The US Office of Education¹ and the NAEB co-sponsored a conference on Educational Television in Washington DC, May 26-28, 1958.² A week after the conference, the president of the NAEB, Burton Paulu, reported on it to the NAEB board and officers: 

It was a significant meeting! We of NAEB can take pride in having initiated it!
Being mailed under separate cover (to those of you who were not there) is some material which describes what went on, such as the program, a list of participants, and copies of several of the principal speeches.³
The quality of the talks was up to the very best I have heard anywhere at a conference, convention or institute. We got off to an excellent start Monday morning [May 26, 1958] with fine statements by Novice G Fawcett, President of Ohio State University, and William G Carr, executive secretary of the NEA⁴. Marshall McLuhan of Toronto University threw us a couple of fast curves with his distinctions between ideas expressed in print and through the electronic media. Whether or not one agreed with his point, though, the overall effect was highly stimulating.
(…)
Press coverage of the conference was good. We made the New York Times twice (copies are enclosed for your information). I think this meeting achieved its main objectives, among which I would include the following:
To outline America’s basic educational problems.
To review the status of educational broadcasting today.
To bring together people of different backgrounds to get acquainted and to exchange ideas.
To point the way for future developments in educational broadcasting.
To advance the status and prestige of NAEB.⁵ 

Significantly, Paulu went on in the same report to describe his failure to secure funding for the NAEB from the Fund for the Advancement of Education, a specialized arm of the Ford Foundation, or from the Ford Foundation itself. Since NAEB support from the Kellogg Foundation was due to expire in 1959, the organization needed to secure funding if it were to remain in existence as more than a loose group of university broadcasters. The combined conference with the US Office of Education was part of its attempt to gain greater visibility, especially in Washington.

In this context, it may be that Harry Skornia saw McLuhan’s energy and growing notoriety as one possible tool in tackling the NAEB funding problem.

Another connection with the NAEB quest for funding, and with McLuhan, is provided by a further section of Paulu’s report:

The Magnuson Bill
The Senate passed the Magnuson Bill on May 29. The final text of the bill, together with the discussion which preceded its passage, may be found in the Congressional Record, Senate, for May 29, pp. 8779-8782. Congratulations to our committee (headed by Bob Schenkkan)⁶ for its good work! We are already in touch with Lenny Marks⁷ about the bill’s future in the House. ⁸ 

Senator Warren Magnuson (Washington) played a central role in federal education funding for a quarter century. This 1958 bill passed as part of the National Defense Education Act in September 1958. It was through this Act that McLuhan’s Understanding Media project with the NAEB was funded in 1959.

In these years, especially through its work with Marks, the NAEB was learning how to lobby the federal government for favorable legislation and for monetary support. The passage of the Education Act marked the start of its great success in this area which eventually led to the founding of NPR and PBS. As part of this process, the NAEB would move its headquarters from Illinois to Washington in 1960.