Good morning.
"And the beat goes on..................."
All over America, citizens angry over policy changes emanating from the White House and Congress have been registering their anger and frustration at local Congressional Town Hall Meetings as well as via telephone calls, faxes, letters, emails and more. This massive outpouring is unprecedented in recent times. It is democracy in action. And it is having an impact - precisely because of three factors: 1) it is from voters in the elected official's district; 2) it sends the message that angry voters will be using their votes to register their anger; and 3) it is massive.
It remains to be seen whether or not this political involvement will be sustained over time, and what effect and impact it will have long term. And the real test won't come until 2018 at the earliest, when the next election will give those unhappy the chance to unseat those politicians they blame for changes to which they object. But make no mistake, the effort thus far has got the attention of even those who are opposed to the positions of the protesters and at whom much of the anger is addressed. This is because it hits at the one vulnerable spot that politicians have - at their chance of being re-elected.
And getting re-elected is virtually every elected politician in the country's number one priority. Their job is at stake, and for many their job is, like jobs are to many of us, their source of income and how they maintain their lives, the way they define themselves and their purpose in life -- it is, in part who they are and what they do. No matter how principled they may be, no matter how much they believe they want to create positive change in people's lives, no matter how honest or how hypocritical they are, very, very few will give up the power, prestige, privilege and trappings of being in Congress. And so their election and re-election is their number one priority. It (excuse the pun) Trumps everything else.
And massive turnout of unhappy, dissatisfied voters in their districts is something they do not ignore, nor fail to take seriously (and that is true even in the era of gerrymandered "safe districts", for nothing is ever absolutely certain, including how people will vote). Note the use of the words: "massive", "voters", and "in their districts".
We ought to learn from the recent Town Hall Meetings reality staring us in the face.
If the Trump budget eliminates the NEA, then it will be much more difficult to fund it via Congress, than if the agency had funding in the President's budget. We don't yet know whether or not the NEA will be axed in the coming budget, but it seems more possible than ever. And even if the President includes some funding for the agency in his budget, there may still be attempts to cut or eliminate that funding by Congress - attempts that may have a better chance of succeeding than ever before. If the arts really want to influence members of Congress, the sector has got to have large numbers of people who are registered to vote and reside in their district contact their Representatives and Senators directly, and let them know that they want the NEA to be funded, and that failure to vote that way will cause the voter to vote against that elected official in the next election. This communication doesn't have to be, and should not be, nasty or accusatorial or negative. Just the simple fact that funding the NEA is a make or break issue for the person communicating, and their future support - including their vote for or against the representative - is dependent on the official's vote one way or the other. And it won't mean much unless there is a huge number of people who express that opinion. And while it is important to thank those politicians who are supportive, the bigger challenge is to amass votes in the districts where the official is not supportive.
So if all the arts can manage is people signing a White House Petition or a few hundred DC visits, then we might as well just save our energy. Of all the means of registering one's position, signing an online petition is the absolute least effective, particularly in trying to influence a month old White House administration that very likely (and with good reason) believes that people for whom NEA funding is a big issue, were not, and will not become, Trump supporters. Whatever the Trump Administration decision on the NEA turns out to be, it is almost assuredly not going to be based on any petition of people urging the NEA's survival. And patting ourselves on the back for getting to the magic 100,000 signatures mandating a WH response is as big a waste of time as the Atlanta Falcons celebrating a Super Bowl win at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Don't believe me? Read this simple advice from Barney Frank based on decades in the U.S. House of Representatives on how to influence Congress.
Wake up people. Thus far there has been reports of a number of op ed pieces in support of the NEA. And, of course, the 100,000 signature petition. But I haven't seen much more than that. And frankly I think this year that is not nearly enough. Do we really want to rely on trying to rally a few hundred people to make our case as we have in the past? Is that the best we can do?
