Lip Service?
Dunkirk, NY – This article appeared in the New York Times this morning in the education section. It seems as if Mayor Bloomberg is trying to push arts back into the NYC education system, but it remains to be seen how successful he can be. This comes on the heels of Chancellor Joel Klein’s decision last winter to give NYC school principals “discretion” over the $67+ million which had been specifically designated for the arts (meaning they could use the money for projects other than the arts).
The fact that this has become a political football in New York City is just one indication of how, even in the city that most people acknowledge as the cultural capital of the world, the arts are never front and center on educators’ radars. The argument always goes something like this:
- The arts are great, and should be a part of a complete education.
- But we are short on resources and we have other priorities mandated by state and federal governments.
- So we can’t afford the arts right now.
Probably all of you reading this have heard some variation on this argument. It’s the same old song; everyone recognizes the value of the arts, but nobody can (or will) pay for it.
Something similar is happening here in Buffalo, where the local arts advocacy groups are trying to get the Erie County legislature to dedicate a portion of the property tax dedicated to the arts, about 3%. Again, you hear politicians saying all the right things, but also you can hear behind the statements the attempt to lower expectations and prepare people for the fact that the dedicated funding will not appear.
My short excursion into administration at Fredonia has tempered what would have been my automatic condemnation of these kinds of efforts. Often I found I had to give the appropriate verbal support to an idea (such as paying adjunct instructors more money) but found I could not come through (a significant deficit in the adjunct budget). There are numerous examples of such situations. It seems need always outstrips resources.
Much of my catch-up reading and the issues I’ve encountered have led me to begin to think about assumptions. Every argument starts with some sort of assumption, an initial given. In my 40s I went through a period of adjustment where I began to realize that a lot of my assumptions about life and the world in general were simply not true. I would venture to go farther and say that a “mid-life crisis” is that period of time in your life when all the assumptions you made about your life and your career appear to be incorrect. Adjustments need to be made to the new realities, and sometimes without even realizing it you begin to collect a different set of assumptions. The new set of assumptions can lead to many different attitudes and conclusions, from re-energizing you to turning you cynical and bitter, and everything in-between.
Is it heresy to ask if the arts really are a luxury? Do we try to dress up the arts to make them appear more important than they are, just to be able to follow our own creative agendas? If the arts are so necessary to society, why isn’t the public itself crying out for more art? Do they really believe artists when they cite arts as a cultural, educational and economic necessity? If the arts are such powerful economic engines for urban areas and contributing so many dollars to the region, why can’t they turn a profit for themselves?
Might it be possible that at this point in cultural history, artists are fighting new types of battles armed with old assumptions? How does one go about creating a new set of assumptions from which to gain new faith and energy? I wonder…. -twl
