Arts education has long been hailed for its transformative power, a way to boost everything from test scores to social-emotional learning. Unfortunately, budget woes have cut arts education so close to the bone that only 11% of California schools offer a comprehensive arts education, research suggests. That’s a stark inequity that arts education advocates have long labored to rectify.
“Creativity is a muscle, not a gene, and if it’s a muscle then you can make it stronger,” said Jessica Mele, a program officer specializing in arts education at the Hewlett Foundation. “The problem is that arts education in this country has historically been ruled by assumptions about who can and should be allowed to participate in the arts and a lot of that has to do with race and class and geography.”
While that grim state of affairs is set to change, in the wake of Proposition 28 — the groundbreaking Arts and Music in Schools initiative that will provide arts funding to schools — experts say many challenges lie ahead, from uncertainties about how the program will roll out to the ongoing teacher shortage. Such growing pains are to be expected, some say, as the roughly $1 billion program ramps up this fall.
“What we are doing in California with Prop. 28 is truly seismic,” said Austin Beutner, author of Proposition 28. “It’s the largest investment in arts and music in our nation’s history. It’s never been done before.”
The vast scale of the program may also explain why there’s a niggling fear among arts insiders that this huge boost of funding, which is expected to land sometime this fall, must be too good to be true.
“A lot of folks in the arts education feel like they’ve been marginalized for so long that it’s hard for them to conceive of something that centers them,” said Mele. “There are a lot of people in the field who still say, ‘I’ll believe it when the money gets to my school.’”
One key challenge is the lack of clarity regarding the details of exactly how the game-changing program will work. Many remain unsure about the rules, from waivers to audits.
The thrust is clear. All the money must go to arts and music education, but that is broadly defined. The disciplines include (but are not limited to) dance, media arts, music, theater and visual arts including folk art, painting, sculpture, photography, craft arts and creative expression including graphic arts and design, computer coding, animation, music composition, ensembles, script writing, costume design, film and video. Each school community is invited to tailor the program to the needs of its students.
“Take inventory, talk to your families,” said Allison Gamlen, visual and performing arts coordinator for the San Mateo County Office of Education. “Is it important to you that your child does dance? Or has access to music or visual art? Do you want your kids to learn media arts skills so that they can get careers in Silicon Valley? Survey your students.”
However, some arts education advocates worry a lack of specificity may undermine the program. Estimates of how much funding each district will receive are available, but some say the rules on how to spend it remain unclear.
“This lack of guidance is hampering local planning for the funds,” said Abe Flores, deputy director of policy and programs at Create CA, an arts advocacy group. “Without staff or timely guidance, we fear the prop is being set up for failure.”
Some say that the CDE, which is administering the program, has not as yet been responsive enough about how to navigate the complexities of the process.
“I want to reiterate the lack of guidance from CDE around calculating the baseline, critical to ensure the ‘supplement, not supplant’ requirement, and outlining the waiver process,” Flores said.
Schools with more than 500 students must use 80% of the funds on staff. Also, this money must be used to supplement existing funds, not supplant them. If a school spends $100 this year, they are expected to spend $100 plus their new allocation next year.
Some school administrators (PDF) argue that this existing funding, the baseline that Proposition funds can not replace, should not include one-time donations.
Deputy Superintendent Malia Vella clarified that the baseline is defined as all existing funding, and that “it doesn’t provide exemptions currently.” However, she is also awaiting cleanup language in upcoming trailer bills to the state budget before issuing technical guidance. She also notes the California Department of Education is updating its website with frequently asked questions and advises arts administrators to subscribe to the Proposition 28 listserv at join-prop28@mlist.cde.ca.gov.
“We do hope to get clarity and provide audit guidelines,” Villa said. “It’s hard to issue guidance and then say the appropriation has changed, that’s the technical side of things. “I don’t think it serves our LEAs to issue guidance that then gets changed immediately.”
That’s one reason why, at this point, many arts educators are taking a wait-and-see approach (PDF). It should be noted that schools have three years to use the funds.
“We’ve tossed around some ideas, but honestly, I don’t want principals in schools to start making a lot of plans until we’re pretty sure what they can do with it,” said Phil Rydeen, coordinator of visual and performing arts at Oakland Unified School District. “There’s still some general fuzziness.”
Another challenge will be staffing. An estimated 15,000 arts teachers will be needed statewide, but experts say there are only about 5,000 credentialed arts teachers in the field right now.
Against the backdrop of the existing teacher shortage, some fear a hiring frenzy may ensue.
“There are more jobs than there are people,” said Eric Engdahl, professor emeritus at CSU East Bay and past president of the California Council on Teacher Education. “We’ve been starving for so long, and suddenly we’re being presented with a banquet, and we don’t know what to do with it.”