If the existence of the NEA is important to the sector, then it had better organize immediately to demonstrate massive numbers of people for whom the issue will determine their vote in the future. That's the only language the elected officials truly understand and respond to. All the stories and arguments notwithstanding - they mean very little. You want support? Make your elected officials understand you are talking about votes - against them. Lots of votes. That's how it works. Personal visits are best. Then phone calls, then letters, then emails. Robo-letters using templates are ignored. You don't have to have some convincing argument. The value of the arts - intrinsic or economic or whatever? That's irrelevant. Your argument is how you will vote. Period. Don't make this more complicated than it is.
As Barney Frank advises, the only communication that matters is from voters in the official's district. And the only real position that matters is how you will vote in the future. That may not be enough to get what we want, but it's the only way the system works. If you think truth and justice will out, you're living in another dimension.
It's long past time the arts come to understand that the political system does not work like some fantasy textbook idea of government in action. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't. If we want to continue to believe that our talking points, our stories, our arguments, our value are what persuade politicians aligned against us to support us, then we might as well ask Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy to grant our wishes. About the same chance of success.
Get real.
Have a good week.
Don't Quit
Barry
Monday, February 27, 2017
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Bay Area LAA Leader Blog Forum - Day 5
Good morning
"And the beat goes on................"
Concluding the ABBA Blog Forum with Local Arts Agency leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area (see Monday's blog for the introduction and participant's list).
Final Question:
Responses:
Kerry Adams Hapner: Racial and cultural equity are primary goals for local arts agencies as we serve all residents. This is true in San Jose, one of the most diverse US cities. Cultural pluralism and access are guiding principles of Cultural Connection: San Jose’s Cultural Plan for 2011-2010. We address equity through cultural funding and initiatives that focus on serving immigrant populations.
Income disparity and affordability are huge pressing issues in San Jose and the Bay Area now. The Ghostship tragedy has placed a national spot light on affordable, safe live and work spaces for artists. The San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs is currently working with the San Jose Housing Department to explore an affordable housing project in downtown San Jose, and we are conducting outreach to the arts community on their specific housing and space needs.
Silicon Valley Creates is developing a critical project in Japantown called the Creative Center for the Arts, which will provide rehearsal, production/studio, and administrative space for arts organization and creative entrepreneurs.
Community Arts Stabilization Trust, the Rainin Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation are among regional funders that, along with local arts agencies, are making significant investments to ensure cultural spaces are retained and sustained in the Bay Area.
"And the beat goes on................"
Concluding the ABBA Blog Forum with Local Arts Agency leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area (see Monday's blog for the introduction and participant's list).
Final Question:
Equity, diversity and race remain high level priority issues for the entire nonprofit arts field. How are you addressing the challenges in your territory? Are the issues such that solutions will likely require a larger map approach, and is it incumbent on the whole Bay Area to work together for truly meaningful change? What are the principal roles LAAs can, and should, play, and what role does your organization favor?
Responses:
Kerry Adams Hapner: Racial and cultural equity are primary goals for local arts agencies as we serve all residents. This is true in San Jose, one of the most diverse US cities. Cultural pluralism and access are guiding principles of Cultural Connection: San Jose’s Cultural Plan for 2011-2010. We address equity through cultural funding and initiatives that focus on serving immigrant populations.
Income disparity and affordability are huge pressing issues in San Jose and the Bay Area now. The Ghostship tragedy has placed a national spot light on affordable, safe live and work spaces for artists. The San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs is currently working with the San Jose Housing Department to explore an affordable housing project in downtown San Jose, and we are conducting outreach to the arts community on their specific housing and space needs.
Silicon Valley Creates is developing a critical project in Japantown called the Creative Center for the Arts, which will provide rehearsal, production/studio, and administrative space for arts organization and creative entrepreneurs.
Community Arts Stabilization Trust, the Rainin Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation are among regional funders that, along with local arts agencies, are making significant investments to ensure cultural spaces are retained and sustained in the Bay Area.
Michele Seville: These are critical issues, especially now. The Richmond Arts & Culture Commission just lost City funding for its Neighborhood Public Art program, which provided grants to a highly diverse group of youth and emerging artists. So, we are currently partnering with RYSE, a local non-profit serving youth to apply for funding, both state and federal(?), for projects similar to the ones we used to fund. Yes, I believe it is incumbent on the Bay Area to set the example of working together for change. We are leaders in the arts, and should act like it. Please help organize such collaborative events.
