The US Department of Education has killed the Ready to Learn grant that has funded PBS KIDS content and educational initiatives for 30 years. 

The DOE sent a termination notice to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which distributes the grant’s funding) last Friday, sparking a race to issue stop-work orders to all of this year’s Ready to Learn recipients, including PBS, research firm Education Development Center and 44 public media stations, a CPB spokesperson tells Kidscreen. The bulk of the US$23.5-million grant for 2025 (US$23.1 million) was still unspent, although it had been earmarked for production, research, staffing, community engagement activities and events to support learning. 

Longer term, CPB had been allocated a total of US$112.1 million for the current 2020-2025 grant round, which expires on September 30.

“For the past 30 years, Ready To Learn-funded PBS KIDS content has produced measurable, real-world impacts on children’s learning,” said Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB. “[The grant] has received strong bipartisan support from Congress and every administration [during that time] because of [its] proven educational value in advancing early learning skills for all children. We will work with Congress and the [current] administration to preserve funding for this essential program.”

Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the DOE, said that the “cancelled Ready to Learn grants to PBS were funding racial justice educational programming for five- to eight-year-old children. This is not aligned with administration priorities. The Trump Department of Education will prioritize funding that supports meaningful learning and improving student outcomes, not divisive ideologies and woke propaganda.”

Over the years, Ready to Learn grants have helped finance PBS KIDS series such as Odd Squad (pictured, Sinking Ship Entertainment), Peg + Cat (9 Story Media Group) and Super Why (Out of the Blue Enterprises). Content funded by Ready to Learn in its most recent fiscal year has reached 10.2 million TV viewers, as well as generating upwards of 1.8 billion video streams and two million mobile app downloads, according to CPB. 

The DOE has run competitions for Ready to Learn funding every five years since 1995, with CPB and PBS winning grants in every cycle. 

“The decision by the Department of Education to abruptly end the Ready to Learn grant will have an immediate and profound impact on the service PBS provides to families and children across America,” says Sara DeWit, SVP & GM of PBS KIDS. “This decision removes a critical resource that public television has used to enable us to create high-quality, educational PBS KIDS content, while opening up worlds of possibilities for millions of kids across the country. We will continue to fight in order to maintain our essential service.”