantcur- Berkman, it is simply thatas education 7- becomes more and more teacher-dominated, use of TV for instruction the chances for ITV become slimmer and To Ellis,"a -different type of instruc slimmer." Before anyone can deal with the tional service" is on the horizon. Unlike problems of injecting media into education, the 1960's-brand telecourse,itconsists of he wrote, it would be essential "to come to "quality programming that can be used for grips with the vested ego-interests in tradi- collegecredit . . . programs that don't tional methods of teaching...." Berkman threaten faculty and yet are valuable in- is not sanguine about that possibility. If TV structional tools . . : such as Ascent of ever does offereffectiveinstruction,he Man." As more of theseseries become wrote, available, as they improve, "so must local if will `not come about as a function a pro- productions, because the public will make comparisons between these programs gramming designedforuseinschools .... where they never will be usedbut through These various comments on instructional programming like Sesame Street which is broadcasting represent a vestpocket sample broadcast in after- school and weekend kid- at best. They hardly settle the ongoing skir- time 'hours. mishing over whether ITV is alive, dead, or just entranced. Yet, the sense of what A shadow of pessimism hung over the participants seemed to be saying in 1976 response of another observer, an experil was that things are better. True, there is no ented professional in one of the regions. rooni, at all for complacency, and no case lie spoke of "a big subliminal fear within.2for 'freezing commitments. On the other the industry" that ITV "will never become side of the coin, there was hardly any juati-- important inOugh to have either significant fication for turning off the switch. support or serious opposition." Still, there was a glimmer of hope: while, it has been The State of the Art: A Personal View plagued with a "bad case of bronchial pneu- After travelling about in 1976-1977 listening monia," ITV never die." On balance, to q number of men and women engaged in it seemed -somewhat stronger" than it was instructional broadcasting, and scanning the 20 years ago, "with a great deal of improve- stacks of documents they have ground out, ment yet to come." this reporter arrived at certain distilled ob- By the nature of their' duties, regional servations. They do not say that we stand_ network practitioners can look panoramic- at the threshold of Utopia. But they reflect ally at' ITV. In late 1976, Robert C. Glazier, a firm conviction that the recent work in President of SECA, wrote with zest about this field has not all, been an insubstantial the subject. "I see a great future for ITV pageant. nation-wide," he said.In fact, the broad- Since 1970evensince 1974new ening of ITV to include many efforts at'strengths in instructional broadcasting have family and adult education will give. it new come to light.. They imply quite clearly that vitality." Meanwhile, the ITV Coordinator education-through-broadcasting is no longer for the Central Educational Network, Ted the creaky, gray-streaked affair it once was. Lucas, observed: Great tasks. lie ahead, to be sure. With a The current state of ITV in the Midwest is new conviction, they can be undertaken on very goad and growing. With the exception the basis of these positive changes in recent of three states, all ITV services have ex- time. panded andare.Beginning to look beyond K-12 services. Larger Budgets New levels of dollar investment have been From the evidence, this matter of "look- made or planned. ing beyond K-12" met-its close study by anyone dedicated to the broadcast of edu- Once, ITV was almost literally a nickel- cation in the immediate years to come. An- and-dime proposition. It showed.-.Today, in other sighting of this option has come from many places, that it is no longer the case-- Robert I-I. Ellis, General Manager of KAET- and, again, it shows in the product. TV, Tempe, Arizona. Ellis wrote with the Take one example. AIT's nine consortium- perspective of someone who had fbund backed projects add up to a total of $8;716,- "extremely difficult" over the years to get 000. In the first (Ripples), members paid Arizona State University faculty to buy the $190,000 toward a gross of $256,000; some 108 1 $3.000 went for evaluation. For AIT's latest trated" into half-hour segments so that it venture (Essential Learning Skills), the price could be used in schools. Thatsame year, tag is $4,246,950. Of that, $575,000 will go the PBS interconnection carried just three intodesignalone;evaluationwillcost series from 10 a.m, to 2 p.m. for possibleuse $666,700. in schools. In contrast, the PBS schedule for More and more, federal and quasi-federal 1976-77 called for morning-hour transmis- agencies have contributed sizable amounts sions of 24 series for the benefit of schools to instructional series. As of June 2, 1976, and colleges. three offices of HEW had invested $4,741,940 NPR has also taken steps toward deeper in the University of Mid- America, or 67.2 involvement in -education. It has pirtnnedto per cent of the total spent onit,going fund a"staff component" to concentrate backtoitsrootsin1971, The National on educational/instructional services. The Institute of Education has put $245,000 into agency had in mind developing instructional National Public Radio's Options in Educa- facets for general audienceprograms: At the tionseries. NIE has also committed $3.6 same time, it looked forWard to working on million to a West Coast consortium's "Tele- cooperative educational projects; suchas vision Career Awareness Project." Mean- UMA's history course with Henry Steele while, the Special Projects Branch, Equal Commager. Educational Opportunity Programs, in the 'Atthe National Association of Educa-, Officeof Education, has awarded grants tional Broadcasters, -an existing commitment' amounting to $35.049,680 for 22 program to'support the improvement of instructional series, virtually all of which have aired services has, if anything, been strengthened. will airon public TV, Through-1976, the NAE8 had- sponsored25 There are risksinthese infusions intensive instructional design seminarsover of federal-agency dollars into instructional half a dozen years; these reachedmore than or educational projects. One has to do with 300 individuals-In Fall 1976, the NAEBwas possible duplication. Several steps have been scouting foran advanced design course to taken to get all these funders talking to each offer,to keep pace with the spread of other. Art Sheekey of USOE brought to- awareness among players 'inthe"Plan gether major particiPants in the fall of 1976. Efficiently" game. In Spring 1977, CPB chaired a similarses- Greater commitments have been made in sion for representatives of USOE, PBS and higher education, as well. The Universityof NPR. Conceivably, these devices could help Nebraska's formation of SUN and then forestall an interagency traffic jam in which UMA has given a new impetus tdopen educational broadcasting would 'come out learning through the vehicle of multi-media the loser. courseware. In, parallel, the involvement of institutions such as Coast Community Col- Strong National Commitments lege -District, the University of Californiaat National agencies have made importantnew San Diego, and Miami-Dade Community commitments to support education through College has made its mark in thevery new public broadcasting. annals of nontraditional study by adults For its part, CPB formally. defined a com- through media. mitment to education in an April 13, 1976, -"Goals and Objectives Statement." Nine New Leaders months later, the Corporation's Board voted New leadership hascome forward to spear-i $218,424 for "an experimentaland, pilot pro- head the processes of educational broad- ductinn phaie- of .AIT's Essential Learning casting. Skills project. The significance? This was In someinstances, individuals have moved CPB's "initial partiCipation in the funding of into a prominence scarcely typical inpast programming developed primarily forin- years. In other cases, new kinds of teams schonl.use."' have evolved.AIT's management group At PBS, meanwhile, there has taken shape represents a blending of educators,pro- what one official called "a commitment to ducers, researchers, and utilization expeits. move more aggressively into the education The ranks at CTW offer wholly similar field.. ." A "major breakthrough" occurred strength; ,several of its functionaries have in 1974: the series America was "reorches.earned a place at the forefront of theirre- '109 spective craftsnot simply in educational plish this---to assist "teachers and admin- felevisionbut in the entire field of broad- istrators to make more practical use of tele- casting. vision in the classroom"New York State Some of the new leaders have broughta Education Department's Bureau of Educa- special kind -of drive to the tasks confront- tional Communications has produceda "Vis- ing them. It took that drive to create Man ualLearning"packagestarringToday's and Environment. at Miami-Dade,to work Gene Shalt. Taken broadly, these materials out course materials for The Ascent of Man seem tb be saying that the ITV advocates in 1975, and to thrust Coast Community's can no longer afford to use demure Coolidge- KOCE-TV so squarely into the still-quirky era ways of "selling" their approach. There business af televising college-creditcourses. is too much at stakearid the competition Shoring up the new leaders, a number of from book-and-map-and-film peddlers istoo. dedicated individuals put' in long hours at tough. fi their specializedtasks. Often they have stretched too thin: the Eastern Educational More Variely.In Delivery Television Network's 1976 survey showed New acceptance of alternative ways of deliv- that ITV staffs at 24 stations averaged three ering the educational message, people. That's scarcely enough to make the instructional broadcasting banner very visi- No longer are practitioners-. single -mind- ble throughout a licensee's signalrange. But_ edly lacked into open-5ircuitybroadcasting support for the efforts of theie staffs is on as thepiiveyor or: inatruation. In radio, the way. there'Js a:,mix of open 'circuit, SCA and audiocassette's; - -And similarly in TV, the Added Awareness Efforts design - orientedmanager` picksthebest New activities have been started to make medium for the job --ora codibination of communities more aware of instructional.=them. broadcasting services. SEGA's Bob,Glazier pinpointed thenew outlook as of Fall 1976. He wrote that As earlier pages have noted, awareness "videocassette equipment has breathednew campaigns have existed on a more-than-Idcal life- into ITV across the country, and it will basis only since 1975. EEN has initiated two continue to provide assistance in final dis- "TV For Learning Weeks." A third is in.the tribution to students." Themanager of a works for September 1977. Capitalizing mil 'southern station had also found that these these efforts, CPB has funded, a. national recorders were spreading throughout the awareness push, implemented` by.7.PBS. As schools, "thus enabling teachers to break part, of this effort, PBS ran a series of re- out of the lock-step broadcast schedule and gional workshops in Spring 1977. Public in- use programs in a more timely fashion." formation and ITV staffs of stationscame There are other alternativesin place, too. together, in the words of PBS's Coordinator In 1976, Chicagoans could watch closed- of Educational Services Rhea Sikes,. "tobe- circuit courses distributed by the Catholic gin to build a foundation out of whicha na- Television Network of Chicago's 'TESsys- tional awareness campaign can be created." tem. In the south, SECA was using a CPB There have been the makings -of.'a real grant of $60,000 to relate a satellite to other trend in this activity. With Exxon under- means of deliveringinstruction. And at writing, ,WNET prepared a "Television For various points on the cable-televisionmap, Learning" supplement to The New York systems wereprovidingtimeonlocal Times in September 1976. At about thesame origination channels to various educational time, Virginia's Governor proclaimed "ITV institutions. The Berks-Suburban TV Cable Week." In the midwest, CEN'sawareness Company, in Reading, Pennsylvania, was committee is already planninga "TV For experimenting with an interactive linkage ;Learning Week" for the regional 'network, dedicated chiefly to helping senior citizens Wisconsin'sEducationalCommunications learn and communicate. Board was on a similar traiVwithan eye In time, the video disc will come along to toward making both legislators andparents shake up the suppliers of educationeven more aware of the impact and value of ITV. more. It is already clear, however, that in One route toward greater awareness lies 1976-77 only the myopic were insistingon in the area of teacher training. Toac having just one string on their fiddle. Greater Majority Then, to +, no one needs to remind him The educational broadcastingcommunity any longer that his is a service profession. has displayed a new kind of seasoning. Society has become troubled aboutthe The coordinators, the ITV directors, the leaching of basic skills. AIT's enterprising consortium managersonbalance,they Essential Learning Skillsprojectisone have become more seasoned campaigners. response.Other concerns have arisen® In the words of CPB's Doug Bodwell,"the about educating the youngon careers, or system has matured far more than people metrics, or consumer tactics, or social be- realize." havior and self-understanding. In eachcase, Learning more about instructional design a producer came forward, with a broadcast- and top-quality production methods, the able antidote. This response mechanism has educational broadcaster has begun produc- even carried over into the adult arena: when ing better-looking and more effective mate- regulations stiffened on the uses of pesti- rials. One result:larger enrollments. At cides, the'pniversity of Mid-America pro- KAET, Phoenix,studentregistrationfor .duced its current series on Pests, Pesticides, college-level telecourses was "considerably and Safety for the Private Applicator. higher" in 1975-76 (3,199 enrollments) than it But look at the size of just a few of the had been before. Why the increase? Better audiences to be served. More than seven out coursedeSign,production, and publicity, of ten adults interviewed -told the prestigi-' according to ITV Coordnator Ted Christen- ous, Commission on Non-Traditional Study sen. in 1973 that there was something they'd like 'Men and women in the trade have takena to know more 'about, or to do better. some harder look at their wares. You only needto 23 million American adults evidentlyarnnot scan the 37-page Summary Evaluation of able to cope, .with a train schedule. Then the Feeling Good Television Series by, Keith there are the swelling' thousands-National Mielke and James Vt1: Swinetieri_ to uncler- Center for Educational Statistics estimates stand._this point. This analysis found that a 24 per cent rise betweenr1974 and 1904 lining up for part-time- post- secondary learn- Peeling Good had reached abouta -million , adults a week. Even so, there still did not(, seem 'to be a formula for "producing effe So the marketplace translates into mil- tive health education .material to reacha lions of people. And it is growing. The elec- general audience of voluntary viewers," tronic gear. to reach them is there -TV- sets Increasingly the educational broadcaster are fixtures in 68.5 million homes, and there has understood that probing researchmust are radios in 99 per cent of residences (the be done, before and after fact. Increds- average: four sets a hoine):- In sum, the ingly he has recognized thatthat staff members educational broadcaster's toolswere Sharper, will have to hustle more to stepup ITV andthetechniquesbetter.Ifanything, uses In-school, awareness at home, and the mei, and women in the tradewere more understandingintheplaceswherebig adept. This is fortunate, because the untilled money decisions are made. acreage before them stretches for miles.

