GIA Blog

This week at City Hall, a Special Meeting of the Full Arts Commission was convened to provide further discussion of a recent report from the Office of the Controller. It was the second hearing the SFAC convened on the matter, and was as much an opportunity for concerned citizens and stakeholders to share their thoughts with commissioners as it was a chance to hear more about the report, what it is, and what it isn’t.

There's never been a golden age of arts education in American schools. Back in 1930, less than a quarter of 18-year olds had taken classes or lessons in any art form. There was much progress after that, but by the early 1980s more than a third still had none. And for the last thirty years, arts education for American children has declined sharply again. By 2008, fewer than half of 18-year olds had any arts classes or lessons, about the level of the 1960s. Most of the decline has been concentrated in schools that serve low-income black and Latino students. Many of their schools have become veritable arts deserts. Why have the arts been so marginalized in education? There are three big reasons. We might think of them as the three horsemen of arts education, just one short of an arts education Armageddon.

The categories of inequity are multiple: class, culture, ethnicity, gender, race, etc., etc. Awareness of and response to each varies hugely depending on which side of the have/have-not divide one finds oneself. The have-not side always has a far greater awareness and understanding of inequity than is ever possible on the have side. As an over-educated white male of a certain age, it’s astonishing that I can ever see clearly enough to get out of bed in the morning. (And for all my effort to “see,” in the few short months I’ve been blogging here, Roberto Bedoya has already had to call me out, justifiably, once here.) The have side predictably sees all the good it is doing (in its own eyes). The have-nots see much more clearly how far there is to go.

Proponents of small foundations say smaller donors often have closer relationships with the nonprofit organizations they fund, which allows them to see firsthand how donations are being used. (Suzanne) Skees, for example, says she visits her foundation's partners in California and beyond, getting to know everyone at the organization from the executive director on down, and familiarizing herself with the programs the organizations run.

For me the key of the speech by Ravitch appears in a series of the basic services that every child needs, that we could afford were the system not tilted so heavily towards the 1%, were we not wasting trillions in the military industrial complex, were we not so committed to bailing out the financial sector at the expense of the rest of us.

In the world of public policy, ideas are a dime a dozen. From issues ranging from education to trade issues, everyone has their opinion about the best course of action the government should take. What’s often missing, however, are new and exciting ways to present these ideas, taking formally bland issues and finding new ways to solve them.

This is where the arts community comes in.

It isn't helpful to characterize this in any pejorative sense as evil or conspiratorial — rather it is really just the natural tendency to support one's “own” — the familiar, that with which one grew up. And that legacy of how things are done favors what it has always favor — the larger Euro-centric cultural institutions. The bottom line is this: we are not likely to change private decision-making as the same governs equity considerations until we change the culture of leadership currently (still) existent in the Board rooms where the decisions about who-gets-how-much-are made.

Most of the GIA bloggers make modest suggestions as to how funders can channel more resources to the artists and organizations whose social and cultural contributions are now so disproportionately underfunded. Several point to their own organizations’ or allies’ work as models. Understandably, most position themselves as ahead of the curve, already taking steps to increase equity.

So far, at least, there are few comments (the online forum ends on 16 December, so there’s still time). My hunch is that is because there aren’t so many entry points in most of the posts: what is to be debated in a group of thoughtful funders and researchers mostly affirming what they already know?