This is for all of my 80’s babies out there….my favorite theme song, Reading Rainbow! I used to love this show. So please understand my sadness at hearing that the show is coming to the end of it’s 26-year run on PBS. According to NPR, the show lost it’s financial backing because:

“the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.”

Basically, the thought as to why the show is being canceled is because Bush’s administration aloocated funding to teaching kids how to read. According to John Grant, the Content Manager at Reading Rainbow’s home station, “Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read – [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read.”

I definitely think that this show helped to ignite my own passion for reading at a young age. It helped to teach me that reading could take you on adventures you may not have thought possible, it sparked my imagination. It seems so silly to me that this kind of programming can’t get funding but there is someone out there will to put money behind “Flavor of Love 3″.

Ugh. Bush.