LeVar Burton made headlines when his Kickstarter campaign to revive long-running educational series Reading Rainbow hit its $1-million dollar goal within 24 hours, and is well on its way to achieve its new goal of $5 million by July 2.
Not everyone, however, is excited about the Kickstarter’s success. An article in The Washington Post is critical of Burton’s attempts to revive the show, which ran for nearly three decades on PBS before it was cancelled in 2009. In the piece, writer Caitlin Dewey claims the reason the show was axed was because PBS execs “believed that the show was no longer the best way to teach kids reading skills.”;
In an interview with Think Progress, Burton flatly refutes that claim as “bulls**t,”; pointing out that the show was cancelled due to the Bush administration’s controversial No Child Left Behind educational policy, not because it was ineffective.
“Reading Rainbow was the most used television resource in our nation’s classroom. In 2009, it was [cancelled] due to No Child Left Behind. That government policy made a choice between teaching the rudiments of reading and fostering a love of reading. So the idea that I am trying to somehow revive a failed endeavour is bulls**t. That’s right. I said it. Bulls**t.”;
