The National Program in the Use of Television in the Public Schools, 1957

Inspired by the early success of the Hagerstown ETV Project, the Fund for the Advancement of Education decided to fund a nationwide experiment in ITV, the National Program in the Use of Television in the Public Schools, in 1957. Over 200,000 students in over 800 elementary and secondary schools were involved in the project.

The participating schools each developed their own practices regarding schedules, classroom teachers, and most other matters. However, all used substantially larger-than-normal class sizes, with up to 175 students per elementary school class and between 200 and 500 students in junior high and high school classes.

The overall findings were that there is no significant difference between television and conventional teaching, and that younger students are more effectively taught by television than are their older peers. However, it was also found that the majority of classroom teachers resented having to share responsibility with television teachers and that mass teaching only succeeded with the highest quality programs. Acting on these findings, the National Program switched its focus from achieving economies of scale for primary instruction to using instructional television to supplement and enrich the traditionally taught curriculum.

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Last update: August 26, 2005 Comments to: Mary Miller mlmiller@uga.edu Created by Mary Miller and Teresa Cruce for Dr. Thomas Reeves' UGA class EDIT 6100, spring 2002 URL=//http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mlmiller/timeline/nationaltv.html