How to Fight for the Arts
Once again in the United States government funding of the arts has come under fire. The initial Trump administration budget proposed complete abolition of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Thankfully the public outcry has been tremendous and these cuts have been removed from the latest budget. Nevertheless now is the ideal time to discuss the role of the public funding for the arts, especially in the public education context. A host of eloquent and impassioned authors have published strong advocacy statements in favor of government funding of the arts. Please allow me to examine a few of these most compelling arguments before I articulate my own.
On March 30th in the New York Times Nicholas Kristof argued that “the arts humanize us and promote empathy.” He cited Harvard Professor Steven Pinker saying “that a surge of literacy and an explosion of reading — novels in particular — ‘contributed to the humanitarian revolution.’” In the American context this revolution was integral to the abolition of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement.
Julie Andrews (who won an Academy Award for her portrayal as Mary Poppins) and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton focused their arts advocacy article for CNN on what the arts do for students. The authors referenced studies that show that “young people who engage regularly with the arts are twice as likely to read for pleasure, three times more likely to win an award for attendance or be elected to class office, and four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement.” The authors continued with “[t]hese students have higher grade-point averages and standardized test scores, and lower dropout rates.”
Returning to the New York Times the boldest advocacy was articulated by Stanley McChrystal: “Save PBS. It Makes Us Safer.” The title sums it up. McChrystal’s positive view of public broadcasting is infectious. Few can argue against the supposition that elevated, thinking, and informed citizens build strong and vibrant civil societies.
Reading these advocacy statements brought back a lot of memories of the year I spent teaching music in rural Colorado. Two memories stand out in particular. The first event happened early in the school year. My fellow teachers and I were in a professional development workshop that was focusing on student achievement. Test scores. Even though my band classes were not assessed as part of the mandatory testing I was being a good sport and participating.
I found the pile of data on each student fascinating. I was sitting at a table discussing the various intricacies with my superintendent when he stopped me and said something to the effect of, “Stu, what you should do is collate all the data from the students in your classes and compare it with the student body as a whole. I think this could add real legitimacy to your band program.”
The second event happened late in the school year. It was after school and the elementary school principal visited my classroom. Most days I kept the room open and allowed students to practice while I did my grades and lesson planning. My principal had noticed how this one student had been attending the after school sessions.
“I am glad to see that [the student] has been spending time here” he said. “I know this boy can be a real handful for you and his other teachers. What you might not know is that he also troubles his peers a lot. He doesn’t really click with them. Also even though he’s athletic he’s not really sporty. But I think that music could really become his thing. It could become something that could make him special. I’m gonna look at his schedule and see if I can get him more time with you. Plus you know we would really like to see his test scores go up and music could be the trick.”
It turns out that my students did have higher test scores. And that boy I reached out to did in fact end the year better than he began.
So what?
What if the results had been negative? Would that mean that I wasn’t an efficacious educator? Could negative results be used as a way to criticize my program?
These experiences and many more have made me very skeptical of advocating for art by explaining the value of what art does. The advocacy articles referenced above do a brilliant job of articulating the value of what art brings to the public. Each article more or less follows a “the arts are important because they [fill in the blank]” model of persuasion. There are a myriad of salient ways to end that sentence.
Nevertheless my position is that justifying art by what it does sells art short. The arts are simply a value in themselves. Art is the world’s most inestimable legacy. Art is the imagination of our society. Art is our diverse, collective identity and this identity is what we pass on to each other and to those yet born.
The discussion over government funding of the arts has never been more relevant in the public education context. I’ve thrown enough hyperlinks at you so please trust me when I point out that high-stakes testing has proliferated across our schools. And it is yet growing. Additionally, students are being saturated with after school activities, some of which take up so much time that the kids eat dinner in the car because they are out so late. Finally, by all accounts kids today are better at changing channels on their television sets (or screens) than ever before. Broad and comprehensive arts funding by the government will ensure that the souls of this citizenry have been touched in such a way that they see beyond what is on the television set and on the fill-in-the-bubble test.
Want to take this discussion forward? I suggest these steps:
- Help arts professionals speak with one voice about advocacy. The boards of the International Society for Music Education and the International Dance Council are mutually exclusive. I’m sure that doesn’t surprise anyone but perhaps there is a way for them to join forces, at least on advocacy messages.
- Talk to politicians at all levels. Remind them (if you are American) that the 1965 Arts and Humanities Bill was passed with bipartisan support. In fact the bill was passed by voice vote!
- Help parents speak to their school administrators with a unified voice. Avoid just talking about marching band even if that’s what your kid does. Make this a singular issue.
- Shout out to our top business professionals. Who is this generation’s Andrew Carnegie? (For that matter who was the Andrew Carnegie of the previous generation?) Like it, or not, the truth is that our richest business CEOs often have the ear of policymakers.
- If you live in a developing country (like I do) now is the time to really push for the arts. So often government spending is discussed with “either-or” kinds of language. After showing him a previous version of this article one editor actually told me “you’ll have to address the 800-pound gorilla in the room: why spend on arts when people are starving?” Well my view is that the reasons for feeding people and the reasons for bringing arts to everyone are mutually inclusive.
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About the author: Stuart Potter plays the bassoon in the Symphony Orchestra of India and teaches music at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai. He writes about various topics including music, education, and arts policy. More information at www.stupotter.com. Also follow him @stoorrific and he might learn to use Twitter…
