( CNN ) -- Last week , presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that if he were elected president , he would stop funding the Public Broadcasting System . As the stewards of the Reading Rainbow brand , as parents , as products of families that relied on PBS to provide educational support , we ca n't stay silent about this . It is an attack not just on PBS , but on America 's children . LeVar Burton has spent most of his life as an education advocate , hosting PBS 's `` Reading Rainbow '' for 26 years , testifying before Congress on the importance of education and of public broadcasting , and as a national speaker , promoting literacy . And Mark Wolfe , who was practically raised in Julia Child 's TV kitchen ( his parents managed publicity for local PBS stations ) , grew up with Mr. Rogers as a family friend . Mr. Rogers , who so eloquently defended PBS against an earlier threat to its funding , can no longer speak out , but we can . Opinion : Will Big Bird be downsized ? How many of our children learned letters from Bert and Ernie before they ever went to preschool ? How many could count because of The Count ? How many of our new scientists were introduced to their future profession by Bill Nye ? And how many of you discovered a love of books through `` Reading Rainbow '' ? PBS offers kids television shows that are free -- and especially free of hard-sell commercials and corporate points of view . PBS educates our children . Nearly every day LeVar is approached by parents , teachers and adults who grew up watching PBS , telling him how much the programs they watched benefited them and their students . Studies show that PBS has been responsible for improvements in early , elementary , middle and even high school education . PBS represents 0.00012 % of our nation 's budget . And while this resource benefits kids across all economic circumstances , it has even greater impact on the disadvantaged . Yet it has been made a political issue . After Romney 's attack , the CEO of PBS , Paula Kerger , commented that `` with the enormous problems facing our country , the fact that we are the focus is just unbelievable to me . We 're America 's biggest classroom . We touch children across the country in every home . Whether you have books in your home or computer or not , almost everyone has a television set . '' Mitt Romney said , in last week 's debate : `` I 'm going to stop the subsidy to PBS . ... I will eliminate all programs by this test , if they do n't pass it : Is the program so critical it 's worth borrowing money from China to pay for it ? And if not , I 'll get rid of it . '' Opinion : Defund public broadcasting and set it free . This is telling in that while he suggests unspecified litmus tests for funding , he begins by saying PBS has already failed . We wonder what defines `` critical '' to Mr. Romney . Free educational tools perhaps ? PBS is a leading video resource for high schools , offering older kids exceptional age-appropriate programming , such as `` NOVA '' and Ken Burns historical documentaries ; it supplies 20,000 digital tools , such as in-depth teacher lesson plans , for students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade ; half a million teachers rely on the PBS educational resource `` Learning Media . '' What most people do n't realize is that if federal funding for PBS were cut , much of the loss would be on the local level . The vast majority of taxpayer funds for PBS ( $ 1.35 per person per year ) goes to local stations , many of which serve rural areas , where losing funding would mean stations going dark . We remind Mr. Romney that when small businesses go out of business , not only are their products no longer available to the public , people lose their jobs . Where is the gain in saving the $ 1.35 a year ? We see only loss . Big Bird stays up to pay a visit to 'SNL ' Well ? We as a nation must decide where our priorities are . Is education a priority ? Are our children our priority ? Are we going to support those priorities or just pay lip service to them ? If these are our critical priorities , then we must support efforts like PBS and we must speak out when our children are used as political tools . What Mitt Romney chooses to ignore or can not see is that PBS represents the delivery on America 's promise to itself : a promise to provide all children , rich or poor , black or white , with quality educational opportunities . This is an ongoing struggle . Schools are underfunded . Teachers are undervalued . And now PBS is under attack by a candidate who wants to lead our country . Make your own decision about how you feel about Romney 's statements against PBS , and act . But you do n't have to take our word for it . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LeVar Burton and Mark Wolfe .
David Burton , Mark Wolfe : Romney has said he would defund PBS . Time to speak up . They say PBS helps build literacy , particularly in disadvantaged kids . They say from Bert and Ernie to ` ` Reading Rainbow '' to NOVA , PBS is educational television . Others : Funding cuts would hurt local stations , too ; this shows misplaced priorities .