Kristen Madsen: First, we plan to watch the smartest, most thoughtful expert in this field, Roberto Bedoya, the new Cultural Affairs Manager in Oakland, and imitate everything he does that we possibly can.
But meanwhile, we are in the final planning stages for a new joint grants program, in partnership with Community Foundation Sonoma County. The grants will fund arts education projects specifically serving diverse communities, neighborhoods, and organizations across the County. Equity is a primary, stated goal of the grants and the guidelines are as broad and open as we can make. Eligible grantees include arts and cultural organizations, and projects can occur in or out of schools and in non-traditional settings. Partnerships with other community based organizations, including non-arts organizations, will be encouraged.
The next phase of work on this project will require us to dig deep into our communities to find the thoughtful work we know is being produced by individuals and organizations that may not have found their way to us on their own, and help them come in. We are clear-eyed that the learning curve in Year One will be steepest for us as funders as we re-think our systems to be more open, inclusive, and impactful across the entire county. And as two of the primary arts funders in the county, we hope that we are leading by example -- and are certain that the results of this work will make the case that the investment is more than worth the effort.
Tom DeCaigny: Cultural equity is the San Francisco Arts Commission’s guiding value. In the past year, we have engaged Race Forward to train all staff members on racial equity principles and practice so that we are better able to advance racial equity through all the SFAC’s programs. We have established an internal cultural equity working group that is charged with researching promising practices in racial equity and analyzing the SFAC’s programs through a racial equity lens. The SFAC has also joined multiple SF City Departments in the Government Alliance on Racial Equity (GARE) program where we will be contributing to a GARE issue paper on equity in the arts this coming year.
The SFAC stewards the historic Cultural Equity Endowment Fund which was founded to support artists and arts organizations from historically underserved communities. The Fund, now approximately $3 million annually, is one of the only pieces of legislation in the country to specifically name cultural equity as a focus for public arts funding. Combined with approximately $2.5 million annually to support our city-owned cultural centers, the SFAC grants out approximately $6 million annually in support of cultural equity. We also continue to work closely with our partners at Grants for the Arts to ensure coordinated investments for our shared grantees and to respond to emerging needs in the SF arts ecology, most recently co-administering a $2 million nonprofit arts displacement mitigation program to keep arts organizations in San Francisco.
It is important to work both at local and regional level because every city has unique challenges in terms of equity that might require customized solutions and policies. However, regional conversations allow us to share promising practices and a common language to discuss issues that pertain to all artists and arts organizations in the region such as displacement, which disproportionately impacts organizations working in communities of color and other underserved communities.
Olivia Dodd: For us to see industry-wide change in our regional (and national) arts and culture field, we will need to work at all levels as well as from both within individual organizations and together through regional/national associations to address these issues. While reorienting an industry may seem a daunting task, it is also an incredibly exciting and necessary one. It is on each individual organization, speaking for our organization as well, to identify where you need to grow and to resolve as a whole to make the changes necessary to become more equitable and diverse. To address this, we have to be willing to look at and modify our representation in our own staff and board makeup, our development strategies, our choices in programming, and our audiences. This is also a process we as an industry need to support each other through by holding each other accountable, identifying common challenges, and sharing successful practices.
In Napa County, normalizing representation as well as diversity, equity and affordability are top of mind, not just for the arts but for our community as a whole, whether in local politics, education or business leadership. The arts, however, lag behind many other sectors in proactive policies and actions to address these needs. With that said, this is one of the aspects of our agency that needs the most strengthening. It is not only something we see as important to our mission but a great opportunity for our local arts to serve and make an impact. With thoughtful programming, an orientation to authentic relationship cultivation, and diverse creators, we believe the arts can flip our role to become leaders in developing equity and diversity within our communities. Specifically, we as a local arts agencies can and should be proactive centers to champion the work of those who are leading the way as well as provide connections, guidance and resources to arts organizations and artists.