1 Section

Articles Satellite Technology:. Satellites and PublicService

by John Witherspoon Arnong the major organizations con- We don't want a distant, broodingpolice cerned withtelecommunication presence looking over our shoulders. and the public service, the Public And so, while acknowledging the need for Service Satellite Consortium is the involvement by state and federal agencies, new kid on the block. The purpose of this we put our faith, our votes and our article is to describe why PSSC is here, money and in local institutions of public service.One how the neighborhood is changing. result is that there isno such thing as (for Nominally the "Consortium is an out- example) the American Education System. growth of the first year of healthcare and Most of us' believe' that this decentralized education experiments whichwere con- apprbachfor all of its redundancies, ducted with the use of NASA's ATS-6 satel- pre- sumed inefficiencies, uneven quality,and lite. When the satellite vies dispatchedto regional mismatchesis the bestcourse for India for its second year of service,those our society. domestic users who had been experiment- Along with the ,strengtha of thisarrange- ing with this remarkable.spacecraft were, ment, however, there is a dilemma. Theadif- left ,wifh no way to apply what they had fusion -of control makes it difficultto make learned. With the encouragement of theDe- decisions which cross jurisdictional boun- partment of Health, Education and Welfare, daries. Among such decisionsare many re- the White House Of of Telecommunica- :lated .to'. telecommunication. For tions Policy, and the National Aeronautics example, sometelecommunicationdecisions(e.g._ and Space Administration, the Consortium _those dealing with instructional television) was formed. require the consensus of a criticalmass of More fundamentally however,. the first users to achieve cost effectiveness; ATS-6 experimenti were not others a reason bin, requireagreementoncurriculumcontent, a rallying point. The reasons for the formation of PSSC existed before ATS-6was launched. These reasonsare related to the nature of,public service: and thepotentials of modem telecommunicationstechnology, and not to any particular satellite.

Public Service Management: The Benevolent Dilemma Inthe. United States most major public services, including education, healthcare, library services, and even public .safety,are fundamentally local. We believeinthe local schopl district, the separateuniversity, the individual medical practice, thecom- munity hospital and lqcal police and fire services. True, some state and federal standards and controls apply toaspects of these services, and their practitioners sometimes feel burdened by distantbureaucracies. But basic management beginsat home, and the distant bureaucracy is resentedas a devia- tion from fundamental principles.We don't want Big Brother teaching our children. We want our 'doctor to know usas individuals. John Witherspoon' 1i5 le or agreement on what constitutes delivery of Theoncentratipn on Requirements service, or agreement on technical stand- The orientationof "PSSCisnot toward ardstobe applied,_ or the machinery -of particular technologies but. toward the re- accreditation, or the fair apportionment of quireinents of public service. These are not costs, or any of a multiplicity of issues. technical requirements, but mission require- We're all familiar with the feeling that a mentsservice requirementsto which tele- given idea is "a good one, but the budget communication technology may provide a can't stand it." How often is it not a matter response. Thus the technology becomes part of dollars but of feasibility, related less to of a reasoned answer, not the purpose for the amount of money in the budget than to the question. the realities of making and executing the The PSSC concentration On requirements decision? One must ask.. himself whether _is centered in a multi-year, multi-part proj- he really has jurisdiction over the area to ect which was launched at the end of 1976. be affected by his decision. With the _dif- The overall project title is "Public Service fusion of authority in much of American and -Telecommunication: Status,Require- public service, it would be very surprising ments,, Prospects." The idea is to build a if many. administrators spent much time on continuing, up-to-date information base on the implications of modern telecommunica- the. requirements of public service that are . tion: In the field of education, for example, related to communication, together with data nobody fromthelocalsuperintendent ,.on the present status of public service' tele- through the chief state school officer to the communication applications and :prospects , Secretary of HEW has enough of a voice to for matching service requirements and tech- Make a basic decision regarding the appli- nology that is or will be available. cation of modern- telecommunication. In making these examinations, there are And thus we arrive at one of the core no foregone conclusions about the nature of tasks of the Public Service Satellite Con- the communication service to be rendered. sortium: aggregation. Many people had their first exposure to satellite technology via, coverage of moon --- The Heart of the Matter: Aggregation landings or the Olympics, and thus tele- By and large, American public services have vision is a natural assumption when satel- not been.servejl very imaginatively by corn-' lites are -discussed. But it- Is crucial to ex- munication carriers and suppliers. From the amine service requirements carefully, with standpoint of, someone in the communication one eye on the bank balance. Video is at- busineSs, education or health care orli- tractive, but it can be prodigiously expen- braries or many other services are disag- sive, while some forms of data`transmission gregated mar -ets.The- may be are both very useful and very inexpensive. huge, but ther 's no handle on it Audio services are sometimes assumed to be One of the prime purposes of the. Public second choices, but audio is simple, inex- Service Salellilel, Consortium is to act as a pensive, marvelously flexible, and perfectly mechanism for argregation. PSSC works at capable of coiilmunicating most of the in- aggregation on f ur fronts: formation required in most situations.. The 1.Aggregatinrequirements, so that max- same audio-quality channel can also convey imum use may be made of facilities and hard copy very efficiently_. software,enhancingthefeasibilityof PSSC, then, does not start with services otheiwise marginal activities and mini- to be offered for sale, but rather with public mizing costs for all. service requirements to be met. It then at- tempts to respond by arranging services 2. Aggregating resourcess-'13, that costs carefully designed to meet the requirements are spread over a broad base. effectively and at minimum cost. 3. Making possible bulk arrangement's-,for facilities, so thatfirstcosts are minr, mized. The ContinuingContinuing Education NOork The first PSSC inquiries about ee 4.Providing a milieu for cooperative ag- rrient§ of members yielded a basic fact: an

gregated decision making which would overwhelming number of them 4,6Fe -con- , not be feasible for individual adminis- cerned with aspects of coplinuing education, trators. and they aie\interested in the potential of satellite communication- in helping to satisfy insensitive: that is, any point within the continuingweducation requirements. In mid- "view" of the satellite is fpieAfticalpur- 1976, PSSC announced a major planning ef- poses equally distant from any other such fort toward a Continuing Education Net- point. One concrete result is that trans- work, directed initiallyto the continuing atlantic telephone rates have decreased education of such professionalgroups as substantially since the advent of satellite physicians, oilier healthcare professionals, service. teachers, engineers and lawyers. Although the concept isreferred to as 2.Satellite systemsare-' flexible. New "The Continuing Education Network," in points can be added to a network byin- fact the final result is likely to bea varied stalling an earth station, without regardto set of distribution arrangements, with PSSC the difficulties of distance andterrain acting as broker to bring together those who which plague the installation of terrestrial wish to provide educational services and systems. This is particularly important to those who have the means of distribution. the delivery of services, toremote rural As of early 1977, the Consortium ispre- areas. New systems,making useof paring an overlay of Service possibilities and smaller/simpler earth stations, willmake distribution possibilities, in order to deter- this9haracteristic even more attractive. mine both technical and economic ST Satellitesystems- tendto'offer- in- creased -chdees in the kinds .of services The interest of the Consortium-in confirm- available. Broadly speaking, satellitecar- ing education is by no_melits limited to the riers. offer "bandwidth in bulk," while professions. Marty professionalgroups have terrestrial carriers offer individualserv- urgent _requirements, however, and these ices. groups are supported. by a national infra- -- structureofprofessional socielies, which 4. Soe needed services are simply not makes' broad-scale education services not available from terrestrial carriers. Forex-s, only acceptable but customary_, As the. Con- ample, National Public Radio, mostmem- tinning -Education Network idea matures; bers of which are FM stations, cannot PSSC' anticipates that other _sets ofusers now deliver a program which technically (will make use of the system: matches the quality of the local stations' transmitters. The planned NPR satellite The Prior Question: networkwilldeliverfourfull-miality Why Satellites? 'channels simultaneously. The PSSC members are concerned about . meeting service requirements. For all the .5. ,Present satellite technology provides gee-whiz and glamor-surrounding the devel- some intriguing glimpses of promising opment of, space technology, the core ques- future_ service, Emergency medicalserv- tions involve getting the right messages to ices such as mobile ambulance communi- the right places at the right price, and not cation, reliable 'communication instantly whether the nearest relay-station ison top of available at disaster,sites, locatorsystems the local bank or in geosynchronous orbit. for 'dangerous cargoes, sensorsto monitor Why then should social servicegroups forth water supplies or forest fireconditions a Public Service Satellite Consortium? and ,many other valuable ideasare im- Satellite ,:communicationshasseveral mediately in prospect. characteri`Stics that make itvery attractive PSSC and the Public Broadcasting to professionals in health care, education, Interconnection System libraryservice, public safetyand otherSome of the reasons- above impelled the major services: leaderShip of public radio and televisionto These include: develop a new national satellite-based interconnection system. For television the system 1.For many classes of service,- satellitewill provide much more programming flexi- technology should be less expensive thanbility at approximately thesame cost, with thejerrestrial alternatives. For all their a likely increase in technical quality. For space -age, sophisticatipn, satellite, splerna radio, the system's benefits will be sub- are operationally simple. They have rela- stantially more dramatic., As noted, above, tiVely few coTponents. They are distance- full FM quality will be availablein the 11711 national system for tre first time. The sys- of NASA and the Canadian Department of tem will have four channels which, for Communication. SECA has conducted ex- example, might carry a stereo concert, alter- periments with program' delivery and origi, nate live coverage of a public event and -nation over a wide area of the southeastern suhcarrier service for the blind, simultan, :quadrant of the United States. eously. Most of the experimentation to date has Earth stations in this unique system will been conducted using the ATS (Applications be owned by the respective radio and tele- Technology Satellite) series developed and vision stations. Satellite servich will be pro- operated by NASA. The first in the series, vided via Western Union's WESTAR system. ATS-1, was launched a decade ago with a As envisioned for 'completion at the turn design life of less than two years. It is still of the decade, this system relies on the larg- working,- providing voice and narrow-band est network of earth stations in the world. dataservices from aposition over the Properly used, such a system could greatly equator, .roughly at the longitude of Hawaii. broaden and deepen the service rendered by Itscompanion. ATS-3, offers comparable public broadcasting stations to their com- service from a position farther east. Between munities. Programming offered via the con- them, they cover most of the Padific Basin velitional transmitter will continue to be the and the Americas. Video expeHmentation- is most obvious, easily recognizable part of a Made possible by- ATS-.6, the satellite which' . station's work, but specialized services of first served Appalachia, the Rocky Mountain many kinds will be possible simultaneously. Statesand Alaska; then was shiftedto These"services might be delivered to people servethelargeyear-long experimentin at home` by cable, or by a variety of means India; and is Maw onsstation at 140 degrees such institutions as schools and univer- west longitude for more domestic experi: sities,hospitalg and clinics, industrial plants ments. and offices, both governmental and private. The NASA, satellites have advanced the The Public Service Satellite Consortium state of-the art by placing increasingly higher has a speFial interest in these non-broadcast power and technical flexibility in the satel- services, which should enormously enhance lite, with the result that the earth stations the 'station's service while broadening its can be simple, smaller, more reliable and base of support. The PSSC hopes to evolve much less expensive. The implication is that effectiveworking= arrangementsforthe future. systems will have earth stationson or maximum public service use of this impor, near. the user's premises, thus increasing tant resource now that FCC has approved flexibility and decreasing cost. AS satellites' the lead application.' become larger and more sophisticated, com- At ,the same time, the Consortium will munication systems become simpler. ATS-6 . continuetoexploretheotheravailable receive-only earth stations originally,: cost-- avenues to meet the requirements whichinstalled less than :$5,000. Their replace- emerge. merit cost today would be about $10,000. CTS receive-only stationsare somewhat Getting Started: Experiments more expensiveabout $16,000but the and Demonstrations comparison with"conventional" receive- Several potential users of satellite service only stations ($75,000- $150,000) is still very_ have begun by using experimental satellites favorable. made available by NASA, often with project Earth stations for audio services on ATS- support from HEW. 1 and ATS-3 are simpler still, costing in The experimenter most closely associated hundreds rather than thousands of dollars with- public. broadcasting ,isSECA, the and based essentially on a modified ,taxicab Southern Educational Communications As- radioWith a fancy little corkscrew antenna. sociation, which began activereiperimenta- ATS-1 and ATS-3 are still in constant use. Bon in 1977 using the Caunications A, recent example is the series of inter- TeOhriology Satellite (CTS), a joint venture national seminars conducted by the National Education Association (NEA) with teachers from Appalachia, Alaska and the Pacific 1The (PSSC is now collaborating with PISA (The Public Interest Satellite Association) inIslands. In order to cover enough of the Investigating future access of the public broad-globe, both ATS-1 and ATS-3 were used, cast satellite system for nonbroadcast use. with the linkage 'between them.accomplished 118 by PSSC at its technical center in Denver. preliminary planning meeting. Detailed fol- NEA's development of the projectwas as- low-up activities were launchedsoon there- sisted by the satellite project of the Appala- after, with PSSC conspicuously involved. chianRegionalCommission,a -.veteran In December 1976, the Hughes Aircraft experimenter which has important plans for Company. which piRryered the development continuedexperimentationfollowedby ofsatellitecommunications, proposed to regular service to the Appalachian region. NASA a new satellite designed for theera Other major experimentcrs have included of the space shuttle (Syncorn IV. scheduledle the Veterans Administration, whichis devel- for completion and launch by 1980). This oping satellite-based hospital communica- spacecraft. possible forerunner ofa new, tions; the State of Alaska and the Alaska larger, more powerful, more flexiblegenera: Area Native Health Service, which experi- tion, would have its communicationscapac- mented 'with service toclinics in remote ity oriented to public service requirements.' bush villages and with service to Alaska education; the Federation of Rocky Moun- How About The PSSC Satellite? tain States, which conducteda complex of From the earliest days of the Consortium, activities in education and health during the there has been a continuingstream of ques- first year of ATS-6; anda number of cur- tions regarding the organization's roleas the rent experiments primarily involvingserv- prospective operator of a communication ices to health care and education. satellite 'system. But the PSSC staff and Of emerging importance isa series of board talk more about requirements than short-termdemonstrationsinvolvingthe about given systems. CTS satellite in professional meetings,spe- The Consortium isdevoted to assuring cial events, and conferences whichcan be that practical, realistic publicservice re- enhanced by the use of the satelliteand_ quirements are met. That goal might be associatedsmall,portableearthstation reached by any ofa number of organiza- equipment. tional alternativevThe goal is theimportant The Public Service Satellite Consortium thing. At least during this early and rather provides technical and planningassistance yeastyperiod, the proper postute of the to experimenters. Through the operation of Consortium is to keep its eye on require- the Technical Center in Denver, PSSCalso ments and keep its powder dry. provides direct satelliteaccess. Of prime The Question of Software importance to the Consortium, however, is PSSC is ,not a programmingagency. is what happens after the experiment.Is the concerned with ways andmeans, not with proposed service technically, economically, the form or substance of the publicservice, aed institutionally feasible? Ifnot and if messages to be communicated. Nevertheless, its value seems to warrant its further de- itis clear that contentsoftware,course- velopmenthow .can it become feasible? ware, programming, as you an Shaping Technology to Suit Requirements important part of the puzzle. It clee-i7not By and large, public serviceorganizations require a master economist to recognize that have had to content themselves with theuse Sesame Street, with high productioncosts -Of technology developed forother, perhaps but modest expendituresper child served, Is more general purposes, or with products de- not to be Compared witha specialized pres- veloped in accordance with theentrepre- entation for a few thousandusers. It does neur's view of "the education market"nr little good to arrange simple,low-cost trans- "the medical market." Now thereis increas- mission if that which is to be transmitted ing recognition that the public servicecom- cannot be made cost effective. munity itself must be involvedup front. The implication is that programmingmust In Autumn of 1976, and follow-upsession meet its objectives within an appropriate in the winter of 1977, NASA's Goddard economic framework. To invest $100,©00 in Space Flight Center begana serious inquiry a production that is designed for five 'thou- into the prospects for a satellitesystem designed around the- requirements of public 2 Itappears likely that a high-powered satel- service. A number of representativesfrom lite, SYNCOM IV, will be launched viaa space health care, education, public safety,state shuttle in 1979-80. Detailson the number of transponders andus_e have not yet been deter- government and others were involved ina mined. sand people may be feasible, but at the very groups of people with a wide -variety of least the question must be considered care-communication forms. Sul the potential of fully. this prospect will not be realized unless Heretofore, many of us in telecommunica- imaginative, effective material can be pro- tions have concentrated on ways to deliverduced at a price that suits the individual service to more and more people. One effect situation. of our success is that increasing numbers ofAnd In Conclusion audience members justify the investment of The Public Service Satellite Consortium was more production money. A set of intercon- developed at the intersection of some diffi-, nected public television stations, reaching cult problems and some very engagingpros- 80 per cent of the American peoPle, make itpects. What is sought is not a panacea but possible to spend, wisely and economically, a flexible, economical,, feasible set of an- quite-a large sum on one program. One effect swers to some thoroughly practicalif often of a broadcast-oriented system, however, isbafflingquestions. A cooperative approach that it's not really cost-effective to serveto modern telecommunication, shows im- very small groups at all. mense promise. The Public Service Satellite Satellite communicationswill make itConsortium has a way to get from here to practical to reach relatively small, dispersed there. Open Learning: The Case ofa Marriage by Dr:Bernard Luskin he demands an education are Chang- Orangeespecially its own 88 square-mile, ing and expanding. More, than half six-city ariaincrease at such a ,rate that of the students in post-secondary within decade those at Coast envisaged institutions are part-time; the num- the need for fresh approaches for expanded ber of adult students continues to increase; educational Opportunities. In 1974, .Chancel- and the traditional° notion that education lor-Norrnan E. Watson' of the Coast Com- ends at 18, or 21, is no more This is a time munity College District stated, "We now of continuing educationof lifelong learn- have the opportunity of converting every ing. household- a classroom. We have the How can we provide access to education opportunity of implementing the learning for those who need and want it? As we peel society by utilizing twentieth century tech- away the stereotypes and 'adopt a broader nology.Itis incumbent upon, ustoact' perspeptive,one answer becomes clear: decisively." . learning systems which include TV. Watson's observations were prompted by Television's 'contributiOn to higher educa- research-showing that the average working tion, and to education-as a whole, has yet to [(dull now enjoys 50 .hours per week 'for., be fully realized, Both successes and failnres leisure and enrichment. Twenty-two hours have heen reported. But severatrecent posi- of this leisure ,time are spent watching tele- tive experiences point to the future pros- Ninety-six per cent of all American peels of 'television, in concert- with educa- homes are% now equipped with a total of .121 tional institutions, as an important learning million television sets. There is. one tele- - tool-for the late seventies and beyond. vision for every two citizens, and the set is turnedn in an average. American house- Coastline: Backgravmd hold for ,six hours ,and ;16 minutes each' On February 25,- 1978, after more than a year day. Combining these facts With research of intensive study, the Board of Trustees of showing success in learning, the great poten-- the Coast Community College District established Coastline Community College, a college beyond walls. Coastline opened in the

