WNET, WLIW team up to help reduce dropout rates

Frank Franklin II/AP

The Yankees’ Mark Teixeira will take part in WNET’s’ 'American Graduate Day,' a project encouraging students to stay in school.

It's like school — only with some of TV’s biggest stars writing on the blackboard.

Public broadcasting will take America back to school Saturday with its second annual “American Graduate Day,” a seven-hour on-air and online event that aims to stem the nation’s alarming dropout rate.

For the day, WNET and WLIW will join forces with more than 75 public radio and television stations, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to school viewers on the efforts and organizations to fix the issue from coast to coast.

“The ‘E’ in WNET stands for education,” says WNET’s CEO and president, Neal Shapiro. “It’s part of our DNA. It’s why our kids’ programming is about teaching and not breakfast cereal. This initiative is more than a natural for us, it’s a mandate.”

Shapiro said PBS looks to the two big New York stations to support stations in smaller markets.

The broadcast’s syllabus will include first-person testimony from prominent education activists, including NBC News anchor Brian Williams, New York Yankee Mark Teixeira and “Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe; locally produced seven-minute segments that look at community initiatives and organizations’ dropout solutions, and education and volunteer opportunities.

“We’ll also utilize social media, so that participating organizations, including local groups [such as East Side House Settlement, Harlem RBI and the Queens Public Library Discovery Center], can call out their segments to potential viewers in real time,” says Shapiro. “We’ll read viewer reactions sent to us on the air in real time. This will be a truly interactive experience, just like last year.”