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It's been three years since President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act. But Linda Ellerbee feels kids are still being left behind in at least one important way: No one's listening to them.
"For the last year or two, it seemed to me that the whole world was talking about what's wrong with American education—all the presidential candidates and every expert," says the journalist, TV producer, author, breast-cancer survivor and mom. "No one asked kids what they thought was wrong with schools."
To remedy the situation, the Nick News special "Ten Things I Hate About School" will air on Nickelodeon in April (dates were unavailable at press time, check listings or go to www.nick.com). "We are going to use the Nick website and poll kids on this," Ellerbee says. "We have a list of issues, and we're going to ask them to rate them."
Ellerbee has been writing and hosting Nick News for 14 years, during which time the show has won three Peabody Awards, two Emmys and enough other honors to crowd any mantel. The trick to creating a successful kids' news program, she explains, is that there is no trick. "I don't dumb down the language. The only difference between writing Nick News and, say, writing NBC News Overnight [Ellerbee's award-winning 1980s news show] is that I can't really write irony for kids. Kids don't get irony."
But they get a lot of other things, as evidenced by the list of kids' grievances Ellerbee has compiled for "Ten Things I Hate About School."
"Classes are boring. We have worn-out and dated books and materials. Bullying, peer pressure and emotional violence. Standardized testing. Too much homework. Lack of technology equipment. Pressure to excel...oh, and a lack of afterschool programs and arts programs. That's where we are at the moment."
And kids aren't the only ones she's been getting an earful from: "I talk to a lot of teachers around this country who are scared to teach anything that might be controversial," she says. "If I were the Education secretary, I would really start listening to schoolteachers more than school administrations."
But Ellerbee's far too busy doing Nick News to run a Cabinet department. Before "Ten Things" airs, she'll be taking a group of kids on a camera safari to Africa for a March special. In the May special "Losers Winners," Nick News will follow three overweight kids through a six-month regimen of diet and exercise directed by the Centers for Disease Control. And then there's "Why Do They Hate Us?," in which she'll try to help kids understand anti-American sentiment around the world.
"The beauty of Nick News is that I have more freedom to do what I think journalism ought to do and ought to be than I ever had at the networks," she says. "I think the best work I've ever done has been within these shows."
Zoo's who
Lucy is a very lucky young girl: She lives at 64 Zoo Lane. Every night, she slips out of her bedroom window and slides down the long neck of her friend Georgina the Giraffe into the neighborhood zoo next door, where Harriet the Hippo, Nelson the Elephant, and other creatures great and small are waiting impatiently to tell her of their adventures. An award-winning import from England, 64 Zoo Lane gives two- to five-year-olds gentle lessons on everything from music and friendship to dental hygiene, rendered in charming, storybook-style animation.
(Noggin, daily 9:30am and 4:30pm)—RS
