The White House effort to cut funding for NPR and PBS is beginning to take effect. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which backs NPR and PBS, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Department of Education had terminated a federal grant program that funded shows for children.
The abrupt cancellation of the grant program, called Ready To Learn, resulted in a loss of $23 million that would have gone to children’s educational shows and games. The first installment of the terminated grant was awarded by the first Trump administration in 2020.
Patricia Harrison, the president and chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, criticized the move, saying that nearly all parents have had their children watch shows funded by the program.
“We will work with Congress and the administration to preserve funding for this essential program,” she said in a statement.
The Ready To Learn grant, which is administered by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and allocated to PBS and local stations, has historically funded well-known children’s programs, including “Sesame Street,” “Reading Rainbow” and “Clifford the Big Red Dog.” The five-year grant was set to expire at the end of September.
In a statement, Madi Biedermann, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said that the Ready To Learn grants were funding “racial justice educational programming.”
“The Trump Department of Education will prioritize funding that supports meaningful learning and improving student outcomes, not divisive ideologies and woke propaganda,” the statement said.
Last week, the White House issued an executive order requiring the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and federal agencies to immediately stop funding to NPR and PBS. Both organizations vowed to oppose the order, which they said would deprive Americans across the United States of news and educational programming.
The order was part of a decades-long campaign by Republicans to weaken public media in the United States. In recent months, Republicans introduced a bill to defund NPR and PBS and made plans to claw back congressional funding for the organizations. Last week, the White House tried to fire board directors for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a move that the corporation opposed in court.
