Issues

Friday, October 3rd, 2008 — At a rally on the steps of City Hall and at a City Council hearing on school overcrowding, The Center for Arts Education sounded the call for the preservation of disappearing arts spaces in New York City’s public schools. Citing a recent survey that found that 25 percent of New York City school principals reported losing their art, music, dance, drama, or foreign language spaces to general education classrooms during their tenure, CAE called on the Department of Education to maintain, expand, and reclaim spaces dedicated to learning in and through the arts.

View the testimony
View the press release

View letter to NYCDOE Schools Chancellor Klein
 

In early 2009 the Legislature approved Governor Paterson's proposed $7 million cut to the state arts budget for 2008-2009 as part of the $1.6 billion deficit reduction package. The cut to the New York State Council on the Arts, dedicated to preserving and expanding the rich and diverse cultural resources that are and will become the heritage of New York's citizens, represents more than 5 percent of the total cuts to all state agencies.

 

On October 15 the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) released the second Annual Arts in Schools Report for the 2007-2008 school year. As the report makes clear, the status of arts education in public schools is in jeopardy. With looming budgets cuts and an increased focus on testing and test preparation, there is growing concern that arts education is being marginalized much as it was in the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, when the arts were almost entirely eliminated from city schools. 

 

Unfortunately, data presented in the report, as well as in reports from inside the schools themselves, reinforces this notion. The report indicates that schools are budgeting less on the arts overall, with spending on services by cultural partners down by over half a million dollars, and a 63 percent decrease in spending on arts supplies and equipment.

 

Only 8 percent of elementary schools reported offering all four arts forms to every child  each year as required by state law, and less than half of middle schools are ensuring that all students are gaining access to the arts education required by state law. What is apparent is that the city and state need to redouble efforts to ensure that the city’s school children are receiving the arts education to which they are entitled by law.   

 

With budgets being slashed this year and presumably next year, and without the safety net provided by Project ARTS, which ensured a minimum level of dedicated funding for the arts, many are deeply distressed and fear the arts will disappear from the schools.