Local arts agencies, whether representing a city or the nation, can help drive movement in our field by:
- Organizing conversation among local leadership and facilitating networking to bring new voices into the traditional structures;
- Providing or soliciting grants for local organizations to facilitate new transitions, outreach, and programs;
- Gathering and disseminating demographic information, baselines to track progress, and facilitate data sharing;
- Raising awareness for diverse voices and stories of those that are successfully evolving;
- Spearheading relationship cultivation across traditional boundaries;
- And, Actively networking and promoting partnerships with sectors or programs that serve more diverse constituents and help cultivate relationships;
Although we are early in our diversity strategy and have a long way to go in our agency, we have initiated a handful of services to drive conversation and action on equity, diversity and race locally. Beyond active recruitment for diversity within the institution and programs, we have established the ACNV Leadership Network in order to facilitate a united movement with our local nonprofit arts groups. Collectively this group, representing about 20 arts nonprofits, agreed that we do not currently represent our community and agreed that we want this to change. We recognize that these issues are institutional, not just a marketing challenge, and have begun a systematic approach to clearly articulate the specific issues for locally. This will enable us to have clear talking points, common goals, and the ability to share the initiative widely.
The first phase is an assessment of our community demographics, our local arts leadership, and arts audiences/participants. We are in the midst of this process now so the profile is not complete, but what we can say is that our county is home to a population that is 23% foreign-born, over 30% Latino, 26% in poverty, with 50% of our students who are or were English Language Learners. Meanwhile, our local arts administration is by a far majority made-up of college educated, upper-middle class, white, females and the majority of our audiences are white, native-born English speakers. This little bit is a powerful reminder of why diversity and equity rise to the top of issues facing our arts community. We know we have a lot to do to start seeing change, but are inspired by the vision of a more welcoming, relevant and representative leadership serving a greater diversity of voices and audiences in our local arts.
Connie Martinez: I think exchanging ideas and best practices around equity, diversity and race is better than a larger map approach. We favor experimenting with what works locally, with an emphasis on: 1) setting the table with diverse voices (network engagement); 2) paying attention to our pipeline of diverse leaders (genARTS and MALI – Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute); and 3) ensuring equity and diversity with our investments in people and organizations (Grants programs/Artist Laureates etc).
Deep thanks to all the participants on this Forum.
Have a good weekend.
Don't Quit
Barry
Deep thanks to all the participants on this Forum.
Have a good weekend.
Don't Quit
Barry
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
Bay Area LAA Leader Blog Forum - Day 4
Good morning.
"And the beat goes on......................"
Continuing with the ABBA Blog Forum with Local Arts Agency leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area (see Monday's blog for the introduction and participant's list).
Today's Question:
Responses:
Kristen Madsen: Fun fact: Sonoma County, with a population of 500,000, has 40 school districts, while as a comparison, San Francisco, with a population of 850,000, has a single school district. And each of the remaining counties in the region is somewhere in between. My point is that the idea of unified efforts within each of our counties is fraught with challenges – the idea of expanding that to a 9 county region is likely to implode before liftoff.
However, the idea of learning from each other and piggy-backing on existing efforts is incredibly effective. This month, with funding from the Community Foundation of Sonoma County, the California Arts Council, and the Hewlett Foundation, we are undertaking an assessment of arts education in our K-12 schools, county-wide. And I’ll pause here to give a lot of credit to the Hewlett Foundation for its leadership in guiding this process. Shortly after we learned that the Arts Council of Napa County had launched a similar effort, Hewlett stepped in with access to new data and an invitation for potential funding. They introduced us to the recently released California Arts Education Data Project produced by Create CA, also with Hewlett funds. CreateCA has culled all the arts education data that schools report to the state Department of Education and put it online in a searchable and very user-friendly set of dashboards. Hewlett also let us know that Marin County was also mid-stream in a county-wide arts education project. And the Hewlett offer of funds was very helpful in leveraging additional funds from Community Foundation Sonoma County for the project. So we are starting this work on second base. And huge thanks go to our friends in Napa who have been extraordinarily generous with their information, tools, and process to help keep us from reinventing the wheel.
