News
Advocating Arts Education in Southwestern Pennsylvania
Date: 08/27/2009
by Glenn Bailey, Jr, AEC Apprentice
President Barack Obama has publicly acknowledged a platform for the arts that includes the vitality of arts education within our school systems. Unfortunately, increased pressure from standardized testing and certain legislation have placed arts programming on a continual decline. Pennsylvania, like many states across the nation, has experienced budget cuts that force many school districts to reduce staffing and classroom instruction in the arts. In some areas, arts instruction has even been reduced to once a month for students. While corporations are failing, stock markets are crashing, and the highest unemployment rate in years is upon us, it leaves little hope for change on a singular level.
With current legislation moving through Congress that will appropriate $53 million for national arts instruction through the U.S. Department of Education, we all have the ability to advocate for change. As a graduate student who recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C. for Arts Advocacy Day, I wanted to share some of the information that I learned while attending workshops hosted by American’s for the Arts.
Take the time to understand federal arts legislation and its impact on your individual community or organization. One of the most important events for federal advocacy is American’s for the Art’s Arts Advocacy Day. This year fifteen Masters of Art Management students from the H. John Heinz III College of Carnegie Mellon University with members of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council (GPAC) set off to Capitol Hill. This event brings together several constituencies each year to participate in training sessions and meetings with members of Congress.
These students, alongside GPAC, were able to get a first-hand look into the proper strategies and tactics of congressional lobbying in support of arts legislation, like the $53 million appropriation for arts education and the $200 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. In the offices of Congressmen Murtha, Doyle, Murphy, and Altmire, the true spirit of advocacy in Pittsburgh came to fruition, as we were able to garner support. Remember that this is only one group of individuals vying for change. Imagine what would happen if there were several hundred individuals who visited these Congressmen in person or logged on to their websites, understood their platforms, and urged them to continue to support the arts.
Utilize resources through local and state organizations to advocate more efficiently for your constituency. Currently there are several state and local organizations that offer advocacy toolkits to better prepare your case. The Pennsylvania Art Education Association, Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts have all compiled research, quotes, letters of support, visuals, and contacts to urge local policy-makers for support.
Build networks with individuals that have similar arts policy agendas to advocate with greater proficiency. With the incorporation of many social media techniques, like blogs, networking sites, and even video-streams, the ability to spread information is greater than ever. Policy-makers will listen to all forms of communication. The arts provide the opportunity to creatively portray the issues that plague our school systems and organizations. Utilizing these technological resources can be effective strategies in stating the importance of your position.
One thing that I always keep in the back of my mind, even for those with no affiliation to the arts, is that no matter what happens in this economy or through decisions made by the government, the arts stay alive. In the caves of Lascaux, France, where fading pigments depict the stories of the Neanderthal man; art lived. It lived long before our native English tongue, before Melvin Dewey and his decimal system, and long before the crashing stock market. In this year’s 22nd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture for Arts & Public Policy, keynote speaker and master jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, wooed us all with an endearing lecture about the arts and our cultural heritage. It is only fitting that this article end with a selection by Marsalis that speaks on behalf of the importance of arts education in our current economy. “…the answer is not more education, but more substantive and more culturally-rooted education. The primary justification for the value of education is not some competition with other countries for technological jobs, or to win the so-called science race, or to beat anyone. Our arts DEMAND and DESERVE that we recognize the life we have lived together. In this time, we need to be educated in who we are, and with the arts, education extends far outside the classroom.”
