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Don’t cut the arts from school budgets

Posted 4/14/11

To the Editor: As someone having strong convictions about the importance of public school education for the future of America, I’m concerned by the fact that our schools seem to have become easy …

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Don’t cut the arts from school budgets

Posted

To the Editor:

As someone having strong convictions about the importance of public school education for the future of America, I’m concerned by the fact that our schools seem to have become easy targets for budgetary cutbacks: cutbacks that would all but decimate many excellent, existing programs.

Therefore, I’ve chosen to provide excerpts from an excellent and eloquent article written by a superintendent of schools in New Jersey. The author of the article is Dr. Charles Maranzano, Superintendent of Schools, The Borough of Hopatcong, N.J. The newspaper that published his March 13 piece was the New Jersey Herald. Both Dr. Maranzano and the New Jersey Herald have very graciously granted permission for me to use quotations from the article. (It also needs saying that my concern isn’t only for fine arts course offerings, but cutbacks that will effect the entire humanities curriculum.)

After an opening paragraph or two citing the generally difficult budgetary times public schools in America are going through, Dr. Maranzano goes on to say:

“Programs that appear to be particularly at risk for targeted budget cuts are those associated with the fine and performing arts: vocal and instrumental music, orchestra, dance and array of visual arts courses. These offerings … are valuable to the totality of the whole school experience … In fact the fine and performing arts are a critical and necessary component of a comprehensive American education and must remain accessible to the youth of our communities.

“The arts are perhaps one of humanity’s deepest rivers of continuity serving as the link that connects each new generation with the one before.”

He then offers examples of how the arts have contributed to the economy and grown into a multi-million dollar enterprise -- following which, he continues:

“...... The arts are an inseparable part of the entire human journey. If civilization is to continue to be both dynamic and nurturing, its success will ultimately depend on how well we develop the intellectual capacities of our children. In an increasingly technological environment the ability to perceive, interpret, understand, reflect and evaluate artistic and aesthetic forms of expression is critical to the construction of the individual self and one’s overall contribution to life. … The future roll of music and arts programs in America’s public schools depends primarily upon school administrators and boards of education who must jointly understand the totality of the academic value and aesthetic merits of supporting such programs. Finally, one must not forget the interconnectedness that arts education has to the comprehensive curriculum as a whole, and to the integration of the arts into the well-balanced contemporary society we experience and contribute to as American citizens. “To deprive a generation of fine and performing arts … due to expediency and convenience of large budget cuts would not only be counterproductive but immoral”

It’s obvious that Dr. Maranzano is passionate about the place of the arts in public education and is wonderfully eloquent in expression of that passion. However, it’s not only his elegance that matters: it’s what he says about such things as the attitudes and actions of boards of education, school administrators and others in a position to affect crucial decisions as to what’s expendable and what’s not that -- in my book at least --figure near the top of the list. And although I believe all the points he makes are just about indisputable, (and again speaking from my own point of view), it just might be possible for the word “the humanities” to be used interchangeably with “the arts” in many instances.

Of particular importance is what he says about not cutting programs “due to expediency and convenience”, which I believe is what’s currently taking place. Therefore, we need decision-makers at the helm who are possessed of an excellent sense of foresight, intellect, and creativity: individuals capable of hatching means to dig us out of the fiscal mess we now surely find ourselves – but NOT at the expense of public education.

Of the aforementioned desirable “decision-maker” characteristics, I believe foresight to be the most important; a future nation with a poorly educated citizenry serving as its underpinning would be not only reprehensible, it would be nothing short of disastrous. It would be akin to cutting the cultural, political and economic throat of America.

Albert H. Vervaet

Hannawa Falls