Sesame Street was the original MOOC

[Commentary] In the nearly 50 years since its creation, about 80 million American children have watched Sesame Street. For many Americans, Jim Henson’s Muppets are iconic cultural figures that trigger childhood nostalgia. What many Americans might not associate with Sesame Street, however, are the rigorous standards for research and evaluation that continue to shape the show’s educational programming. Because each lesson is crafted with the input of experts in early education, you probably learned more from those Bert and Ernie sing-alongs than you ever realized.

In a new study on how exposure to Sesame Street affects children’s educational performance, Brookings Senior Fellow Melissa Kearney and Wellesley College’s Phillip Levine find that children living in places where the broadcast signal for Sesame Street was strong were 14 percent less likely to be behind in school compared to children living in places with a weak signal reception. The research has implications for the ongoing debate over methods for expanding access to early childhood education. Because Sesame Street boasts an extremely low cost-per-child -- Kearney and Levine quote one estimate that prices the show’s production at $5 per child, per year -- the show could be a readily affordable and scalable intervention.