Fall of 1976 with 20,000 students. , The purpose of Coastline Community Col-' lege is to take oducational programs into the communities in new ways. The true campus of Coastline Community College it the community -itself. Currently, Coastline operates through 106 learning centers offering 1,250 classes this 'Spring in the Coast District's 88 square-mile service area encompassing six cities. More than 25 per cent of all Coast-. line. Community College sodents are enrolled in broadcast coursei for credit offered by the college over its Neon KOCE- TV. 't..., Behind this event stand two decades of changing conditions. in the Southern Cali- fornia region that Coastline serves. The Coast Community College District (Orange County, California), in the 1950s and19805, watchedthepopulation ,:of Dr. Bhard Luskin

,.'' - 12t fiat iarbroadcast iclitco-urses became Coastline: Operations clear. Coastline's televised coursesare a fraction In the Pall of 1072, the Coast GeoulninitY of its hundreds of offerings; thecollege is Cu l)istrict switch n1rin its new public committed to both new and traditionalap- television station,KOCE-TV_ Owed sod proaches to learning,It should be noted, operatic' by the districtTh. FOCE'sprimary however, that televisioncourses enroll 25 thrustIsinbroadcast courses forcredit. per cetit of Coastline's 20,000 students. Beginning in the Fall of 1072, 00 students 'These television-basedcourses have the en rolled in tvvo television courses, neither of potential of reaching large numbersof stu- which was -produced by the district.Since dents. As data presented later in ;thisreport that.tine Coast has produced eightcourses. 'will show, the courses offera vastly ex- As a resul t, telecourse enrollmentbas surged panded educational dimension;tend to at- conlin call y u Award. In the Springof 1993. tract new students into the college; 1.340 Crange County resident and s enrolled in provide a high visibility publicrelations three courses offered over television.Egy exposure for the college (since the number 1074, 5,000 stud eatswere en rolled in siX of casual viewers of coursesegmentsis courses, alld an additional 1,000 Orange vas thy greater than the actual course-takers). County residents enrolled in six coursesat ,S tations benefit from broadcastcourses several nearby colleges. EySpring1070, ton. They developan ardent following, televisionenollmen t in eight courses had create an enhanced local image, and swelled to over 8,000 students. have in the course takers, a sustaining andmotif I at the Poll of 1,e76,more thant 140 colleges voted audience. throughout the United Statesalso offered Let us takea closer look at how this Coast-prod uced courses. They includedpost- marriage of education and public broadcast- secondary institutions ia Ca liforniaFlorida, ingworks. Iowa, I Ilinois,Mississippi,South Carolina, 'Vert-writ and Maryland. Telecourse Design Courses produced by the Coast Districtto A. careful process is followed in selecting, date include Culture/ Anthropology,Intro: planning, designing and producing television duction toy Psychology, Yoga, Freehand courSes. Coast applies principles of sound Sketching I and IX, Sewing (with Fullerton College) instructional design, employing three full-. . UonteinpororyCalifornia Issues, time instructional designers and full-time end liorne Cordoning.. Presentlyin _produc, research and publications staff in the college, t ion are biology, horne.decorating, childde- arid six full-time producers at the velopment, and astronomy. station. Each course is produced by acourse team In addition, Coast is engaged incoopera- composed of an instructionardesigner, the t ive efforts vvith the City Colleges of Chicago academic adviser(s), publications and dis- andtheDallas community College District tributionspecialists who work with the in the design and production ofcovrses irr producer/director from the station. 'nlerdisc iplinary humanities find American Under the supervisor of the executive government- Further, vvork has beendone in producer for telecourses and the director of c incest void h the University of California at telecourse design, careful budgets and de- SanDiego, Little, Brown ,-and Company, tailed production schedulesare established McGraw-Hill, Inc., Kenclail/l-funtf nc., for all telecourses and for their individual -Vc/GL3H-1-11ostani, ICCF:3 (Los Angeles),and print and visUal components. Careful atten- IA/INIET plow Irorka in various_ cooperative tion is paid to a specially'developedprocess arrangements. For example, Coastpartici--which includes peer review, specialconsul- paled inthe development of materialsfor tants, advisory committees and pilot testing. the naticiuwide offering of Classic Theatre: This process assures that thecourse compo- Thellurnan itiesi rtDrone. TheAdorns nents (video tapes, study guide,- anthology bhrooicles and The Age of Uncertainty. or text) permit the student to meet all lesson 14 ore than 000 colleges, nationwide, have of objectives and answer all test itemsin the these courses to more than 100400 course test bank. implementation of all these students. Brpadcast courses both regionally activities assures oft-time production and and nationwide are a reality. completion and makes possible the design It is with this background in mind tlrtat the and production of severalcourses. simul Mine rience may be and taneously. 2 In summary. television courses include The district information services depart- print;i niltelevision components and meat provides mailing labels or computer- are designed in tors of student needs and addressed envelopes far all mailings, and objectives with highly qualified academic prepares preprinted quiz/examination cards advisers. Writers, producers and consultants. for all enrolled students. The instructional Telecourse Operations media centerprocesses -approximately The division of telecourse operations, under 280,000 copies of letters and instructional the Coastline ,dean of instruction, coordi- materiel for Telecourse Operationsduring a nates the offering of broadcast courses. The typical semester, The KOCE-TV staff assists in CoastlineCommunity CollegeTelecourse providing duplicates ofthetelevision Operations staff consists ofan expediter/ course cassette tapes for the media centers coordinator, a secretary, four student assist- of affiliated college libraries, librariesin the ants and two part-time clerk typists. community and businesses within the dis- Each telecourse has a learningmanager trict. They also provide public servicean- assigned as the instructor/facilitator for the nouncements regarding enrollment proce- course. In the spring of 1977, the Coastline dures and upcoming midterm andfinal ex- stiff included 19 learning managers serving amination sites and dates. the needs of television students (average of All learning managersforCoasttele- 2.50students). learning managers receive courses hold California Community College one hour-per week of time and pay for each credentials in the discipline relatedto the increment of 70 students up to a maximum telecourses they manage. Coastline Commu- of 700 in any course for any manager. Ac- nity College hires instructors from affiliated tual course maximums are established by colleges on an overload assignment basis,or the dean. part-time instructors on an hourlyassign- The responsibilitier. of telecourse learning ment basis. managers include the coordination of all the, In order to maintain regular contact with students during the semester, logisticsinadministeringacourse. The telecourse learning manager is also the students' con-learning managers comrnunicate withstu- tact from the beginning to the completion of dentsviamailingsandtelephone/office a course. He assigns course material and availability. Most telecourses utilizea test- administers examinations and grades. ing/prescriptive feedback system, which is coordinated through the district information Enrollment systems department. Students may enroll in televisioncourses in A unique variation is carried out incoop- a variety of ways, either through on-site eration with the McDonnell-Douglas Corpo- registration at the beginning of the semester ration in Huntington' Beach. Videocassette or through the Coastline Community Col- players have been placed in the lounges and lege's "registration by mail" procedure. Stu- cassettes have been made available.At dents are permitted to enroll in telecourses Douglas many studentstakebroadcast through the sixth week of the semester. courses during their lunch hoursviewing Telecourse Operations provides coordina- the programs either in-plantor at home, and tion and liaison assistance to the students participating in the remainder of thecourse and to the learning managers. through broadcast. A primary requirement for a properly ad- rninstered telecourse is good communication Coastline; Results with the stndent. There is ,a strong need to The Coast Community College Districtcon- acquaint the student with the workings of tinues to examine the profiles of students the telecourse, as -well as to assist, the learn- taking broadcast courses, Grants from the ing managers in their functionas instructors Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the of record. Tice Telecourse Operations De- National Endowment for the Humanities, in partment of Coastline Community College addition to continuing local research, have operates in the following manner to achieve made the compilation and study of valuable these objectives. data regarding telecourse students possible. Telecourse Operations works closely with Several preliminary trends are einerging. -the- district information services department Perhaps the most significant trend demon- (Data Processing), the instructional media strated by research to date is that theover- center and KOCE-7V. all goal of telecourses --access is being achieved. Thirty-five per cent of all tele-age of television students is 34; that nearly vision students are enrolled only in broad-50 per cent are employed full-time; and that cast courses. Conversely 65 per cent of thejust under 30 per cent are veterans receiving telecourse students arc enrolled ina class-benefits while going to school. room course. Student responses tell us that The ratio of nun to women varies greatly these are students who would otherwisenot and is tied to the nature of courses offered be taking any college-level classesatall.during a particular semester. In the Spring These data strongly suggest that televisionof 1974, 67 per cent of the telecourse stu- as an instructional medium is reaching a newdents were women. This figure was greatly constituency. Eighty per cent ofall tele-influenced by the 75 per cent female enroll- course students so far have completed fewerment in the popular Classic 'Theatre course than 39 units of college work. However,itoffered nationwide. That ratio was exactly should be noted that the courses offered byreversed in the fall of 1970 when a popular Coastline Community Collegeare lower-real-estate course was offered. Men corn- divisionand the data should be interpretedprised 67 per cent of thetotal telecourse in that light. enrollment in that semester. The percentage Schedules at home and work, transporta-of men among the 1,000 students taking the- lion, child care and various other limitations state course was nearly triple that of have restricted the ability ofmany of thesewomen. A composite of enrollment figures students to avail themselves of edticationalover the previous three years shows an opportunities they want and need. Tele-naverage of 53 per cent female enrollment in vision may provide these learners withac-all telecourses, with a continuing trend to- cess to education. ward more women students, While telecoursesareattracting ninny Profilesof students taking telecourses new students, they continue to serve the change depending on the type of course and district's "classroom" students. Among the the broadcast schedules. Courses scheduled 05 per cent of telecourse students whoare for viewing during the mid-afternoon attract concurrently enrolled in classroomcourses, more housewives, but evening. broadcasts the -prime factor in their television enroll- attract more persons employed outside the ment is availabiliti.. Ample broadcast sched- home. Interestingly, a great majority of all ules..and the fact that there is"never a studentsstudied watched leSsons which closed class," are features that appealto were aired between Monday and Thursday, campus-based students. Therefore, students pointing to these times as telecourse "prime who enroll in telecourses often doso con- time." currently with classes taken atone of the Each semester has brought evidence that district's three colleges. As timepasses, itis the use of television for college-level educa- predicted that taking a broadcastcourse will tion is both desirable and effective. Broad- become a routine asset in the schedules of cast courses seem especially attractive to full-time students at this institution. students who are older, married, responsible To assess why more than 6,000 students for dependents in their homes and/or work- took television courses during the spring ing full time, - semester of 1977, the district continued its While there are still much data to be gath- practice of surveying .the students them- ered, many questions to be answered and selves.Clearly the strong majority (overproblems to be solved, enough empirical 60 per cent) take these courses to help them evidence is at hand to show that Coast- reach a degreeobjective. An increasing CommunityCollegeDistrict'sCoastline number of students, though, listpersonal Comm:may College, through KOCE, has enrichment or profeisional advancementasbeen able to engage in broadeast education the objective. These percentagesvary frontsuccessfully. In addition Coast is making semester to semester based upon the typeseducation available to persons heretofore of courses offered. In the Spring of 1976,excluded, while at the same time providing with, the offering of. the ever-popular horti- broad-cultural and community affairs- infor- culture class The Home Gardener, the ratiomation through thestationta its constiju- of "personal enrichment" students to those ency. seeking credit was nearly even for total tele- A survey conducted in October 1576, course enrollment. which covered the. viewer population of Further statistics show that the average 1COCETV provided evidence of public in- wrest. f the top ten most popularpro- that by the lime a student has 'graduated grms, as selected by viewers, five were col- from high school that studenthas spent lege courses for credit, Tied for first plane, 15,000 hours watching televisionmust be with the David SUNS hiod Show,was Free- heeded. The fact that there bond Sketching. Other are more than courses appearing in 270 public television stations and2,500 two- the top ten were, Foods for the Modern and four- year collegesacross the nation handy, Adams Chronicles, Reid Dilute and demonstrates an enormous natural You 1, and As Mon Believes (Introduction network to of institutions who may participateactively psychology). in the use of broadcast While television courses for credit. is clearly the entertain- Wide use of quality broadcastcourses ment. medium of our lime, it has yet to be- looms as a major educational andcommuni- come a major educational medium, We cationstechnologybreakthrough. have, however, placed a scratch Marty on the sur- problems, of course,still exist.There is still face of ils potential in using television for a void of quality courses available. educational purposes. Through sixyears of experience with Nev partnerships between public tele- broadcast courses for credit, the CoastCom- vision stations and educational institutions munity College District has establiShed the are beginning to blossom. Broadcastcourses, efficacy of broadcast video cassette courses as a viable technology, and soon the component of a diversified educationalpro- videodisc;,willbe usedininstitutions gram in, its area. Coast, along With other nationwide, in colleges, in public libraries; in senior citizens centers institut ions throughout the nation, is actively and in homes involvedintheemerging dimensionof where the acquisition of knowledgefirst begins. broadcast courses as an aspect of ed.ucar tionalopportunityprovidingaccesstb Certainly, facts such as those indicatinglearning for individuals throughout life.

