TV for Teacher

For 20 years, U.S. educators have been kicking themselves for their shortsightedness: when radio came in, they let it go commercial without even putting up a fight, left themselves with only the crumbs the networks saw fit to spare. Some of them do not intend to make the same mistake with TV.

By last week, seven of the nation's most powerful education associations* had banded together in a Joint Committee on Educational Television, engaged Brigadier General Telford Taylor, U.S. prosecutor at the Niirnberg trials, to argue their case before the FCC. The Joint Committee's demands: 1) at least one television channel (in the current very high frequency band) in each large city exclusively for educational use; 2) 20% of the channels in the ultra high frequency band, if & when these channels are opened up for television.

In Washington this week, as the educators went before the FCC, they were not yet ready to say just how they would run or finance their TV channels if they got them. All they were after right now, in General Taylor's words: to "see to it that commercial television does not pre-empt all the television channels and thus 'freeze out' the educators."

The FCC was expected to listen to the argument with sympathy, take the whole proposition under study.

* The National Education Association, the American Council on Education, the Association for Education by Radio, the Association, of Land Grant Colleges & Universities, the National Association of State Universities, the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, the National Council of Chief State School Officers.

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