At a Capitol news conference, representatives of CTA, the state PTA and the California Arts Council joined the Superintendent of Public Instruction and Assembly Majority Leader Kevin Shelley to support passage of AB 869, a measure to restore funding for arts education in California's public schools.
"We have a moral imperative to restore the arts," said Superintendent Delaine Eastin. "We are dead last among the states today in the number of music teachers. … When it comes to the issue of safety and security, the arts are important. Each school must have a magnet to bring students through the door and help them improve in literacy and mathematics. The arts don't compete with other subjects. They are complementary to learning in all subject areas. In my opinion, they are core subjects."
Assembly Member Shelley said, "Parents are bringing a commitment to help us pass this vital and long overdue measure." He noted that parents have recognized the importance of the arts in motivating students to achieve in school.
PTA President Lavonne McBroom emphasized that passage of the arts measure is a major priority for the PTA. The group has been supporting the measure with a slogan, "Improve our schools: Bring back the arts."
Carol Kocivar, a coordinator for the PTA, said that, unfortunately, art programs are the first item cut in bad times and the last item restored under good economic conditions.
"Don't let anyone tell you we can't afford the arts," Kocivar said. "We can't afford not to have the arts in our schools. [Because of the arts] children do better in school, and they do better in life. Test scores are higher, and children want to come to school."
CTA Board Member Paula Caplinger told reporters how schools are so short of funds that they cannot even afford to repair broken instruments. She recounted how involvement in music programs has prompted achievement and good behavior on the part of students otherwise characterized as troublesome. "Arts should be for all students," she underscored.
Restoration of arts programs would help California advance its goal of raising student performance in "low-performing, high-priority schools, where students score within the lowest 20 percent on state standardized tests," said Caplinger.
Eastin expressed the fear that education bills in general and AB 869 in particular could become "casualties of the energy crisis. … We ought to be putting as much energy into education as we are in the energy crisis … if education is our state's first, second and third priority.
"Kids feel safe because they come to a school community where differences are bridged by the arts. The arts give us a way to knit our kids together into a community."
Len Feldman