STATEMENT OF EDWIN G. COHEN TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS ON H.R. 3333, THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1979 I am Edwin G. Cohen, Executive Director of the Agency for Instructional Television. AIT is the chief source of television series used in elementary and secondary school classrooms in the United States. The most widely used series are those developed by AIT in partnership with an average of thirty state and provincial education agencies. AIT is a nonprofit, self-supporting, American-Canadian organization that serves as the instrument of state and provincial education agencies. It is governed by chief school officers, and other educators and technologists, appointed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada. Additional information about AIT is appended. As requested by Chairman Van Deerlin, the remainder of this statement addresses three questions. I. WHAT ROLE DO FORMAL EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION PLAY IN THE EXISTING STRUCTURE OF PUBLIC BROADCASTING? A. School programming is provided by nearly all public television stations. This broadcast programming dominates the daytime schedule when schools are in session and is the typical source of programs for schools, especially at the elementary level. B. C. D. E. The regular audience for these programs is about one-third of the more than forty million elementary and secondary students and nearly one million teachers. Funds for school broadcasts are a substantial part of the income of public television stations. Educators generally exercise little control over public broadcasting although a majority of television stations are licensed to agencies that are deeply involved with education. Educational service is public broadcasting's only unique purpose, it distinguishes it from commercial broadcasting, it is the essential III. WHAT CHANGES, IF ANY, WOULD YOU SUGGEST IN THE APPROACH TAKEN IN H.R. 3333? A. B. A Section 643 (c) should be added in which one-third of the funds appropri- instructional programming.) (Under this The proposed section should specify further that recipients of instruc- Section 644 does not fully meet the rights requirements of instructional the staff of the Subcommittee and to propose specific language. agency for instructional television The Agency for Instructional Television is a nonprofit AmericanCanadian organization established in 1973 to strengthen education through television and other technologies. AIT develops joint program projects involving state and provincial agencies, and acquires and distributes a wide variety of television and related printed materials for use as major learning resources. It makes many of the television materials available in audiovisual formats. AIT'S predecessor organization, National Instructional Television, was founded in 1962. The AIT main offices and Midwestern office are in Bloomington, Indiana; there also are regional offices in the Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and San Francisco areas. |