Education
Public television stations are educational institutions committed to lifelong learning for the American people. This work goes beyond the television, tablet or phone screen and begins with the most successful early childhood education ever devised and continues with unique classroom services and teacher professional development resources, high school equivalency preparation, workforce training and adult enrichment.
Early childhood educational television programming, the hallmark of public television, has helped 90 million kids get ready to learn in school and succeed in life. This free, universally available content has been proven to close the achievement gap.
Almost two million teachers and users serving an estimated 40 million students (including homeschools) have registered access to more than 120,000 digital resources available through PBS LearningMedia. This partnership between PBS and local stations adapts public television programming — plus content from the Library of Congress, National Archives, NASA and more — to provide state curriculum-aligned, interactive digital learning objects for K-12 classrooms.
Local public television stations throughout the country have partnered with PBS recently to bring a first-of-its kind, free PBS KIDS 24/7 channel to their communities — providing kids throughout the country with the highest level of educational programming, available through local stations any time, day or night, over-the-air and streaming.
Public television brings world-class teachers of specialty subjects to some of the most remote schools in the country through “virtual high schools” operated by stations across the United States.
Through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s American Graduate initiative, public television stations have helped reduce the high school drop-out rate to a historic low of 16.8 percent.
Public television operates the largest nonprofit GED program in the country, helping tens of thousands of second-chance learners get their high school equivalency diplomas.
Public television stations are leaders in workforce development, including the retraining of American veterans by providing digital learning opportunities for training, licensing, continuing education credits and more.
Public television enriches the lives of everyone, everywhere, every day, for free, with the best history, science, cultural and public affairs programming on the air.