April 2010

Spring 2010 Arts Education National Forum

April 2010 - Department of Education | On April 9 & 10, 2010 the Arts Education Partnership presented their Spring 2010 National Forum in Washington, DC. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts spoke at the opening plenary session. Below is part of the transcript of their remarks:

The Well-Rounded Curriculum

Arne Duncan
Secretary, Dept. of Ed"If there is a message that I hope you will take away from today's conference it is this: The arts can no longer be treated as a frill. As First Lady Michelle Obama has said, 'the arts are not just a nice thing to have or do if there is free time or if one can afford it... Paintings and poetry, music and design... they all define who we are as a people.'

All of you know the history all too well. For decades, arts education has been treated as though it was the novice teacher at school, the last hired and first fired when times get tough. But President Obama, the First Lady, and I reject the notion that the arts, history, foreign languages, geography, and civics are ornamental offerings that can or should be cut from schools during a fiscal crunch. The truth is that, in the information age, a well-rounded curriculum is not a luxury but a necessity.

I am not going to sugarcoat the tough choices that many districts are facing this year. State and local school budgets are absolutely strained across the country. Many of you are fighting lonely battles to preserve funding for arts education. There is no getting around that fact--and I applaud your commitment to fully educating America's children by engaging them in the arts.

At the same time, in challenge lies opportunity. As Rahm Emanuel has said, 'you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.' Now-- as we move forward with reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--is the time to rethink and strengthen arts education." More...

Remarks at Arts Education Partnership's Opening Plenary Session

Rocco Landesman
NEA Chairman"I join with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, and the Council of Chief State School Officers in applauding Sandra Rupert and the Arts Education partnership for putting this session together. Thank you, truly.

A preacher came home one Sunday and said, 'I preached a great sermon today.'

'Oh,' his wife responded. 'What was it about?'

'It was all about how the rich should give to the poor,' the preacher answered.

'Oh,' said his wife. 'And were you very convincing?'

'Well,' the preacher said. 'I sure convinced the poor.'

Since taking this job eight months ago, I feel a lot like that preacher: I spend an awful lot of time talking with people who already agree with me. We do that a lot in the arts. And we certainly do it in arts education. But I am encouraged to see new people joining the conversation, and many of them agreeing.

Growing the size of the choir -- to continue the preacher metaphor -- was one of the goals for founding the Arts Education Partnership, and it is one of the goals for another of the NEA's major investments in arts education: the Education Leaders Institute (ELI), which happens in conjunction with the Illinois Arts Council -- thanks to Terry Scrogum and his staff.

ELI is a chance for a state's key decision makers to come together around arts education: school leaders, state superintendents and boards of education, legislators, artists and arts professionals, funders, and academics. And I am thrilled to announce today that the five states that will participate in this summer's ELI are Illinois, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington State.

In addition to the $3.4 million that we invest in leadership initiatives like AEP and ELI, the NEA also has an almost $8 million budget for Learning in the Arts grants, and we invest well over $4 million in arts education through our discipline grants and state partnerships.

Together, that's some $15 million, and I have challenged my staff to see if we can make sure that there is at least one arts education grant in every Congressional district. That's how important arts education is to my chairmanship: I want to know that we have reached every part of America with some support for arts education.

Why? Because we need more arts education in this country." More...

MENC Announces New Executive Director

April 2010 - MENC | MENC: The National Association for Music Education today announced the appointment of Michael A. Butera, a seasoned association executive and former public school music teacher, as its new executive director.

According to Scott C. Shuler, MENC president-elect and co-chair of the MENC Executive Director Search Committee, Butera brings “extensive experience building educator organizations in a number of states; considerable experience as a legislative advocate and registered federal lobbyist; expertise in refining and implementing effective strategic plans; and a fresh perspective and creative ideas regarding how MENC can improve its service to members and state organizations.”

MENC: The National Association for Music Education, through membership of more than 75,000 active, retired, and pre-service music teachers, and with 60,000 honor students and supporters, serves millions of students nationwide through activities at all teaching levels, from preschool to graduate school. MENC's mission is to advance music education by encouraging the study and making of music by all.

Arts Advocates Head to Capitol Hill

April 2010 - LA Times | It's time again for the national arts establishment's annual choreographed visit to Capitol Hill in an attempt to gain Congress' ear -- and its favor in coming budget deliberations.

For Tuesday's "Arts Advocacy Day," actors Kyle McLachlan and Jeff Daniels will fill the famous-folks slot among those testifying at a congressional hearing on the arts.

Last year, Linda Ronstadt, Wynton Marsalis and Josh Groban were the celebrity artillery in the push coordinated by Americans for the Arts, a leading arts lobbying and support group. The bottom-line results weren't negligible. Advocates proposed a $200-million annual budget for the National Endowment for the Arts, and Congress did ultimately up President Obama's $161.3-million ante for the arts, passing a $167.5-million NEA appropriation. That 8.1% hike (compared with Obama's proposed increase of about 4%) came amid a dismal economy and on top of a one-time $50-million boost for the NEA to make job-creating grants, part of last year's economic stimulus bill.

McLachlan and Daniels will be joined on Tuesday by a military man: retired Army Brig. Gen. Nolen V. Bivens, who is expected to testify about the role of cultural diplomacy in furthering America's foreign policy and national security interests, with hopes of a bigger appropriation toward that end for the State Department. Also in the advocacy lineup are Charles Segars, chief executive of arts network Ovation TV; Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter; Terri Aldrich, director of a North Dakota arts council; and Robert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts. More...