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125 Research Electric Companyandthe School Marketplace by Dr. Edward Palmer Designing instructional television to series. We were even surprised and gratified match the needs of the classroom a year later to find that the figure had risen is a kind of marketing problem. to more than a third of all schools. These The Electric Company, was de- figures are all the more remarkablebecause signed by people who grasped that fact but the country, and many schools withinthe rarely articulated it. The series was designed broadcast area were not equippedto take with its market of second- to fourth-grade advantage of it. students and teachers clearly in mind, but More detailed information in classroom its creation was not accompanied byex- viewing and penetrationcame out of these plicit use of marketing terminology. The RTI suvreys, which includedan initial sur- understanding was informal and intuitive. vey and a follow-up study during the second .' Today,inretrospect, we can employ season. marketing conceptstounderstand more Among their findings: clearly why The Electric Companysuc- ceeded as itdid, Our experience. with the Approximately two million pupilswere series leads us to believe that these factors viewing The Electric Company in school. would contribute to the success ofany in- This figure includes one out ofevery four structional television series. second and third graders in large cities. Within two months after it appearedin Early Developments October 1971, the serieswas being used The Electric Company was not originally de- by 23 per cent of elementary schoolsin signed with the classroom audience primer- the United States; in schools with full TV ilyfti mind. We felt that most target children, viewing capabilities, the number jumped world not be able to watch in school.Our to 45 per cent. first concern was to make the series suffi- ciently entertaining to attracta substantial home audience, and to havea convenient after-school broadcast schedule. We did construct the series carefullyto make it suitable for classrooms. As originally conceived, it was to consist of 130 half-hour programs, aired five daysa week. The programs were to be of convenient length for classroom use; they would also be frequent enough and long enoughto stand a good chance of stimulating real achievement. With a 130-program series, moreover, it would be possible through one replay to fill out the entire calendaryear, so that the programs would be continuously -available for viewing. But nothing in our planning had prepared us' for the remarkably high levels of school utilization that actually occurred. Wewere quite surprised when our firstsurvey, taken two months into the initial broadcastseason by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) showed that nearly a quarter of all schools in the nation were making some use of the Dr. Edward' Palmer 127 2 7" While 85 per centofthefirst-season head, of the camera trained on a real or teachers had "very favorable" opinions simulated classroom, lecture hall or labora- of The Electric Company, 87 per cent of tory. the second-season teachers had the same That approach to instructional television high opinion. encounteredenormousresistancefrom teachers. The reaction should not have been a Theteachers'opinionsbecame more surprising for the forms of television were favorable as they used the series. Forty- virtually identical to those of the classroom. three per cent of first-season teachers said The TV set was quite understandably seen that their opinion of the series was more by classroom teachers as competitiona favorable at the end of the school year threat to the survival and perpetuation of than it was when they first saw the pro- their role. gram. Of the second-season teachers, 48 per cent indicated increasingly favorable Instructional television has never achieved opinions. The series lost favor over time wide use and enthusiastic acceptance in among only seven per cent of first-season schools by fiat. It has to stand up to the test teachers, and only five per cent of second- of the school as a marketplace of various season teachers. sources and strategies for teaching. It must be perceived as a tool with sufficient payoff Dr. Sidney P. Marland, then U.S. Com- to warrant the school's and teacher's invest- missioner of Education, found the wide- ment of capital, time, energy. When com- spread use of The Electric Company to be pared with other alternatives, it must prove "truly one of the remarkable events in the to deliver the same effects more efficiently, history of instructional television." Survey or greater effects for the same investment results had established beyond any doubtor meet previously unmet needs at an af- that the success of this series during its first fordable additional cost, season was not merely the result of a nov- Television does have certain competitive elty effect. They had also established an edges. One of these is its ability to deliver important reason for that success -- Leacher pedagogicallysignificanteffectsthrough acceptance. forms not otherwise accessible to the class- Adoption of the series by schools was far room. It can serve as a window on the too rapid to have resulted from a bureau- world, thus providing for vicarious field cratic review process within schools and trips;it can employ film, animation, and school districts. In marketing terms, it was technical effects not otherwise available to the teacher as consumer who must have the teacher. been responsible for this early high rate of One reasonforthesurprisingly wide school use. The teachersthose whose votes classroonr-acceptance of The Electric Com- count mosthad taken a year to scrutinize pany is that it exploits these unique audio the series, and had voted their acceptance and visual techniquesand does so in the and approval. genuine service of instructional, purpose. The teachers' role in the marketing equa- This latter fact has won widespread teacher tion is especially interesting when one con- praise and has broken down many of the siders the history of instructional television. barriers that often stand between television and .the classroom. Teachers and Television After many years,- those involved in in- One of the features thought to be most strudtional television ,beve correctly reached promising about earlyinstructional tele- the conclusion that TV and the teacher vision was itsability to bring a master combine most effectively when TV does teacher into every classroom. During the what it does best and the teacher does like- fifties and sixties, television was used to wise. In this way, teachers can view tele-; imitate instructional situations as they had vision as a powerful, complementary re- existed prior to telPvision. source in the classroomnot as a threat, As Marshall McLuhan hasobserved, Because of the early strong performance every new communication medium has been of The Electric Company in the school used in its infancy to copy prior media, and market, we worked deliherately in subse- has come into its own through a gradual quent seasons -to enhance its usefulness to process of maturation. Infancy for instruc- schools. For example, we widened the range tional television was the era of the talking of achievement. by moving away from the earlier, almost exclusive emphasison letter- forms. Also fortunately, television has the by-letter blending, and by providinginstead inherent advantages of being non-threaten- a balancebetween,phonics and larger word ing and non-punitive. Each .morning in the units. We also gave more iehuenceto the typical class reading circleat best an insen- instruction by moving from.sirnplerto more sitive teaching-learning circumstanceslow- complex reading tasks over thecourse of reading children fail in the eyes of their each program, andwe p4Ablished teacher teachers and peers, but they cannot and do guides and other materials forclassroom not flunk The Electric Company. Television follow-up. viewing is one activity in which classmates Before the series had ever lam produced, are equally competent. we and our academic adVisors hadcome to The decision to follow the lead of Sesame a clear consensus on itstarget audience: Street in combining education withenter- it would be seven to ten-year-olds,with the tainment had risks as well as advantages. bull's eye of the targetgroup being second One potential ,pitfall was that the series graders in the I-Jotiom alf of their reading might be rejected by some teachersas being class. In actual fact, sool surveys carried too frivolous, too sparse in its educational out in the series' first and second seasons content. The first hard empirical evidence show the greatest a unt of use in second that this pitfall had been avoidedcame out grade, followed in order by the first, third of the teacher survey, done during the and fourth grades. series' us, as intended, the first season on the air. Eighty-fiveper cent series is used primarily for prevention of of the teachers using the series hadfavor- reading difficulties, but also for remediation. able overall opinions of the series; onlyone No marketing venture is completewithout per cent did not. The achievement testing taking into careful account the psychology data clearly supported themore favorable of the consumer, and this has beenas true impression. with The Electric Companyas with any To be sure, children can. and do learn product or commodity. In the to case at hand. read without the help of television,and two main categories ofconsumers had to be have been doing so fora very long time. considered: the teachers, and thechildren The chief potential advantages oftelevision themselves. Much of the two-year periodof lay in making the instruction efficient, pre-broadcast planning was devoted effec- to as- tive, and enjoyable, while freeing theteacher sessing factors that could affect teacher and to give more attention to individual children. child acceptance. I have mentionedalready I do not wish to leave the impression that in this regard the use of television'sunique we-at CTW deem The Electric Company the instruptional devicesthe length and fre- ultimate use of film and television technique quency of the programs, and the duration to advance beginning reading skills. The of the series. Other criticallyimportant fac- Electric Company is an outgrowth of tors were reading approach and production current tone. market circumstances; no matter how wellit accommodates itself to the combined home- Our original research suggestedandthe and-school viewing context, it is test of time has borne outthat the not the most best,that could be achieved under idealcon- effective and acceptable reading curriculum ditions-. For one thing, teacherS understand- would be a "cafeteria" of approaches, with ably lament that the series is not always primary emphasis on phonics anda sub- available at a time of day most convenient ordinated emphasis on sight-readingvocabu- totheir classroom schedules. For those lary. schools with proper equipment and facil- On the question of tone,one of the crucial ities, there is good news: the U.S. Office of challenges' was to avoid condescensionto- Education has purchased rights for schools ward the children, since the series was to to tape the series off the air and replayit at' be pitched especially towardchildren prone their convenience for a periodup to three to reading difficulty_.Clearly, the effective- years. ness of he series would be lessened ifit Teachers also wish that the series could se n as a show for slow-learning chil- be more responsible to individualdiffer- A second challenge was topresent ences in the existing achievement levels of reading/in a positive light. Fortunately,'hoth their pupils, or to their pupils' differentindi- of thes,e challenges could bemet through vidual rates of learning progress.But here the use( of television's popularentertainment too, the picture is by no means:all bleak. In- 129 fact, the situation is flinch better than we dents and the general public aboutthe had anticipated: our research has shown purposes and content of The Electric Com- that children at one reading level may be pany. Before the first season's premiere, a benefitingit an introductory level from a paperback book outliningthegoals and given segment, while c -' dren at other levels techniques of the program was mailed to areacquiringeither a elementary school teachers throughout the review. U.S. andahalf-hour special about The inally, Sst irneteacher Electric Company was aired on commercial there may he no corn actor television before the premiere on PBS. Also, possibility of correlating lessons newspapers, magazines and TV gave con- day-by-day with classrooi _struton,it siderable attention to the experiment during could be still more effective with ca : development stages. classroom coordination. Short of making The educational' world in general, and program segments in the form of single- instructional television in particular, have concept reading lessons available to teachers been largely ineffective in these areas of on demand for presentation to individual promotionand publicity.Federally sup- children, or to sets of children functioning ported programs in the past have received at about the same reading level, there is no very little promotion and under existing way to match the content of the program shortsighted government policiesare not with the content of the reading materials in likely to receive more. a classroom. The Workshop has, in fact, ex- On the other hand, promotion and pro- plored the possibility of assembling single- motability go hand in hand, and the very concept sequences of The Electric Compuny expensive production techniques that con- and making them available for school pur- tributed to the series' professional level of chase in film orvideocassetteform, and has technical and entertainment quality were an found no viable market at this time. Neither essential part of--, the promotability of The do schools now have the budgets to pur- Electric Company. My own years of testing ----, chase more than the least expensive of the children's reactions to film and television many supplementary forms of classroom fare have convinced me. that their interest materials made available by the Workshop andttentioa levels are affected quq-dia- to accompany and reinforce The Electric matiIly by the level of technical produc- Company.. tion q Ility. An inexpensive production, no The story of teacher and pupil acceptance matter h well planned m an educa- of the series would not be complete Without tional standp t, and no ma ter how well reference to other,. more intangible factors tailored to the classroom rketplace, that have helped it to command attention simply could not have commanded the at- and interest in the marketplace. Publicizing tention it was possible to attract with this that the series was being prodUced to help series. . . meet the critical need for imprOved reading Schramm, Lyle and Parker long ago ad- instruction was one important step. To this vanced the notion that television viewing end, CTW undertook an intensive nation- will make school work dull by comparison, wide effort to inform teachers, pArents, stu- and we have often had to respond to that \ belief in connection with Sesame Street and 1 Here once again, with the question1 of class- The Electric Company. My own feeling is room coordination, we are dealing with a condi- that these shows neither create false expec- on which, while important, does apt unduly tations for the pupils, nor present a compet- it the ability of the series to produce significant reading improvement. The reason lies itive threat to teachers. The programs are largely in the fact that so much ofeginning so removed in form and style from the class- reading consists either of associational learning room that they are contrasted rather than of learning to associate an arbitrarsystem compared. Neither teachers nor pupils ever of written symbols with an equally arbitrary set of speech soundsor of learning, o guess could expect the classroom to duplicate at the meaning of written units throu h con- their pace, humor or techniques. textual cues. The television content d es not The comparison that children are far more have to correrate with the clasireomeading likely to make is that between well-produced program to provide mastery over/the en rmous instructional television- and expensively and.. number of discrete- associations and .c riven- , tions that make up the arbitrary cyst m of professionally produced commercial televi written English. sion". An instructional series surely will 130 3c suffer in the ratings if it coiner across look- plement, but want to know interms they ing shabby or dull. can grasp just how, effective The teachers themselves deserve itreallyis. special There are two parts to theanswer: one has credit for finding ingeniousways to reverse to do with achievement-producing the situation we have been impact, describing so far, the other with extent of utilization,partic- and adjusting the marketplaceto the de- ularly in-school utilization. Both mands of the television series were as- and to the, sessed in the earlyyears of the series by broadcast schedule. We have encountered independent research organizations.Major teachers who have used only10, 15 or 20 studies of achievements produced minutes of the program in school a day or who use among viewing as contrasted with non-view- 20 minutes or a half-hour once or twice a ing children were carried out byEducational week or who follow othersuch patterns, Testing Service (ETS) of Princeton, and schools like Lincoln Heights New near Cin- jersey during each of the firsttwo seasons. cinnati that tape the series offthe air and ETS tested atotal of 8,303 children from make it available not just for 30 minutes but grades one through four,some in Youngs- continuously throughout theentire school town, Ohio, and some in Fresno, California, day. Many enterprisingteachers work out using a 123-item test battery systems for bringing together designed ex- two or more pressly to measureprogress in the 19 read- viewing classes when they havebut a single ing skills treated in the series., television set, or struggleto have an antenna The second type of research erected to help improve consisted of reception, partic- nationwide surveys of the numberof schools ularly in fringeareas and areas with no VHF using the series, the number of signal. Moreover, pupils regu- we have received any larly viewing it in schools,and the attitudes number of requests fromteachers and prin- and opinions of teachers cipalS for information toward it. These on the eftectiveness Purveys were carried out during each of the of the series that theycan use as " "ammuni- first two broadcast tion"in urging their superiors seasons jointly by Florida to make ,State University and ResearchTriangle In- equipment and space availablefor its use. stitute of North Carolina. These warm expressions ofsupport from Only the highlights of -these the grassroots consumer achievement are highly gratify- and survey studies will bereviewed here. ing and encouraging. However,they would Full technical reports be of little avail if the are available to any- series failed to meet' one interested in additionaldetail, both one further market test: to achievea favor- through the ERIC systemand in limited able cost-to-benefits ratio. The U.S. Govern- quantities, from Children's TelvisiortWork- ment clearly considers theseries a good shop. investment. Reflecting on the project, Terre The research design usedto evaluate the H. Bell, former U.S.Commissioner of Educa- tion, declared: "Children who achievement-producing mpact of theseries can scarcely is basically straightforward. ETSestablished talk are on a first-name basiswith the char- matched pairs of classrooms acters in such established TV on the basis of favorites as the average scores of thoseclassrooms on Sesame. Street and The ElectricCompany... These programs standardized reading tests, andthen ran, are two of the best things domly designated one classroom the Office of Education from each ever invested in." pair to view each day forsix months, and To .establish a soundcase in terms of the other to serve costs and benefits, it is as a non-viewing control. necessary to know Pretests and posttestswere given to all chil- two things in addition to thecost of the dreninthe series: the number who benefit, experiment,including both and the viewers and non- viewers. For the, second amount of benefit. We turnnow to a brief season of the experiment, conditions were review of data on the extent of The Electric so organized as to yield the followingfour Cornpony's reach and its educationalimpact. types of classrooms: (1)viewers of both years one and two; (2) viewers ofyear one Documenting the Effectiveness of who did not view The Electric Company year two: (3) non-viewers of year one who viewedyear two; and (4) One of the questions most frequently asked viewers_ of neitheryear one nor year two. about The Electric Company comes from Among the advantage's of thisdesign -is the those who have the general impression that opportunity to evaluate two it consecutive an effective and successful reading sup. years of viewing relative -tonon-viewing, and the opportunity to look at the extent to scores for all the children in the experiment, which gains found at the end of the first the gains made by non-viewers and the season fur viewers over non-viewers carried additional gains made by viewers. For 19 of over into the subsequent school year. the 19 sub-goal areas, the viewers made sig- Table I shows for season onefor each nificantly greater reading progress than the of the 10 readingsub-goals,the pretest non-viewers.

