Why Is It So Hard? Seriously.

Posted by , Oct 22, 2014 4 comments



Matt D'Arrigo Matt D'Arrigo

I write this as an arts leader but, more importantly, I also write this as a dad. My wife and I have two amazing children, ages 5 and 8, who are lucky to have both parents who are artists and work in the arts. They receive daily

artistic and creative encouragement at home. We want our children to be creative in their approach to everything in life, to learn and grow with a sense of wonderment, curiosity, and discovery. We want them to express themselves in authentic ways and to respect and understand the immense role the arts and humanities play in shaping all of our lives to be more meaningful, fulfilling, and enjoyable.

They attend a fantastic public school, one of the best in San Diego (I know, I’m biased). They receive arts programming once a week, but only through the generosity of parents and families donating to a foundation that pays for it and volunteers who help support in the classroom. We’re lucky they attend a school in a more “well off” area of town whose families have the means to fund the arts programs. If they attended a lower income school, and we didn’t hold the arts as a highest priority in our home, they would receive very little to no arts exposure or engagement. I don’t think that’s fair.

All of us who work in the arts and arts education ask ourselves the same question over and over: why is it so hard? Studies upon studies have been released on the positive impact the arts have on student achievement. Leaders from all sectors are on record praising the importance of the arts and creativity for the future of our nation and economy. The ROI to society has been well documented. Yet why do we still have to fight so hard to ensure all students have access to, and engagement in, quality arts education?

According to Americans for the Arts 93% of Americans believe that the arts are vital to providing a well-rounded education. Yet 97% of elementary schools don’t offer dance classes and 96% don’t offer drama. Music and visual arts fair much better but still fall well short - leaving millions of students who don’t receive any arts education at all. And who’s missing out the most? You guessed it: the underserved. African American and Latino students have less than HALF the access to arts education than their white peers.

If only we could find leaders and influencers who would stand up for arts education. Ah, but the great news is that there are thousands of government, private sector, and community leaders who have gotten behind the arts and arts education. Even the most powerful leader in America gets it:

“President Obama believes that the arts and humanities should be part of the education of every child in America. The power of the arts and humanities to foster creativity in developing minds, to engage and motivate students in school and to prepare all children for productive futures is essential for the future of nation’s cultural and economic life.”White House Website

Other Leaders from the Department of Education, Microsoft, Apple, Ovation, Citicorp, GE, GlaxoSmithKline, Xerox, and many others agree with President Obama’s view on the importance of Arts Education.

Yet here we still stand; hands out begging for change – both literally and figuratively. So I ask all of these leaders, why are the arts still not receiving the level of support needed so every child has access? How do we ensure that every child in America receives weekly arts programs either during or after school? Perhaps looking at three “M’s” would help get us there.

Mandates

In 2012 the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the country, voted to mandate the arts as a core subject. With this mandate L.A. Unified created a layer of protection - making arts education funding less vulnerable to budget cuts. It will also help replace some of the $60 million cut in arts education since 2007. But even this mandate alone doesn’t eliminate the need for private dollars: they still need to fund a $4 million budget gap to provide arts for all students. That effort, so far, has met major challenges resulting in an adverse affect on the mandate; the District has had to eliminate or greatly reduce long-standing arts programming in numerous schools in order to spread the money around to serve ALL kids, but with less art. You can’t have a mandate without the money to back it up.

Money

It’s hard to pin down the average national cost, but estimates to provide arts instruction once a week for each public school student annually ranges from $66 to $187 per student (per Young Audiences, San Diego and NAMM respectively). So lets say, for the sake of argument, the average annual cost is $127 per student. That’s not a lot of money when the US spent a total of $12,608 per student on public education in 2011-12. With over 49.5 million students enrolled in K-12 public schools multiplied by $127 - that comes to $5.85 billion annually. If you split the cost between government, business, and philanthropy it can be reached. But it will take creativity, innovation, and teamwork – luckily, all things the arts teach! This needs to be a team approach with government taking the lead. In New York, with its own state mandate that all middle and high school students receive arts education, political leaders like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are finding the money to make it a priority, pumping $23 million into NYC arts education this past year. So how can businesses, particularly the leading innovative creative industries that bring in trillions (with a “t”) in revenue each year, play a more robust leadership role? How can they, and individual philanthropic leaders, help fund the gap? Maybe we steal a playbook from Warren Buffet and everyone signs a “Giving Pledge” dedicating a % of revenues and income to re-invest in arts education. If 93% of America believes that arts education is vital, that should get us somewhere.

