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**AUGUST 15, 2025**

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     For decades, PBS has given millions of kids the opportunity to access high-quality, effective educational content, for free, everywhere. Educators, particularly those working in low-income or rural areas, rely on their local stations to support their professional growth and instructional skills. But now, PragerU, a right-wing propaganda machine [link removed] that makes educational content for children, is well positioned to fill the void left by PBS, now that it has been defunded by the Trump administration. 

PragerU certainly has the support of popular figures on the right, but do actual educators want this material, which routinely distorts and minimizes difficult topics in the name of keeping education “wholesome,” in their classrooms? I felt as though that question remained unaddressed in the current conversation about PragerU Kids possibly becoming a replacement for PBS’s educational initiatives.

My reporting led me to grasp the gaping disconnect between those who speak from soapboxes, and those who do so in front of chalkboards. It is my hope that understanding how and why the right is trying to force PragerU Kids into schools will highlight what teachers are up against, and how those who care about the fate of education in America can resist this tirade.

**– Naomi Bethune**, John Lewis writing fellow

PragerU Wants to Capitalize on PBS Defunding [link removed]

On July 24th, President Trump signed the Rescissions Act of 2025 into law, which clawed back $1.1 billion in previously appropriated federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for the next two fiscal years. Passage of the law left PBS and NPR, the two main beneficiaries, at an unprecedented loss, with a particular impact on the nation’s childhood educational development.

For decades, PBS has been one of the leading figures in educational broadcasting, with PBS Kids content reaching an average of **15 million users a month** [link removed]. Beyond popular shows like

**Arthur**,

**Super Why!** and

**Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood**, educators and students across the country can get free access to PBS LearningMedia, a **K-12 digital learning service** [link removed] established by PBS and Boston member station GBH in 2011. PBS affiliate stations produce their own educational resources for PBS LearningMedia, and also engage in outreach to educators, providing professional development services and updated trainings on best practices. In rural and low-income communities in particular, these services can be a lifeline for teachers, who otherwise may not have these opportunities.

Now, much of this support network could be lost. GBH, which contributes to PBS LearningMedia and extends assistance to other states, is **expected to lose $18 million** [link removed], about 8 percent of their total budget. The station has already **laid off 67 employees this year** [link removed], including 13 after the rescissions bill was signed. “This could limit the ability of districts to integrate high-quality, effective media into instruction or to offer localized professional development tied to national curriculum resources,” said Seeta Pai, vice president of children’s media and education at GBH.

Without public media support, America’s most in-need educators may be forced to turn to other providers of educational materials to be implemented into lesson plans. Some states have offered a controversial alternative: the Prager University Foundation, or PragerU. The ideologically conservative network could become the de facto beneficiary of PBS defunding. However, PragerU capitalizing on this opportunity may not be as simple as it seems.

**FOUNDED IN 2009 BY ALLEN ESTRIN** and right-wing radio talk show host Dennis Prager, PragerU has been a major player in the movement to do away with “divisive” and “inclusive” educational curricula. Although its name sounds like an academic institution, PragerU is a registered nonprofit advocacy group that rakes in millions each year from donations. In 2024, PragerU reported receiving **$66,693,281 in contributions from donors** [link removed], accounting for 95 percent of its total revenue ($69,710,136). Its largest benefactors? Conservative and right-wing foundations. In its early stages, PragerU was supported by funding provided by hydraulic fracking billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks, who have donated millions to far-right political initiatives and provided early funding to The Daily Wire.

PragerU’s financial support is certainly reflected in the media it produces. Right-wing luminaries such as Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens, and Ben Shapiro have made appearances in its videos. Its most controversial project is PragerU Kids, an educational programming initiative that produces content for kids as young as three. Although it is marketed as “the leading network offering educational, entertaining, and pro-America content for students of all ages,” PragerU Kids has a very specific point of view.

“PragerU Kids is right-wing propaganda; it presents right-wing propaganda as ideologically neutral education and it serves as a gateway into extremism through its attempts to define issues for children at a very young age,” said John Knefel, a senior writer at the research group Media Matters for America, who has conducted significant research into PragerU Kids’ educational content. He explained that PragerU has displayed a commitment to cherry-picking and watering down the tragedies of the past, particularly in videos highlighting U.S. history. “The goal of these videos taken as a whole is to defend an unequal status quo, and to defend existing hierarchies from progressive activists, academics, and teachers who are seeking a more just society,” Knefel said.

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