TABLE I The Electric Company: Viewer Gains

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 60 90 100

Vowel Combination

Consonant Digraphs

Controlled Vowels

Larger Spelling Pa

Sight Words

Final E

Double Consonants

Open Syllables

Punctuation

Context Vocab Context.Sentences

Sentence Questions

non-viewer additional gains Ipretestscores om gains (posttest) by viewers 132 Table If, based on findings by Educational those scoring in the lowest quarter,again Testing Service (ETS), detailsareas where using the national norms. viewing classes scored significantly higher Adefinitepatternfavoringviewers than non-viewing classes in Fresno, Cali- emerges in the 123-question test covering fornia and Youngstown, Ohio. Includedin the 19 curriculum areas included in theex- the second-grade study were "target"stu- perimentalseries'firstseason.Greatest,/ dents who saw the show regularly and gains were made by second graders who soured in the lower half according tona- were rated as poor readers, and by first- tional reading norms, and "non-target"stu- grade classes. All four grades showed some dents reading at or above grade level. Third progress as a result of viewing the show. and fourth grade "target" studentswere TABLE II How The Electric CompanyViewers Fared: Pattern of Achievement

dd.! Ono Grade Two: Grade Three: (;rode Four. (All 'rage!) TArgetNon.To rout Target' Nun Target Tutal TargetNon-1 Otget

Test and Subtes Matching Words II Blending Total 28 Consonants Vowels Consonant Blends

Chunking Total 28 Vowel CoMbinations 9 Consonant Digraphs Controlled Vowels, 4 Larger Spelling Patterns 5 Sight Words 4

Scanning Total Final E - Double Consonants

Open Syllables ,

Reading for Meaning Tote Morphemes a 0 Linear Blending. a a Syntactic Units a 0 Punctuation Context Total Context Vocabulary Context Sentences 9 Sentence Questions * Grand Total a Iaa111:11DEll a. The Second-season results largely After viewing The ri pony on firmed those for the first, with two interest- the system during the 7t 1 year, ing additions. Firstit was found that the nand graders tested veraged gains for two-year viewers over non-viewers. five months ahead viewing were not markedly greater than those for counterparts of the prom in Viecabu- one-year viewers over non-viewers. Thus lary skills and six months ad in reading the extent of the series' impact tends to comprehension. Third-gradescoreswere occur in a single season's viewing. Secondly, nearly as impressivefive months and three thesignificantadvantageforfirst-year months ahead, respectively, Second grade is viewers over non-viewers was found to be onsidered The Electric Company's primary -stillpresent onefull Year later (neither (Hence and is the level experts consider group had viewed in season two). The gains 'chit in heading off early reading prob- from one season viewing are not merely lems. By the school year 1974.75, the third short-term gains but hold up over a longer Year of the project, the first, second and term without any further viewing. third-grades were reading at or above national norms. The Lincoln Heights Story Teachers at the told us that, while Probably the most powerful example of the dren often have trouble learninga par- effectiveness of The Electric Company when ticular skill from a textbook or from the adapted through the use of an innovative kboard, they understand it immediately and flexible ITV system came to our atten- is demonstrated on The Electric tiro in 1972. In 1969, in the Lincoln Heights Company. Children's abilityto remember Ohio School District, one of the nation's ents from the series was described as larger all black communities, 75 per cent of uncanny; teachers related the frequent ex- the pupils were reading well below national perience of teaching a skill to students when reading achieveMent levels. Some were two they would recall having seena segment years behind their peers in other school from the series on that saute skill weeks districts. Today, with the help of The Elec- before. The school librarian -also reported tric Company, the district has reversed a thatcirculation and interestin reading downward curve in reading achievement books had increased, as at* effect of the among second- and third-grade students. series. In 1972, at the suggestion of WCET, Cin- Schools using The Electric Company can- cinnati's public television station, an eX- not necessarily expect an increment in the perimental closed-circuit videotape system tested reading levels of their pupils, It all was installed at the LincOln Heights Ele- depends on how they use it, mentary School. Since the system can be Some schools use The Electric Company accessed by teachers at any time, it offers to replace portions of their previously exist- them flexibility in fitting the reading series ing 'reading prograrns, keeping their aspira- into their classroom plans. tionsforthe endof-- the-yearreeding The six-channel videotape system, with achievement of their pupils constant. Others one channel devoted entirely to The Electric the series as an addition to their existing Companyris fed into 23-inch color monitors reading programs, and see it as an oppor- in each classroom. Six headsets are avail- tunitytoraise theirpupils'endof-year able in each room for special instruction. A reading performance, Anyone who expects central operator tapes a new The Electric The Electric Company to elevate the reading Company program off the air daily and re- level of children in this cannier must realize peats it throughout the school day. that control in this respeot is entirely in the A year after use began, second- and third- hands of the schools. grade children attained reading achievement If the Office of Ed scores surpassing those of their non-viewing most directly concerned badte dr peers of earlier school years. In 1974 new reading, wants an increment overall tests of the same pupils found that the effec- al reading pertorrnance tta result from tiveness of the videotape system and The ectric Company, it=nnust somehow see Electric Company had continued. In fact, in that schools themselves in that some instances, learning and retention were ion and take the necessary steps. As even stronger than expected, particularly tent as improvement in reading is forthe 1972-1973 second graders. edged to be, many'schcoIs are re- 134. I luctant to find the extra half-hour required de an important benchmarkagainst which each day to use the series to achieVe results to .gauge the effects of reruns in futureyears. over and above those gained from their An effective television approach to read- regular reading programs. ing now exists. Its responsivenessto the Fortunately, many schools do attempt to needs of the schools, its popularitywith use it to increase their pupils' over-all levels. teachers and pupils. and its instructional Indirect evidence of this showedup recently impact are all well-established, Its recordin in a report from the National Assessment of the annals of instructional televisionis un- Educational Progress INAEP),a private or- matched. Reading_ willnever in the fore- ganization funded by The Education com- seeable future be less ofa national priority, mission of the States to track theprogress will the schools have less need for help. of the nation's school children in various It is not something that, tackledonce, tends subject areas, including reading. Theyregu- to remain solved from that timeforward. larly test nine-year-olds, and recently noted' We must all ask ourselvesover the next few improved performance for thisgroup on sev- years what steps are to be taken to sustain eral reading indicators. Dr. Roger Farr of or surpass the record achieved and service Indiana University, one of six readingspe- provided by The Electric company.Will its cialists who evaluated the results of the market, the teachers and children,continue survey for the National Assessment. by- to be well-served? pothesiz 'dthat"after being exposed to Sesame Street and other good television shows,'cis are coming to school able to do more' REFERENCES The ional study is consistent with one taken Dail, y New York's State Education De-- &-Bogatz, GAE, Reading with television: partme, t,which reportedlast year that onevaluationof The Electric Company. third Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing Service, aders, both in New York City public 1973 (ERIC Document Reproduction Service schooland in other large city, schoolsys- No. ED 073 178). temsn the state, had registered "sub- et. al. Reading with television: a follow- stantit fly improved" reading achievement up evaluation -of TheElectric scar Company. Princeton, N.J.: Educational TestingService, Tht 1976 -1977 broadcastseason of 1974 (ERIC Document ReproductionService Elect is Companywas its last season of new No, ED 122 798). prod ction before going intoa period of at Bell, S., & Bogatz, G. A. Asummary of the major least years of repeats. The question findings from "Rending with television:an of hat happens next has not yet been evaluation of The Electric Company."Prince- taken up nor resolved. We, including all ton, N.Ji: Educational Testing Service,1973. those whia have supported The Electric Com-' Children's Television Workshop. CTW Research pony either directly or indirectly, have Bibliography. Unpublished manuscript.Chil- cre- dren's Television Workshop, 1976, ated an instructional televisionprogram that' was well-tailored and remarkablywell- ldren's Television Workshop. TheElectric" accepted in the school market. Its valueas Company. Nevi York: Children'sTelevision home entertainment issure to dip quickly Workshop, 1971. downward as it isshown in identicalform Children's Television Workshop.'Who watched season after season. The 'Electric Company. New York:Children's It is less clear what the effect of Television Workshop, 1972. (ERIC'Document re-runs Reproduction Service No. ED 074 438) will be in the school marketplace.Our own continuing promotional efforts, along with Gibbon, S. Y., Jr., Palmer, E. L., & Fowles;3. R. those of the stations, will help Sesome Street. The Electric Company,and i to offset acting. In J. B. Carlon & J, S. Chat! (Eds.), sagging enthusiasm to some extent,as will ard a literate society: a report fromthe the rights fox schools to tape theshows off Academy of Education. NewYorki the air for delayed replay. Hill, 1975.

