Where Were the States? American Federalism and Educational Broadcasting Since 1945

• In Event: Reassessing the History of Education Policy, Reform, and Philanthropy

Abstract

What the American public knows today as public broadcasting began as educational radio and television, and those were the dominant terms until 1967. While the modern architecture of public broadcasting almost entirely ignores states, the earlier history of educational broadcasting shows how contingent that outcome was. Archival research demonstrates several efforts to organize state-level educational television networks in the 1950s and early 1960s. What eventually emerged in federal educational broadcasting policy was largely agnostic about the existence of states, let alone their authority over education. The submerged history of federalism in broadcasting policy implies a much more contingent nature of federalism in education politics, even in the era where K-12 education policy debates were full of prickliness around federal power.

Authors

• Sherman Dorn, Arizona State University

• Wooyeong Kim, Dongguk University