'Lions' May Live

It looks like the lions are safe. We're speaking, of course, about PBS's Between the Lions, which premiered in 2000. The Bush administration's education budget would have cut a big chunk of Lions funding—some $4 million from the PBS Ready to Learn program—by throwing Ready to Learn into a block grant to states. But the White House must have realized the folly of having the "education president" and his librarian wife destroy a much-praised effort to help children read (see "The Mane Event," March 2000, pp. 142–145). Last month, with approval from the Bush administration, a House committee adopted an amendment that put Ready to Learn funding back into a separate budget line. Lions supporters expect a similar amendment to pass the Senate.