To be certain about patterni and trends , E., & Liebert, R. j; The Ele,ptric in school utilization, weare undertaking in pally in-school utilization study: the 1971 This final season the third inour series of cheat and teachersurveys. New York: nationwide schoolwesurveys. This year's nildren's Television Workshop, 1972 (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No.ED 973 survey is particularly timely, forit will pro- -709). Horner, V. M. Who's learning from The Electric Palmer, E. L. Formative research in the produc- Company: 30 frequently asked questions from tion of television for children, In D. R. Olson teachers. Unpublished manuscript, Children's (Ed.),' Media and symbols: the forms of ex- Television Workshop, undated. pression,communicationandeducation. Llama R. J. The Electric Company in-school Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. utilizationstudy:the1972-73 school and Sproull, N. L., Ward, E. F., & Ward, M. D. Read- teacher surveys and trends since fall 1071. ing behaviors of young children who viewed New York; Children's Television Workshop, The Electric Company. New York: Children's 1973 (ERIC, Document Reproduction Service Television Workshop. 1970 (ERIC Document No, EIJ 094 775). Reproduction Service No. ED 122 815). litivestra.ent tit-If-for:the WiderAnswer by Robert Carlisle , hetiroe has c Qple,,C011Ce 111e CI onies, concerned ones could help standardize lines said, '31 of inqpiry. Then, persistent, intelligent dig- To talk of many thing; gingcould. begin. to 'produce the wiser Of cos ts,' and seta, and classroo gains answers that, those who vote on'ITV expen- ditures seem likely to demand withever- legislator r ngs.. greater intensity. In short, as these meii--of r cooterneol orl es," resitthaxy individuals concern saw ith.the days of complacency in or close to the I"TV siAe of public or was it blisful ,ignorance?have ended. hroadcaSting. Include -with them 0, Leooard The time has. carte to talk of what the Press, E*ecutive Director bf Yen, lucky Edu- citizenis really getting for his tax dollar cationalTelevision. In December 1 976 he spent on ITV. , It happen's that Virginia, through its Public 1 tiCrth the iiitestions posed by. the Legisla- Telecommunications Council (VPTC), has A. ture \ Ore getting sharpy. They're becoming become a proving ground, for the kind of more farriliar with the Eirogrums. analysis now takirrg shape. As a combined' bridge and insulator between the Common- Robert Fox, Associate Executive hirector of the Agency. for wealth's Department of Education and pub- InStructiokalTelevision lic TV's instructional side, it has set about (A1T), ',has seen thiscbange coming, too, AIT, lfiL Inds, has became visible. asking sometimes painful questions of itself That is 4nd of th6 'fVe PTV licensees in Virginia. long overdue. Out now top-level decision-. Its aim,' rather than mere harrassrnent, is to rnakers are looking more closelyat it_ build the most effective ITV that sophisti- in Fall' 1976, George L Hall, then Direc ter cated planning allow. Its procedures of lfte---V,i-tgirliaPublic Telecommunications merit attention hare; they could he's worthy Cbuncil, ournmarized-problern and solution: rnodel for other states equally concerned Legisiaters wim.controlinvestments in social about stepping up ITV's impact, services arebecoming much cannier inop- On Confining Qtricksilver plyin4gaccountability to thein-vestments One general queStion--haS_to be addressed they/make. TV is acliscrotp,identifiable before looking at what the council --in Vir- activity. and legislators, are beginningto calf outforveryspecificin formation to indicatewhat yields they've go tleu from the in vestoien The edUcational technologycommunity hasn'tbeenverycareful tocollectthose datenceded,VVe need to improve the tro onboth sides:thequestionsneed to sensible,and the answers need to'ho appro. priale. fq, Hall and others -- including AlT's E tiVe Director, Edwin-Cohen, end crw's Vice Tresident for licsearch, fir. Edward Palmer decided Lir 1076 to seek a coalman pursuit of remediee. Educational hroadcastors, they agreed, must sharpen up the questions they ask of themselves, questions d erived.-Iroot up-teatebusiness pra ctice, Verbups the Hobert Carlisle ginia does, asks, and thinks others mightWe must makes reasonable beginning. I'm ask The question is this: IOW analytical can unforgiving of those who wouldsay, "It's You get when itcomes to the intangibles of I ,too carriplicatedeven to begin." It'sex- education? ; trernely complicated, but we can begin, One can caliper some of education (and- ITV) same of the time-- -brit the stalwart Setting for Genesis investigator had better have a well-chiselled In Virginia, Book I on the development of set of objectives in front of him. He should ETV ended five years ago. Book II began alst be humanistic enough to recognize that with the arrival of George Hall in December not all of social man's civilizing acts can be 1972. captured between the markings of a slide Late the previous year, the existing ad- rule. visory council decided it had goneas far Restatingtheissue,can computer -era as it could on building a system of electronic questions be asked about the cost effective- instruction. Its members saw, however, that ness of education? All's Research Director further work would be needed. So they_ Saul Rockman 'saysno. "We've been asking asked the Legislature to reorder 'them .into them for years," he asserts, "and no one's a Virginia Public Telecommunications Coun- come up. with anything. Neither legislators cil, That would call for the writing ofa nor TV people are finding useful the infer- master plan to spell out its duties. rna tionthey'regettingonenrollments, George Hall came down in late 1072 to teachers' guides sold, requestA for_previews." devise that plan. It was not a wholly unique VPTC's George Hall tends toagree. He challenge; he had co-authoreda similar holds that "we haven't-been-.-able7o relate plan for Alaska. In Virginia, he was to have the cost to the effect," then adds thispre- wide latitude. He could keep the existing scription: capital facilities program going; he 'could All you can do is for re senohle set up a program for buying instructional men to sit services from the public TV licensees. Hear- down and decide what they believe to be-ings began in September 1973. efficient. There's no chemical test that I've ever been persuaded of. Virginia, it turned out, seemed to be five states in one, with one million school chil- Combine with this the perceptions ofa dren. The seven transmitters of the five PTV relative newcomer to PTV, Paul B. Firsten- licensees readied about two-thirds of the berg, who joined CTW in 1976 as executive state, At best, they would only reach 85 per vice president. After four years in Prince- tent, due in part to a U.S. government- ton's financial vice presidency, he came to mandated blackout in Bath and Highland CTW with the modern fiscal planner's out- Counties.' Forone, Richmond's elementary look and jargon. if analysis is to work, he schools were using the Lippencott reading had seen, you must "know precisely what programhence, very little ITV for them. objective you're trying to measure, and that In due course, Hall found a "shocking it lends itself to quantifiable analysis." He naivete" about the various costs in teaching had also arrived at a crucial conclusion: by TV. The schools "rarely asked"--about, say,the expenses entailed in using The Whether we in education tern people on.is Electric Company, or about relative charges something I don't think is measurable. But for TV sets, antenna systems, and otherre- in the end that's probably the guts of our ception. gear. mission. Thereafter, Ball wrote much of the two- volume Master State Plan for Public Tele- This is a view that George Hall of Vir-communications. Volume I was adopted ginia could have INrbalized, too. 'This does October 2,1973; Volume II, an April 2, 1974. imply, however,thatHall,for one, The Governor formally instituted the plan throws up his hands over the difficulties of in May 1974.,It went into effect that JulyI. quantifying education. He recognizes that VPTC=the Virginia Public Telecommunica- _the analyst will "have to set arbitrary meas- tions Councilwas launched. bierandhaye a degree of 'latitude." Yes, What at root level was, the rationale be- that task will be hard, Butand here be speaks for others of concern who work on 'The counties fall into part of the "National public TV's educatiOnal sidehe adds this:'-Radio Quiet Zone," site of a number of government communications installations. hind it? Richard L. Parker, GeneralManager of vvvPr, Harrisonburg, well antenna systems, and items suchas cas-. remembers: sette duplicates. Until recently stateregu- There was a greatconcern about the ability lations required that each schooldivision to survive on the part of the public/TVsta- spend one dollar a yearper child On TV tier's. unless there was Sonic change.Prior reception and playback equipment. Now to the council, each stationdepended on the expenditure is voluntary,A typical the support of individual schooldivisions. VPTC contract witha licensee covers' a That fluctuated wildly fromyear to year, fullyear's ITV tasks andruns to ten depending on the amount of funds 'ovailable pages, with ten more sheets of schedules. locally. The agreement withone of the Virginia With the advent of VPTC,the Russian licensees allocated $731,000this year, or 55 roulette became, for themost part, just 6 per cent of the gross revenues for theopera- bad memory. A new stabilityhad been or- tionainvolved, About 38per cent represents dered. Further, the statenow had a way of $130,000. in depreciation and$150,250 for getting the answers on ITVcost factors that "overhead and growth." increasingly it was going to need. Across the board, VPTC adds- 40cents for every $1 of station service to the schools. Formula and Procedure: A.Prologue That 40 per cent is fordepreciation and The VPTC_ will beempowered-to-enter into overhead. Hall believes thecouncil Must annual, or shorter term, contractualrela- pay those costs, dictated by business-world' tionships with public,non- cornrnercial tele- practice. communications entities and organizatiom Another sizeable iternitruns to almost for the purpose of obtainingfor one or more 20 per cent of the $2.5 million for allli- of the organs of Commonwealthgovernment censeescovers broadcast transmission of ..specified telecommunications-services, ITV. For one of the licensees involvedit capacities and products. (Thesemight in- meant 2,465 hours of air time in1976-77 clude such contractobleitems as broadcast (1,280 on one transmitter, 1,183on a sec- transmission time, videocassetteprograms, ond). The contract schedule hasan impor. firm materials, TV receiverrepairs, TV an- tent qualifien.The air time is to be-"used tennainstallations,testing end research for the transmission of specifiedprograms operations and electromagnetic-tape and . .. consistent with RSCPC recornmenda- duplication.)--Master State Plan,part I, 1, 17-lions approved. and adjusted bythe State Department of Education." Basically, five functionsdefine the cotm- That item "RSCPC" calls for cil. It contracts with the five an explana- PTV licensees tion. The initials stand for RegionalSchools for ITV services. Itmonitors those services, Contract Planning Committee. These- It works with the Department !cora- of Education. mitteesem perlicenseeare called It studies ITV activityand alternatives. It "RISKIPS." They were set rnulates up by the Master teleconimunicated education. Plan. Hall explains their makeupand role Attach of what VPTC doesis codified in the as follows. NasterTlares 195pagesexcept for a super- ordinate requirement: effectivehuman re- The ETV stations form thecommittee from ships throughouta chain that reaches each school division in the region.The com-,, from the suprnit level of theSecretary of rnittee puts down onpaper the services its Education to TV-served classroomsin all members wish to buyon contract front the cornen_of_the Commonwealth.At no point-station. The council then takesall those should one forget theimportance of these specifications and to the degreethat our hardly quantifiable humanconnectiens iri money will allow, we buy those services.. reviewing some of VPTC's major ITV work. So 'the It/SKIP is essentialto decision-mak- 1. As contractor with public TVstations: ing on ITV activity. However,"in too many cases," recalls flail, "footballcoaches and In the past, fiscal year, Virginiahad a total people with time to spare"were put on budget of some $4 million for electronic them. To cure _that, it has beensuggested education. Some $2.5 million went into that the regulolionsbeamended to provide contracts with the five licensees. Thebal- that members of eachBISKIP will be "rte. ance paid for TV sets for schools, master credited cturiculurn specialists." 7'o broaden the IIISKIPs' horizon, the DOE Services." That translates into one man's funnels in tothornperhaps onworking full time on helping school divi- ITVproductionsavailableelsewheresions overcome technical problems or on through en assistant supervisor of the DOE improving signal delivery to school rooms. Division of Telecommunications who sits For example, in Richmond at WCVE en- on the committee. gineer Hardy Sydner rides the range, re porting to the Director of Instruction: Ex- -Inpractice, -estimatesoftransmission hours for an entire year can be inexact. A plains Hall, "tviost schools de pot have technically qualified people on staff and are at licenseecould "give"thecouncil more hours than the contract called the 'mercy of -technical suppliers.- Sydner for.Last would try to Prevent that. He-also typifies year, in fact, VPTC received $42,000 more in an "ecumenical Spirit": if a school served . services than had been contracted for. Says 'Hall: by WCVE, wants try pick up ITV from Har- risonburg, then Sydner would put in an an- We s'hould try to be as accurate as we can tenna for that purpose.- "Our view," corn-. in making forecasts of hours needed. We rents Ball,"isthat a school should be don't know whether it'sa contribution or encouraged to use as mh.ny choices as there just inefficiency. We want to get rid of that, are physically available." particularly in production. A new, subtle wrinkle has been added to this contracting process. Originally, ETV Once a RISICIP's list of needs has been funds were appropriated by the Legislature completed, thesuperintendentofeach to VPTC. The council began to see that this school district in it has to review the spe-method did not build much commitment cifics and certify that he understands what's within DOE. So, the council "insisted" the being asked for. funds go to DOE; with the council remain- On of VPTC's contracts allocated $46,680 ing the e-negotiating and contracting -agency. for studio productionAcademic require- Net result: "a dramatic change in. the degree ments for this work would cane from DOE of attention_ and concern" at DOE. Hall and/or the BISKIP. In all, seven series were elaborates: to be produced by- the licensee-120 program units. Others could be acquired from The Legisiotur'e will hold the school system outside. For that the contracting station was to blame if programs are undeitaken with- allotted $19,609.. Two of the acquisitions: out proper objectivization or any evaluation. Sesame Street and The Electric Company. We can compel DOE to spend money Other amounts stipulated were for mobile and how they will spend it,but but as to ob product ions ($18,000), filth jectivization and evaluation, we can only production urge. ($1.1,000),and an itemlabelled"Design Seevices." -DOE must meet its obligations under our _Under this schedule, the public TV cor- contract. They can't pull back. The Legisla- poration was,oto get $163,817 for 20,000 man ture will hold us accountable for financial hours:-:-plusfacilities,pupplies, and serv- management, but it will hold DOE account- icesfor the "expert design, planning, ap- able for (academia -management, plication. evaluation, and execution of the 2.VPTC's n nionitoring the con- . .. programs to bepraduced, transmitted or distributed, and the printed support ele- tracts: ments...." "Before the council started work," says For illustration, at 1NVPTin Harrisonburg, . Hall, there was "no economic monitoring Edwin Kaufman -works full time as Instric- at all of the couple of million being put into HanelDirector.. He answerstoRichard, ITV each. year." That has changed. VPTC Parker, the General lvianager. Yet all of now monitors what the licensees do un- Kaufman's salary is covered by the design- der the contract. And council payments service payment from vTirc. An old adver- are tied to licensee performance reports. tising man, Hall describes Eaulcrnan as "our As the year starts, each licensee gets one- account executive" at wur. half of the total coming to it under the Another coriffitct increment for one of the contract. The balance is doled out in five licensees in Virginia allovOs $20,800 for 22 monthly payments. To get the monthly 2,080 man hours of so-called_ "Technical increment, the stations have to send VPTC a statement of activities by the 5th of the ultimate effects of 'contract paymentsto month. "If they don't," saysa VPTC staff, licensees. Here, George Hall is compromis- mber, "they don't get paid." ing, but hardly neutralized. He knows his These new procedures amountto a big council, lacking statutory authority in edu- change for the licensees, Richard Parkerof cation, cannot study impact on itsown. He Harrisonburg put this in perspective."Be. knows, too, there are other pathsup John Bunyan's hill: fore," he explained, "we hadno'obligation like this. Now the reporting obligationhas We think we have the right tosay to DOE stepped up tremendously. The SOP'sare at that the Governor's office cannot understand least a mild annoyance," In spiteof the the value of these investments unleSs DOE paper blizzard, however, the situationis shows us data on psychometricresults. better than the old days. Said Parker: Without these figures, we cannot makea cost benefit analysis. We are urging the DOE My budget planning, my ability to plan pro. to do this. The time could come whenwe grams and to support them, isfor easier would say to DOE that we are going to ad- under this situation than it was. Previously, vise the General Assembly to provideno .it was impossible to project into nextyear. funds for these contracts until this is done. You had no idea whether the individual school divisions would supportyou or not. As a practice, Hall prefers persuasion to compulsion. Hence, because there is.no bar 3. VPTC's work with the Department of against it, "we come in at any levelwe need Education: to, to ;get the' job done." That has meant One of the most critical links in Virginia's "workjng directly with" Board of Education ITV power grid involves the relationship memberswith itsformerpresident(to between VPTC and the DOE' Division of stimulateresearch],withanother board Telecommunication, In the Fall of 1976, member (on thevideocassette study, see there seemed to be relaxedcommence be- belo,M; and also with the StateSuperintend- tween the two. Luckily, both havespace in ent and his Director of Research. Richmond's Ninth Street. Office Building; Hall has even carried hisconcern for this eases contact and reduces we-they more thorough research to Virginia's Secre- habits. tary of Education, Robert Ramsey. Said Hall of Ramsey's interest: "He is doing what he VPTC's main DOE contact is Mrs.Mary can to induce responsible, sensible behavior . Elizabeth Dalton, Supervisor of theDiyi- in the education community with regardto skin and onetime school supervisor and ITV these investments." coordinator in Hopewell. Mrs. Dalton di- As one example, there, is the matter of vides the DOE -VPTC workloadthis way: CTW's extensive research on The Electric Our responsibility is for ITV, forprograms Company. George Hall has seena decided broadcast,, for evaluation of thetotal field. reluctance within DOE to accept this out- of ITV. We relate to the council onlyin that of-state research and its-Maling to educa- itnegotiatesthe contracts withthe five tion in Virginia. With that in the -back- entities and monitors them to makesure we ground; he commented:' get the services for which we pay. Program I would like to seeand so would the for; content,production,acquisitionthey're mer board presidentthe State board and the responsibility of DOE. DOE look at the evidence on that series, Both council and DOE have lines to the Simply to put on blinders about itis not a licensees. Mrs. Dalton's points ofcontact: satisfactory response. We're investing four the five assistant supervisors from herstaff, million in tax dollars on ITV. I think it'sa one assigned to each station, The individual reasonable thing that there should besome works with the licensee's Directorof In- performance monitoring, struction, and sitsas a member of the VPTC also thought that DOE ought to RISKIP for that station. get out of the ITV production business. "Itwas The interface between council and DOE economically hurtful to the stations," Hall has another facet. It reflects part of the de- explained, "and it wasn't cost-effective for partnient's broad mandates in education the state to do it." So, VPTC now buyspro- in this context, to be concerned about the duction through its licensee contracts; what series will be produced is decided by DOE asked what it would cost to replace the and/or RISKIPS. entire open-circuit ITV apparatus with local 4. VPTC's study of ITV activity: videocassette use. As the figures -eventually showed, Virginia's airborne ITV has been Council studies have been tied to its moni- a gold bargain. toring function. They have also dealt with Two 'questions were, to be studied. One growth lines and new directions for in- had to do with expanding cassette service. structional TV. resat all schools,incapable of pidkingup As a start, George Hall knows they have broadcast ITV. The second speculated on to count sets and ITV paraphernalia, even erving all the schools with cassettes, i.e., though, he adds, "I'm tired of that berig hutting down all broadcasts. (The council the only area for questioning." Back in id not add -inthe costs of equipping 1973 VPTC had found one set in use far ch\aols with VTRs.) 100 pupils, and one cassette player for To pay, for a Mixed Broadcast & Video- 600; it wishes the ratios were 1:25 and pe system reaching the 15 per cent of the 1;100. The council can also study othee,, unable to get ITV, the council esti- aspects: re ted a sustained annual cost of $3,787,000. Working from its sheet showing unit For Videotape-Only, distinct problems of costs at each of the PTV stations,it mass would be faced. One item: an elemen- could do comparisons, with the aim of tary-school"package"ofcassettetapes raising efficiency. would cover 42 feet of shelf and weigh MO' pounds. Once the 'transfer to cassette-only Every three years, the council analyzes had been Made, VPTC figured- it would run "general circulation," or use, of ITV over $10 million a year to keep the system series. This supplements annual studies going statewide. -done by each station. These data can help the council decide "how few sys- VpiTc as a catalyst in educational tele- tems can use a` series and have it be communications: cost-effective." 