“Ten years ago, the federal government created a program to harness the teaching power of public television… to help preschoolers get ready for elementary school. But Ready to Learn remained a largely unknown federal program until recently, when a flap over a lesbian-headed household shown in a Postcards From Buster episode sparked a political backlash from conservatives.” The controversy has caused lawmakers to take another look at the funding program, and to suggest that the dollars flowing from Ready to Learn ought to be applied to programming that teaches academic skills, rather than social skills.