By ELIZABETH JENSEN
More than 100 public television stations reaching two-thirds of the nation’s viewers turned over their air on Saturday to an unusual seven-hour telethon broadcast live from WNET-TV’s Lincoln Center studio in New York.
A parade of media stars, including NBC’s Brian Williams, CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo, CBS’s Rebecca Jarvis and public media’s Maria Hinojosa and Ray Suarez, exhorted viewers to “call the number on your screen,” but they were not seeking membership pledges. Instead, they asked viewers to sign up to be “American Graduate Day Champions,” and connect with community organizations working on the nation’s high school dropout crisis.
The telethon was part of the fast-growing American Graduate initiative, seeded in the last year with about $5 million in grants to public television stations by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“Education is probably one of the hottest issues facing the country,” said Neal Shapiro, president and chief executive of WNET, which assembled the telethon in just four months. “I think people didn’t realize how huge the problem is, or how much success there could be and how local groups are actually making a difference.”
While graduation rates have inched up in recent years, nearly 25 percent of students over all drop out.
CPB, whose partners include the America’s Promise Alliance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, has channeled an additional $10 million into program grants. The grants are for televised teacher town hall meetings, programs from Tavis Smiley and the Independent Television Service, and a coming four-hour PBS documentary, “DC Met: Life Inside School Reform,” from the National Black Programming Consortium, among other programs.
Shows this week include a “Frontline” hour, a five-part “PBS NewsHour” report by Mr. Suarez and a public radio documentary. (Coincidentally, NBC News is broadcasting its “Education Nation” reports this week.) But stations have embraced American Graduate beyond the shows; many have become deeply involved with the broad swath of local community organizations tackling issues including abuse and abandonment, and teacher quality.
In St. Louis, the Nine Network of Public Media is coordinating 51 local partners, which have divided into groups addressing such topics as early intervention, and parent engagement strategies, said Jack Galmiche, Nine Network’s president and chief executive. He characterized Nine Network’s role as helping disparate community organizations align their work more effectively.
“Being in this community for 50 years, being a trusted institution, when we ask these groups to come together they show up and they show up with the best intentions,” Mr. Galmiche said.
Other stations are developing curriculums for schools and production training programs for at-risk youth.
While public television stations have long been involved in early childhood education through their preschool shows, the American Graduate work is far afield from the stations simply being an outlet for “Sesame Street,” or the prime-time hit “Downton Abbey.”
“This is a next-generation relationship with our community,” said Rich Homberg, president and general manager of Detroit Public Television.
Mr. Galmiche called it a return to public broadcasting’s original mission. “Being a provider of education and educational resources and civil discourse were the principles we were founded on in 1954,” he said. “Our value to this community is, simply, how do we improve community life?”
John Kania, a managing director of nonprofit consultant FSG, which has worked with the stations, said shrinking revenues helped spur the new thinking.
“There are serious conversations going on within public media right now about how do they improve their relevance both for society and as a media asset going forward,” at a time when state and federal support is dwindling, and consumers have lots of media options, Mr. Kania said. He commended the strategy, but said it was also risky, “because they’re working on a lot of issues where people have failed for many years to make progress.”
Any impact on dropout rates will take years, raising questions of long term commitment. “Stations always chase the grant money to do something and then once the grant money stops flowing they stop doing it,” said Robert J. Daino, president and chief executive of Syracuse’s WCNY, which received American Graduate grants. He praised the program “as long as stations remain committed.”
CPB is committed to supporting the initiative for five years, said Patricia S. Harrison, the corporation’s president and chief executive. “In order for this to be taken seriously, this cannot be a drive-by,” she said, adding that the goal is to find other support. Nine Network, for one, has raised $500,000 so far to support the dropout work.
Ms. Harrison said she is hopeful the work will also convince detractors on Capitol Hill who want to cut public broadcasting’s funds. “It should, because it speaks to an issue that belongs to all Americans. It’s not partisan,” she said.
“It speaks to the fact that the country is in trouble and that we cannot tolerate or even sustain a million Americans dropping out without changing how we think of ourselves as Americans,” she added. “If that doesn’t resonate with Capitol Hill, I really don’t know why.”
Organizers said Sunday it was too early to say how many new volunteers the telethon generated. But United Way executives who appeared said they were pleased.
United Way and more than a dozen public television stations are meeting this week to discuss a more formal relationship around the issue, said Stacey D. Stewart, an executive vice president at United Way Worldwide, in an interview at the WNET studio. “We have to activate action on the ground with volunteer programs and advocacy,” and public television stations can help get the message out on the local level, she said.
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