Manpower

Lastly, and most importantly, we need to invest in creating a diverse pool of well qualified, well paid, and well trained arts education professionals and organizations providing services to a very diverse student population. We need to treat teaching artists, art specialists, and arts organizations with the respect and importance they deserve and provide the support they need to excel at their jobs in helping our kids to excel through the arts and creativity. These are the professionals who will be preparing our youth with the critical skills needed to succeed in business, community, and life. So let’s create a comprehensive initiative to recruit, train, and support a qualified army of arts educators.

Yes, I know. In the words of John Lennon "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one". I’m not the only one. I call on all the political, business, community and arts leaders to, (again in the words of John Lennon), "Come together...right now!"to help lead an effort to fully fund arts education for every child in America.

4 responses for Why Is It So Hard? Seriously.

Comments

Amy says
October 24, 2014 at 8:42 pm

I am an individual supporter of arts education through a partnership I've forged with Arts For All in NY (arts-for-all.org). I confess my motive was rather selfish. My late mother, Sydell Rosenberg (d. 1996) was a teacher and a poet and writer. She was a charter member of the Haiku Society of America, founded in 1968, and her short poems -- mostly haiku and senryu -- were anthologized quite extensively over the course of several decades. I know she wanted to publish an A-B-C reader for kids based on her haiku, but never got the opportunity. My collaboration with Arts For All uses haiku to guide hands-on visual arts instruction. We're on our third series of workshops for second graders. We've also developed a workshop series that uses haiku to construct songs -- also for second graders. Using lyrical short poems -- haiku -- to make art and music -- it's a match made in arts ed Heaven It's great for the kids, I hope fun for the teachers, and it meets my goal to keep some of my late mom's work alive, relevant and resonant for today's young audiences. I'm proud of my partnership with Arts For All!

  • Please login to post comments.
October 23, 2014 at 11:34 am

A study of arts education access in Houston schools was recently released: www.ArtsAccessInitiative.org

  • Please login to post comments.
Mariah says
November 26, 2014 at 3:12 pm

It's certainly not hard to incorporate the arts into each home. All you have to do is encourage the child to participate in the arts, so that they are able to get the benefits that they deserve.
Arts education benefits high school children by keeping them in school through the influence of the arts. By having some sort of arts education program the students who are in high school have a 4% dropout rate while those who have no arts education have a dropout rate of 22% (Lynch). Once they had graduated from high school those who have an arts education at the college that they attend have a 75% chance of earning a bachelors agree according to a study done by the Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth: Findings from Four Longitudinal Studies. Students who do not have any kind of arts education at their college only have a 43% chance of a bachelor's degree ("New NEA Research Report Shows Potential Benefits of Arts Education for At-Risk Youth"). By having some sort of arts education program placed at the school it allows students to further their education and then get into the job that they are hoping for.

Lynch, Robert L. "Arts Education Transforms Societies." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.
.

"New NEA Research Report Shows Potential Benefits of Arts Education for At-Risk Youth." National Endowment For The Arts. National Endowment For The Arts, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 02 Nov. 2014. .

  • Please login to post comments.
Mariah says
November 26, 2014 at 3:19 pm

It is certainly not hard to incorporate the arts into each home. All one have to do is encourage the child to participate in the arts, so that they are able to get the benefits that they deserve.
-edited by Mariah on 11/26/14

  • Please login to post comments.