Our goal is to gain real, meaningful, accurate data about what is happening in arts education in our county’s schools. Once we understand the current state of affairs, we can determine if there are gaps, how big they are, where they are, and more. At that point, we can develop a strategy to begin to fill those holes, starting with the deepest first. Stay tuned.
Olivia Dodd: When it comes to equal access to arts education, we are all fortunate to have Joe Landon leading the California Alliance for Arts Education and helping local communities develop our own action networks to promote change. The Alliance helped us to kick-off our own local network and through this work, we have seen that this multi-front strategy, state and local, is an effective approach. There are absolutely areas where this work can be expanded and the initiatives tackled at a regional level and some that have already begun.
Our county offices of education’s VAPA representatives already meet as a region through the Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership of the Bay Area and collaborate on the Inventing Our Future integrated learning summer institute, a program of the Alameda County Office of Education. This is a great example of a regional effort to maximize resources and leverage regional assets for the professional development and networking of arts education providers and advocates. There is a lot more to be learned and shared with each other regionally like, strategies and tactical resources for LCAP advocacy, teaching artist trainings, pooled private resources/funds, greater access to classroom teacher trainings in methods like Visual Thinking Strategies, and strategies to create access to our unique resources in museum collections, performance experiences, and teaching artist databases.
However, with as much that can grow from a regional collaboration, we will need to be mindful of and resourceful in addressing logistical challenges in implementing shared resources, like limited PD budgets, transportation, and district-based decision making. As we consider the district power base for budgets, strategic priorities and curriculum, as well as to be most impactful in our understanding and outreach to students, we have to equip ourselves for action at the local district and school level. In Napa County, we have found that there are a lot of assets that have gone underutilized and relatively little attention spent in addressing the institutional issues that have kept socio-economic barriers in place.
One of the greatest challenges in instituting equitable arts education is, of course, sustainable funding. While the ability to allocate arts funding through the district LCAPs and now through Title 1 funds is a huge advantage to arts advocates, we have found that it will take much more support than what our underfunded districts can do alone. As we have built our local action network, the ACNV Education Alliance, we have found a wealth of resources emerge from simply bringing together the local private resources (funders, teaching artists, arts nonprofits, voters and volunteers) with the educators. The networking alone has lead to new partnerships to serve diverse classrooms, but also has lead to rich conversations and strategies about the issues that are keeping access limited.
There were a few of key actions that I have been essential in building support for the ACNV Education Alliance and I would recommend these to any local advocacy network; a) agree on common terminology in your definition(s) of “arts education” (Are you focused on sequential standards based education, integration, enrichment programs, or simply increasing exposure?), b) develop and unite under a shared mission that puts student interests first, c) be conscious and respectful of the competing interests the district has to manage, d) involve the students in the process, e) be strategic and inclusive - don’t underestimate the importance of relationship and trust building in your planning, and, f) develop a cohort of funders, small and large, to partner in matching funds and collaborate on strategies. Through sticking with these strategies, we have found that passionate and intelligent partners have emerged and when conflicts inevitably arise, despite competing agendas that we are able to go back to the shared vision of equitable access and relevant arts education for ALL students as our primary objective.
Michele Seville: I think an appeal needs to be made to each County District, especially since federal money for the arts looks unlikely. Better at the county level than relying on the school boards, some of which are currently being challenged with regards to their use of funds.
Connie Martinez: I believe a system wide solution for K-12 arts education is beyond the capacity of regional arts leaders. Each school district has unique challenges and resources and so arts opportunities often need to be customized. In Silicon Valley, we have created a marketplace for teachers to “buy” Common Core inspired arts education from our arts ecosystem with mini grants through ArtsEdConnect, a technology platform that matches teachers needs and interests with arts education opportunities and providers like Starting Arts. Perhaps the regional opportunity is more around advocacy for the importance of STEAM, rather than STEM. And the sharing of best practices, models.