'It is one area where, ac- George. Hall put 1:his function into Clear cording to Hall, "we're going to insist terms. "Our job is to get things to hap- on some improvement." pen," he said, "not simply to scold people Jar errors. We can't get into the .business Results of these studies filter back to of- assessing blame. We are to stimulate. the RISKIPS----we want them to make appropriate activity." Some examples: decisions off data, not off raw erno, tions," explains Hall. VPTC actively supports the use of its dollars to help the stations provide al.: Recently a teacher survey sought to balanced broadcast service of-publicas find out whether teachers have "easy well as instructional programming. The access'" to different items of equipment. council director believes that "if a sta- VPTC actually knows Which schools tion develops its public programming have what equipment, so this survey identity, the School service also grows has been concerned with teachers' per- and expands." ceptions. Said Hall: "One who doesn't thi she has the equipment for all ie Hall has long been concerned about pr cal purposes doesn't have it." "taking ITV to the public." Likemany, he has campaigned to initiate an Aware- In another respect, some VPTC. staff ness Campaign for ITV. Beyond simply members have become convinced that taking the message to superintendents VPTC "really needs to"--lOok'into the and the "power structure,", Hall wants question of how long it takes to pro- to get "parents to reinforce the demand duce programs. It's a large gray area for technology in the schools." now." On its own-turf, the council does what. -RAecting the council's interest in the dif- it can to assure that the "influential ferent ways of getting ITV's work donei superinteftclents" are inVolved and that there was. its late-1975 analysis of "Ahern ;- they know what the potential of ITV tine Instructional. Television Delivery lviethl is. VPTC tries to work with adminis- ods." A Board of Education member hAd' trators such 'as the ono. whowants to be noticed. "If you give hiri attention,'" provide the managementconne, so Om says Hall. "he's- likely to do you great DOE, the local schools, the service. But if you try to dispute station NOM, or ig-, the production peopleare brought into nore him, whew!" proper relationship with each other. VPTC hopes to raise general efficiency Because VPTC does not directlymanage by setting up an "informationsystem licensee activity, it is its for decision-making." Comments director's hope that Hall: "we should be objective enoughto see "We should not make the decisionsour- breakdowns in the process." selves. But when we see one that's Is a state council the onlyformula? eb- poor, we feel we have the right to blow viously not. This the whistle." management functibircan be'embodiedelsewhere, just as long as the On the technical side, thecouncil has entity has enough weightto get, needed an- been trying to move the schoolsto- swers and to "see that all decision /Points ward havingtheir own individually are operative." wired systems. "Several hundred"have 2. What is the public broridcastqfsrela- installed these in the past fewyears. tionshiptotheeducation- community served by the station?' These paragraphs only dent thesurface of what Virginia Public Telecom-tunics- That relationship could includemany con- ns uncil doesmore exactly, what tact points. At WNVT, Annandale,Virginia e stamembers in Virginia do.What .Director of School ServicesHugh Greene y doat questions they ask .could conducts needs assessmentsamong tbe very well be exported to other.regions eq- teachers, a job he performs"exceptionally uallY committed to making ITVoperations well," according to Hall.Greene, who is both stable and dynamic. paid from the VPTC contract, thenadvises the Commonwealthon the services needed A- Checklist for Questioners in the schools. He can bringa "fresher look" A'natural tour guide, GeorgeHall can tell to this because he has "less -personalin- you why Thomas Jefferson omitted front vestment" than a teacheror a DOE em- stairs on Richmond's Capitol Buildin,or ,ployee might have; about Patrick Henry's legion ;ofdescenda It is the VPTC Director's 3.Is there a current inventory ofequip- conviction tha ment at the schools? public broadcasters should bejust as well- informed about the uses of theirfranchise For its part, VPTC. hasa computer listing forinstructionaltelevision.Along with of "virtually every" school in thestate. This hers elsewhere, he has startedto pose inventory shows what the broadcastsignal , new - (angled questions, going 'beyondnum- is like at a given site, what itsantenna sys- - hers of students in TV-using classes. The tem is, whether -an- in-house distribution answers 'could hurt. They may show that routing exists, haw. Manyclassrooms -are someone has.goofed, or that ITV is merely wired, and that old faithful: howmany pets superfluous. But, adds Hall, "thesystem does the school have? needs the answers anyway," Armed with these data, VPTC histaken a Some of the new questionson the minds natural, second step, That isto see why of VPTC people and otherpractitioners may some schools and/or personnel have."a lag- be useful tools for explorersat other out- gard attitude about accessibilityofthe posts. They are offered here, with sidebar equipment." comments for the sake of those still fretful about the modern analytical method. 4.In what way- does thebroadcaster. monitor ITV activity? 1.Is an adequate managementsystem in IT a stationor an rry agency plans a place, one relating properlyand thor- $100,000 one-time-only oughly with all involVed elements? instructional project, then some planning-stage-questionshave to be met head-or;-Are theobjectives defined? This is obligatory, to Hall, "so, thatwhen Is the target audience clear? you complete one part of the process, What is the you smallest number of studentsthat could be move in an orderly .way to the next part." justified as recipient of -the As one model, the council's role is -to: materials? Are the indii.:ated delivery mewsin place? This 4143 process, these questions, would be "pr.:- could btolerated for failure. You should monitoring." Once underway, 'the proje t be prepred to have 25 to 30 per cent failure could be checked in matters of cost an eacheor in that the instruction -simply actual usage.(Certain of these question doesnwork, or isn't used, or the studeks warrant- more attention hereafter.) don'tlearn from it.' We need to work to- 5. Have the project's behavioral ob warsonic reasonable level for ailure. The tives been set? presumplion is that every dollar we spend is going to be productive. That's not 'true. VPTC believes it important to focus pre We need to be more precise about the fail- ducers' attention on the objectives of par- ure rate, but not be frightened by it. ular ITV projects.' At the council, it falls 7. Are there alternatives to undertaking to Joel Fleming to get the ,RISKIPs to Wr i the project? i down objectives for e+y ITV venture.\T / council dues not judge these objectives: Suppose nothing were done. It isHall's merely wants them iternize'd 'es-part of \the view that,attimes,"entirelyoptional" design process. Up tiMil now VPTC has .nt projects are= aunched with no clues that required statements of objectives on seri methi-ng positive can happen from the in- acquired from outside'source!, GP eitmentor that something negatiye would But this may well happen. H:ll seesa ,tappen if the \expenditUre were riot made. when VPTC will insist theobjectives peRe,starting; there ought to be evidence stipulated for these o t-of- tate -meterls, that "improved, performance or cost,or "and- attested to as bei g a propriate." both" could stein from using technology. VPTC's former chief recounts one Virginia Have critical rminirri. een determinid? RISKIP's decision to lease some Encyclo- I Once these levels have been set, then pedia Britannica films: producer, broadcaster, arid agency can !find Thefilms well available in the state film out more readily whether a project is alibrary. At the most, it would have cost winner, or an also2ran. itilinirnums could be $,000 to use thn intandard classroom affixed for objectives. Or they might apply projection during the school year. to audience numbers. Hall explains his con- \ , ept on the latter: We deed to know what Instead, the RISKIF was "determined," says he expected numbers are at the start, to Hall :\ to lease the films from EBF and have 7-determine whether we can come anywhere them\televised. It felt that TV presentation close to hitting that target. If there were "would greatly enhance the value" of the 6,000 to begin with and we Teached 600, is films. \So, committee members voted to that satisfactory?" spend some $20,000'in VPTC funding on the leases, \, Another' item under this umbrella of con- \I cern: how many school' systeras . actually Aware ofithe RISKIP's determination, VPTC. 'use an ITV series? If few do, the Practitioner decided to let them go ahead, but then moni- should check the niinimum defined at the tor the results carefully. "If the use of tele- outset,.The abject is, of course, to decide vision is not significantly greater than the in advance how few schools might use a ordinary film use would have been," says series for it to be cost-effective. , Hall, "then we clearly will have wasted A like inquiry might be directed at recep- $20,000 in making these films available by,/ tion. If the broaddister wants to reach 100 broadcast." geographic points and only gets to 70, is that acceptable? What if he just reached 30? 8. What are the respective costs in op- Dropping below critical minima in impor- erating the ITV system and in its output? tant iespects would be labelled failure, nor- For itself, VPTC has worked hard at this mally speaking. And here, Hall digs his heels phase. It has found out, what things cost. in to defend some failure: But, as Hall adds, "whether they were worth We've got to educate the :political com- it is a different question." munity to accept the fact that failure is part VPTC knows that monitoring 'should not f}of the process. Ifwe have none, then some- cost more than it is worth. The cannal has thing's wrong, budgeted somewhat less.than $100,000 for this activity, believing it should be no more I'd say that at least ten per cent of our budget than ten to 15 per cent of the total budget. One of the positive changes since 1974 9. Are the linkages ofhe design proc has been an increasing commitmentin many properly managed? places to Cost research. AIT,for one, did a cost comparisan in October 1976on uses Basically, this revolves aroundthe work- of its Inside/Out,a textbook, educational ingrelationship= betweeneducatorand' film, and classroom teacher.The breakdown broadcast craftsman. -In Virginia, VPTChas worked out this way: made "good progress" withDOE in prevailj,-- ingon administratorsto "see the absolute Cost Per Student Hour necessity of setting theproper objectives." .- Made of Instruction But evidently much diplomaticpersuasion Inside/Out $ 00.008 remains to be done. -Oh one hand,there is, a Textbook 00.014 fear that education will becornemechanized; Educe tiona Film (16rn on the other, administratorsworry about Owned 00.072 political flak in the event of failure.- Rented 00.200 10. How extensive is theutilization sys- Classroom Teacher 00.290 tern? _.- What is vital for the cost-concernedelse- where is how AIT arrived In Virginia, each of the fivelicensees has at those figures. a person assigned to Take just two parts of theAIT figuring: fieldcoordination. Then,-DOE has a representativeat each sta- . a. Inside/Out [30 fifteen-rninuteshows, or tion, as well. In all, ten :people Workfull 7.5 hours) time at stimulating the widestuses of ITV product. Kentucky's KET has six individuals-- Series cost $779,000* traverse the state; they wish they had17. I21 Total student audience: In Virginia, the council notes informally 3,125,000 x 5 years, or the appearances that utilizationspecialists 15,625,000 . 15,625,000** make at schools. Ivieanwhile,-.DOEchecks [31 Series cost per student: 00.050 up more subjectively, trying toassess the quality of werkshops, -or the tie between [4] Cost per student hour: 00.0067 series, use in a school division and utilization services f51 Teacher manual costper 00.0013 student hour (manual at VPTC hqs already seen thatVirginia's $1.50 serves 150 students ITV systern needs more field personnel; at one cent each) From a survey it was clear that "wherethey are in evidence, we have a much better l61 Cost per student hour 00.008 result.", The council has noted further that b. Classroom Teacher: it tak"very careful screening" to Pick the right people for utilization. Some"better Assume an average annual al specification" of skills neededis salary of $11,000 for 180 days, d for, Hall has concluded. _,, ---- or 1,260 hours of teaching 1 30 students for a letal of 37,800 Is there adequate information about student hours taught: /ITV use patterns ina state or a station area? i -Cost per student hour: $00.290 . At least two questions_ join- handswith * Includes design, development, productiori, this one If the dataare not available, why `teacher guides andsome promotion. Does not not? And if the existing data show include local transmission that or film copies./ teachers are not using` the materialswhen '*'` This estimate was basedmainly on AIT's they are available, one might alsoask: why data on teachers guide_ useover the first two not? years of the series' distribution. : 1. Along with other stat9b, Virginiahas had these concerns. To develp answers, it has People like AlT's Ed Cohen,/6eorge Hall ordered a statewidesury y The D of Virginiaand Len . Press/of KET have neered it; Joel Fleming of. TC sat with computations like these to/ghare andcorn- the planners. Thesurvey's aim: to verify the pare. Whether they are &redly comparable actual practices of teaclaas and thus gauge remains- to be deterrn d their attitudes about ITV. 145 i 4 c 12.Is there an adequate utilization effort works in a classroom, Buckman is con- beyond the boundaries of the school cbm- vinced, "he will love you." It is important munity? for that individual to understand that TV in a Classroom "isn't a teacher in front of a Putting this in other term Apes the ITV blackboard on film." Rather, it is a functicln staff's contact work reach those who,,nught the impact of which "is in changing the way to know about the station's, or state au- children and teachers interact, making things thority's ITV effort? better for them, and maybe even changing By his own description an Executive De- some test scores." partment bureaucrat, George Hall cannot The questions defined here only begin to lobby with the Legislature. He must mend do justice to the concerns expressed by Saul fences and seed the soil within the Execu- Rockrnan, George Hall, and, others, tive office row, It is up to the station man- Not a one would scoff at George Hall's agers to press the case for ITV support observation that systematizing ITV for the among the legislative committees. And pre- sake of greater effectiveness is "extremely cisely because ITV has become, more visible complicated" business. There is corrobora- in recent time, the broad_ job of informing; tion from overseas: Dr. A. W. Bates, the justifying, and persuading has become both Open University's Senior Lecturer in Media harder to do and more important. No longer ' Research Methods, wrote in October 1976 in do sandlot rules suffice. much the same tone: Are all the links of thITV system I only wish we could answer your question meshed and bearing suitable parts of the an the fiscal benefits and effectiveness of load? educational broadcasting.. We are looking at the cost-effectiveness of broadcasting Very prnbably any ITV system in the and alternative A/V methods at the OU,.but country could stand some self-appraisal on we are actually only beginning.. . this count. The broadcaster 'might checkln- ternal views and relationships before scan- Dr. )Sates also had some searching ar- ning for the mote in the eyes of others. KET ticles to share, ones "which touch on the makes la very good start by treating every problemor describe why it is such a diffi- visitor to its Lexington facilities with high cult question.... " respect. To CTW Executive VicePresidentPaul------Recent experience in Virginia suggests Firstenberg, the time is more right than_ever how thelinkage may become bruised, before to make the necessary appraisal, He George Hail has tried to "kick" DOE into explained in late 1976: doing "the substantial research necessary' to answer the questions of legislators." Yet, Now that all the stations have taken root in Hall valuing the relationship with them, the soil, they can afford the luxury of be- takes care .to- -maintain the smoothest pos- ginning to think more systematically about sible djplomaticties. Under the circum- their future. You can't talk to somebody about five years from now when he's think- stances, occasional frustration would seem ing about how to survive next week. I think to be inevitable. we're approaching that time in public broad- 14. What has ITV done in the classroom? casting where people can begin to look of next year and maybe the year after. It makes To Saul Rockmart- of AIT, this is the very sense to do so.' best question an inquiring legislator could

