Klarinet Archive - Posting 000305.txt from 2002/09

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl]Benefits of Arts Education
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:45:17 -0400

Although educational bureaucracies clearly need those studies showing the
benefits of arts education, as an ordinary citizen, I rely on common sense.
Common sense would tell me to withdraw any kid of mine, muy pronto, from any
school that abandoned the arts curriculum. To me, cutting music is not only
a literal action; it's also a symbolic action. I read it as the
advertisement for a general mind-set that I don't want taught to my family.
As Oscar Wilde put it, people who think that way "know the price of
everything and the value of nothing."

If I couldn't find a better school by moving away or by paying for a private
school, then I'd still pull my kids out of the state school and resort to
home schooling, before I'd subject any child in my family to the educational
unwisdom of misleaders who think that the fine arts are frills. A school
system with not enough money for the arts hasn't got enough money for a sound
curriculum generally. No, that's not a scientific finding, but I'll bet it's
the gut-level reaction of a lot of the better-educated parents in the average
school district.

The thinking goes something like this: Want a brain-drain? Want to be left
with classrooms full of the drug zombies who pick fights and sleep through
class (if they go to class), whose parents don't give a crap as long as the
yard apes aren't underfoot? Just kick out the music and art programs and
watch the students at the top of the academic charts scuttle for the exit
doors. Even if nothing else in this paragraph is true, I think that enough
educated parents *believe* it's true for it to become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.

The politicians in my small City of Falls Church (Virginia) know exactly how
to play this card. Every time citizens scream about a projected new tax
hike, the School Board and the City Council start issuing dire warnings, like
squids shooting out ink: "Ooooh, if you terrible cheapskates won't give us
wheelbarrows full of money, we may have to cut the arts programs. The top
students will disappear and *your* kids will have to sit surrounded by
juvenile delinquents." Well, okay, nobody comes right out and says
"wheelbarrows" and "cheapskates," but.... With elections coming up, the ink
cloud billows again, right on schedule.

The tactic works beautifully. The parents freak out on cue and start
threatening to move away; the specter of declining property values arises
like toxic mist from graveyards of elections past; and citizens vote for the
tax measure (necessary or not) or for the candidate who endorses it, even
when it's unjustified or even fiscally irresponsible. Even though I perceive
the cynicism in this process, I'll usually vote for the increase, too, just
in case I'm mistaken. Only outrageously bad accounting or demonstrable
fiscal ineptitude can turn me away from a school improvement bond. A school
that wants to keep the honor students who keep those almighty test scores
high must keep the curriculum that attracts their moms and dads and
neighbors.

Lelia

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