Tom DeCaigny: The challenges in arts education are often unique to a specific school district. A uniform solution for all districts in the greater Bay Area might not be effective in addressing those unique challenges. However, conversations at the regional level can provide insights into innovative strategies and promising practices. The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) currently provides an annual operating grant to the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area to support their knowledge-sharing and regional convening efforts. In San Francisco, the SFAC and several other municipal agencies participate in an arts education taskforce that aims to advance the City’s Arts Education Master Plan. The SFAC works directly with the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families to enrich the out of school time programs in the school district which supplement the in-school arts education curriculum. In SF schools with limited resources, the SFAC has a grant program that places trained teaching artists at school sites for an entire school year. In addition to providing high quality arts education to students, the grant program aims to help the school build its capacity for providing a high-quality arts education to all students.
Have a good day.
Don't Quit
Barry
"And the beat goes on......................"
Continuing with the ABBA Blog Forum with Local Arts Agency leaders in the San Francisco Bay Area (see Monday's blog for the introduction and participant's list).
Today's Question:
Arts Education remains somewhat of a Have and Have-Not proposition, with wealthy districts offering more than those that are struggling financially. Is the solution an approach that unites all the districts in the greater Bay Area? If not, then what can each district do at this point in time to maximize the possibility of offering meaningful arts education to local students K-12?
Responses:
Kristen Madsen: Fun fact: Sonoma County, with a population of 500,000, has 40 school districts, while as a comparison, San Francisco, with a population of 850,000, has a single school district. And each of the remaining counties in the region is somewhere in between. My point is that the idea of unified efforts within each of our counties is fraught with challenges – the idea of expanding that to a 9 county region is likely to implode before liftoff.
However, the idea of learning from each other and piggy-backing on existing efforts is incredibly effective. This month, with funding from the Community Foundation of Sonoma County, the California Arts Council, and the Hewlett Foundation, we are undertaking an assessment of arts education in our K-12 schools, county-wide. And I’ll pause here to give a lot of credit to the Hewlett Foundation for its leadership in guiding this process. Shortly after we learned that the Arts Council of Napa County had launched a similar effort, Hewlett stepped in with access to new data and an invitation for potential funding. They introduced us to the recently released California Arts Education Data Project produced by Create CA, also with Hewlett funds. CreateCA has culled all the arts education data that schools report to the state Department of Education and put it online in a searchable and very user-friendly set of dashboards. Hewlett also let us know that Marin County was also mid-stream in a county-wide arts education project. And the Hewlett offer of funds was very helpful in leveraging additional funds from Community Foundation Sonoma County for the project. So we are starting this work on second base. And huge thanks go to our friends in Napa who have been extraordinarily generous with their information, tools, and process to help keep us from reinventing the wheel.
Our goal is to gain real, meaningful, accurate data about what is happening in arts education in our county’s schools. Once we understand the current state of affairs, we can determine if there are gaps, how big they are, where they are, and more. At that point, we can develop a strategy to begin to fill those holes, starting with the deepest first. Stay tuned.
Olivia Dodd: When it comes to equal access to arts education, we are all fortunate to have Joe Landon leading the California Alliance for Arts Education and helping local communities develop our own action networks to promote change. The Alliance helped us to kick-off our own local network and through this work, we have seen that this multi-front strategy, state and local, is an effective approach. There are absolutely areas where this work can be expanded and the initiatives tackled at a regional level and some that have already begun.
Our county offices of education’s VAPA representatives already meet as a region through the Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership of the Bay Area and collaborate on the Inventing Our Future integrated learning summer institute, a program of the Alameda County Office of Education. This is a great example of a regional effort to maximize resources and leverage regional assets for the professional development and networking of arts education providers and advocates. There is a lot more to be learned and shared with each other regionally like, strategies and tactical resources for LCAP advocacy, teaching artist trainings, pooled private resources/funds, greater access to classroom teacher trainings in methods like Visual Thinking Strategies, and strategies to create access to our unique resources in museum collections, performance experiences, and teaching artist databases.