ask. Undoubtedly it is the $6.4 million ques- _ It is just as sensible, as George Hall' said, tion. None could be more elusive. to make a beginning. To that endft group What kind 'of answer might there be? of concerned ,Individualsinthe Perhaps- (in Rocicman's view) it is no More broadcasting community has agreed to come nor less than that ITV has changed the together-in 1977: Meeting under the mantle classroom atmosphere, that the teacher is of several national organizatiqnsin the ' more "open," that the pupils are happier. field, they will have one major goal. It will t:If's not easy, to measure those," concedes be to spell out the questionsthe -research Ruckfuan. "But case studies can show how that station, state agency, or national sys- thingS change in a classroom.", tem might pursue 'systematicallybefore If you_ can show the legislator how TV cost-conscious legislators ring. Photograph Credits: Page The Adams Chronicles, RT/THIRTEEN (Carl Samrock] Page Common Cents, KETC-TVt. Louis Page Self Incorporated, Agency fon Instructional Television Page Free Style, KCET-TV, Los Angeles / Page 12:Education Division; [WET / THIRTEEN, New Yo k Page 16:Sesame Street Children's Television,Workshop Page 17: 'Sesame Street, Children's Televisibril Workshop Page .19:Mister Rogers Neighborhood, ly Communications Inc. Page 24 The. Universe and I, Kentucky Television Page 26:American Scrapbook, VVVIZ-T ,/Cleveland Page 27:Blue Umbrella, South Carolina Department of Education Page 28:Measure Up, WCET-TV, Cincinnati Page 3OCovet To Cover, ITV-Co-Op. Page 31;Inside/Out, Agency For Instructional Television Page 32:Animals and Such WHRO-TV, Norfolk \ Page 34:Inside/Out, Agency for instructional Television' Page 35;Vegetable Soup, Bureau of Mass Communication, N.Y. Departmentof Education Page 39The Heart of Teaching, Agency for Instructional Television Page 43:Book, Look and Listen, Maryland State Department`ofEducation Page- 62 Ascent of Man, Miami-Dade Community College ,\ . Page 66The Adams Chronicles, VVNET/141-IIRTEEN (Carl Samrock) Page 73: Man and. Environment, Miami-DadeCommunity College\ Page 82:Classroom radio instruction, South CarolinaDepartment of Education Page- 85:Teacher training in radio, Smith Carolina Department ofEducation Page 90Options In Education, National Public Radio Page 108:Options in Education, National Public Radio Page 113: PBS Main Origination Terminal; PublicBroadcastin Serxice ,