Klarinet Archive - Posting 000265.txt from 2004/04
From: ormondtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: RE: [kl] The value of performing arts education
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 12:42:59 -0400
Mark=A0Charette wrote:
> This is also the rationale for sports activities;
> if you want to promote the arts you'll need to
> differentiate and quantify, otherwise you're
> competing for the same dollar. The spectacle
> of sports makes in innately attractive to the
> general public and thus it is easier to sell to
> that same public.
Mark, the lesson to be learned is that no single form of education ---
art or sports or 3Rs or manual trades or any other mode --- deserves all
the money.
It's **not** the same public for all forms of education, no more than
it's the same students for every form of education. Our biggest
attendance was on a sports event night. Some kids & parents & public
went to one type of event and others went to another type of event ---
which is (imo) as it should be.
Our cast was 29 kids. Our attendance was approximately 500 last night.
If every kid brought along 2 parents and 2 grandparents and 2 siblings,
29 x 6 is still only 174 seats filled. The other 330 seats last night
were true ticket-buying "audience" who made their choice as to what they
were interested in.
The real problem, of course, is that the total pie is smaller than many
of us would like. Yesterday, I saw a 'pie chart' on a news show which
claimed that education of all types, including remedial, is receiving a
total of 4% of the national or state budget (I forget which) right now.
In our area, the major competition right now is *not* between sports and
art. Rather, three of our local school districts have (as our local
newspaper printed this week) adopted written policies to the effect that
since they can't afford art *or* sports while also meeting the "No Child
Left Behind" testing mandates, they will eliminate or cut back on
(actually, they have already done so --- our original music was recorded
from computer to CD because live performers with instruments were not
available) on **both** art & athletics in favor of increased remedial
education that (they hope) will lead directly to better test scores.
.....sorry for the run-on sentence.....
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