Sesame Street is entering classrooms

SEATTLE - Sesame Street is taking its beloved, critically acclaimed brand of educational television into the highly profitable world of classroom curriculum, a move that experts say could open the door for other companies to move into the sensitive learning space with possible influence on children.

Sesame Workshop, the company behind Big Bird and Elmo, and McGraw-Hill Education, a billion-dollar for-profit company known for school textbooks, announced their partnership on Thursday. Both declined to disclose the financial terms for their new line of classroom instructional materials.

"Sesame Workshop probably can be trusted to do this in an ethical way, but the door opens for other companies to do it in a less ethical way," said Heather Kirkorian, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies the effects of media in young children.