However, with as much that can grow from a regional collaboration, we will need to be mindful of and resourceful in addressing logistical challenges in implementing shared resources, like limited PD budgets, transportation, and district-based decision making. As we consider the district power base for budgets, strategic priorities and curriculum, as well as to be most impactful in our understanding and outreach to students, we have to equip ourselves for action at the local district and school level. In Napa County, we have found that there are a lot of assets that have gone underutilized and relatively little attention spent in addressing the institutional issues that have kept socio-economic barriers in place.
One of the greatest challenges in instituting equitable arts education is, of course, sustainable funding. While the ability to allocate arts funding through the district LCAPs and now through Title 1 funds is a huge advantage to arts advocates, we have found that it will take much more support than what our underfunded districts can do alone. As we have built our local action network, the ACNV Education Alliance, we have found a wealth of resources emerge from simply bringing together the local private resources (funders, teaching artists, arts nonprofits, voters and volunteers) with the educators. The networking alone has lead to new partnerships to serve diverse classrooms, but also has lead to rich conversations and strategies about the issues that are keeping access limited.
There were a few of key actions that I have been essential in building support for the ACNV Education Alliance and I would recommend these to any local advocacy network; a) agree on common terminology in your definition(s) of “arts education” (Are you focused on sequential standards based education, integration, enrichment programs, or simply increasing exposure?), b) develop and unite under a shared mission that puts student interests first, c) be conscious and respectful of the competing interests the district has to manage, d) involve the students in the process, e) be strategic and inclusive - don’t underestimate the importance of relationship and trust building in your planning, and, f) develop a cohort of funders, small and large, to partner in matching funds and collaborate on strategies. Through sticking with these strategies, we have found that passionate and intelligent partners have emerged and when conflicts inevitably arise, despite competing agendas that we are able to go back to the shared vision of equitable access and relevant arts education for ALL students as our primary objective.
Michele Seville: I think an appeal needs to be made to each County District, especially since federal money for the arts looks unlikely. Better at the county level than relying on the school boards, some of which are currently being challenged with regards to their use of funds.
Connie Martinez: I believe a system wide solution for K-12 arts education is beyond the capacity of regional arts leaders. Each school district has unique challenges and resources and so arts opportunities often need to be customized. In Silicon Valley, we have created a marketplace for teachers to “buy” Common Core inspired arts education from our arts ecosystem with mini grants through ArtsEdConnect, a technology platform that matches teachers needs and interests with arts education opportunities and providers like Starting Arts. Perhaps the regional opportunity is more around advocacy for the importance of STEAM, rather than STEM. And the sharing of best practices, models.
Tom DeCaigny: The challenges in arts education are often unique to a specific school district. A uniform solution for all districts in the greater Bay Area might not be effective in addressing those unique challenges. However, conversations at the regional level can provide insights into innovative strategies and promising practices. The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) currently provides an annual operating grant to the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area to support their knowledge-sharing and regional convening efforts. In San Francisco, the SFAC and several other municipal agencies participate in an arts education taskforce that aims to advance the City’s Arts Education Master Plan. The SFAC works directly with the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families to enrich the out of school time programs in the school district which supplement the in-school arts education curriculum. In SF schools with limited resources, the SFAC has a grant program that places trained teaching artists at school sites for an entire school year. In addition to providing high quality arts education to students, the grant program aims to help the school build its capacity for providing a high-quality arts education to all students.
Kerry Adams Hapner: In San Jose, there are 21 different school districts. Each of them are supported in part by the Santa Clara County Office of Education. Therefore, working at either the district level or through the SCCOE are the most effective means to advance arts education. I serve on an advisory committee for Artspiration, the SCCOE arts education masterplan.
Friday's Question:
Equity, diversity and race remain high level priority issues for the entire nonprofit arts field. How are you addressing the challenges in your territory? Are the issues such that solutions will likely require a larger map approach, and is it incumbent on the whole Bay Area to work together for truly meaningful change? What are the principal roles LAAs can, and should, play, and what role does your organization favor?
Have a good day.
Don't Quit
Barry
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