Addressing The Crisis in Arts and Music Education in California
"For decades, arts and music education in California has been dying a slow death in many schools, strangled by budget cuts amid an ongoing emphasis on core subjects like reading and math and test scores as the measure of student success," reports Louis Freedberg in EdSource.
Freedberg states, "That’s why the initiative (former Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin) Beutner, is promoting will still be needed. In fact, it would simply help schools follow the spirit, if not the letter, of what they are already required to do by law." Resuscitation appears on the horizon, as Freeburg shares, "With the backing of a growing number of artists and educators, Beutner wants to put an initiative on next November’s ballot that would require the state to spend between $800 million and $1 billion extra each year out of its general fund for arts and music education in the state.”