ESPrit de Corps

I wrote this title to get your attention. Does it make you nervous? Angry? Is it a call to arms? Does it make you say, “Who can I talk to to set the story straight?” That’s what it does for me.

Last week Dale Davis forwarded an article to the Association of Teaching Artists listserve from the New York Times titled, “To Provide Quality Music Education Now, Schools Could Learn From the Past.” The article, written by Times music critic Allan Kozinn, categorized the work of public school arts partnerships with the following:

…Project Arts and grant programs like it have become a dependable gravy train for these groups. In the absence of the teachers and the budgets necessary to offer comprehensive and coherent arts courses, the schools, encouraged and financed by such programs, have formed partnerships with performing groups, charging the ensembles with the task of creating arts programs for children.

Typically that means a few performances for each participating school, dressed up with classroom preparation sessions and specially created handouts. They often include discussions with musicians, who are not usually members of the “partner ensembles” but young “teaching artists.” They are paid fees equal to, and sometimes considerably more than, a classroom teacher’s hourly wage (but a fraction of what a unionized orchestra member would receive).

Sometimes the ensembles offer regular repertory; sometimes composers are commissioned to write dippy children’s pieces, in the mistaken belief that children don’t know when they’re being condescended to.

Read the rest of Kozinn’s article by clicking here.

I don’t want to pretend that what Kozinn wrote is not an entirely inaccurate picture. We all know the kind of work that he writes about. We all also know that a great arts in education program goes far beyond what he describes, and deserves better than to be lumped in with this kind of work. Especially in such a widely read newspaper as the New York Times.

I wrote to Kozinn and told him so. I sent him links to further resources and reading (this website included!), and invited him to explore some of the tremendous successes of this field. I am saddened that Kozinn knew enough to clearly articulate what goes so wrong with some of these partnerships (perhaps he has a child enrolled in one these schools?), but didn’t know enough to point to those of us who are doing it right.

And so - This is a call to arms, folks - We have already been talking about advocacy plans, and beefing-up our marketing efforts, bringing them into new focus. What can we do to really make this happen? I think that pooling resources is a first great step that I have already seen some doing. Putting together a joint budget to hire a marketing professional - who knows the field! - to work with our staffs to develop comprehensive plans that will reach our stakeholders (so many of whom don’t even know they are our stakeholders!).

Another step, an easy step, is to do what I did. Write letters in response to articles like Kozinn’s. These letters should not be rants, they should be proactive and informative, they should invite further conversation and next steps. They should reflect our supreme partnership skills!

Use the comments feature on this blog to share some ideas of what else we can be doing, or what you already have done. Use it as a space for advocacy - share research, links to further resources, or a piece of your mind.

In closing, a bit of good news (perhaps a resource to share with our friend Kozinn?) lifted from the Cultural Policy Listserve of Americans for the Arts.

Editorial: Arts in schools offer more than make-believe
Shreveport Times, 0/2/2008
A Shreveport Times editorial celebrates Louisiana’s new arts education requirements, saying that recent research shows “improved reading and math scores by students involved in a whole school arts-in-education model that places the arts at the core of the curriculum. That’s in addition to the significant gains that would be expected in creative thinking, appreciation for the arts and self-esteem.”