Two studies of the effects of "Sesame Street" are presented. In the first case, the study tested two hypotheses: (1) "Sesame Street" can prepare poverty children for first grade; and (2) "Sesame Street" can narrow the achievement gap between the poor and the middle-class child. Twenty-four pairs of poverty children were randomly selected for an experimental and a control group. The experimental children were exposed in a kindergarten setting to the "Sesame Street" curriculum as the educational component of their program. The results of this experiment shows that the curriculum did not accomplish the two relevant educational goals which were established for it. The aim of the second study was to examine and evaluate the effects of exposing groups of poverty children to different time lengths of viewing "Sesame Street" and compare these groups to groups of non-viewing poverty children. The experimental group (E4) and the control group (C4) both attended all-day day care and Head Start kindergarten. The E4 group watched "Sesame Street" every day and their teacher used the "Sesame Street" curriculum as the cognitive component of their program. The day care program of the C4 group was similar to conventional day care programs and had a structural curriculum as the cognitive component of the program. At the beginning of the fourth week in first grade, the children of both groups were given the Metropolitan Readiness Test, which measures word meaning, listening, matching, alphabet, numbers, and copying. On all measures except word meaning, the C4 children scored higher than the 4 children. The children exposed to "Sesame Street" for over a two year period made significantly less educational gains than the children who participated in a traditional Head Start program. (CK)