Doubts about the quality of children’s educational programming have been raised by a study from Children Now. Media researchers who analyzed various episodes of 40 different shows concluded that most programs considered educational offer only limited educational value for children. Some findings of the study, entitled “Educationally/Insufficient? An Analysis of the Availability & Educational Quality of Children’s E/I Programming," were:

•    Only one in eight E/I episodes earned a rating of highly educational. In contrast, nearly twice as many were found to have only minimal educational value.
•    There has been a substantial decline in high-quality educational programs over the years.
•    The large majority of E/I episodes featured social-emotional lessons rather than academically focused cognitive-intellectual lessons.
•    A substantial proportion of E/I programs featured high levels of aggression.

More details on how the study was conducted as well as other key findings can be found by downloading the report here.