If new Philadelphia schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman has a love for art and music in the public schools, she sure has a funny way of expressing it. As The Inquirer's Kristen Graham reports today, supervision of art and music programs is up in the air. Funders are threatening to pull their support, and the arts community is in a state of great anxiety.
Bad timing, this skirmish. The idea of a first-rate arts experience for Philadelphia's public school children had been gathering steam. The School Reform Commission a couple of months ago had been set to vote on making arts core curriculum, but the vote was delayed pending Ackerman's arrival. Meanwhile, the William Penn Foundation is on course to help develop an ambitious coordinated program to restore weekly arts instruction to all Philadelphia children, and communities across the country are taking similar paths.
I hope that Ackerman's ham-fisted actions will only heighten the arts community's recent enthusiasm for restoring arts experiences to a slice of the city's population that can least afford it.
The school district insists that arts education is still on the agenda.
"We're going through the largest expansion of our arts and music programs in recent history," a school district spokesman told The Daily News.
Great. Maybe someday Ackerman will get around to explaining more specifically what that means.
« When All The (Live) Music World Has Gone Fishing | Main | Art and Music And The Art Of Raising Money »
Arts in Schools Skirmish
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/mt-tb-trythis.cgi/6973.
The Author
Peter Dobrin has been writing about classical music and the arts for The Inquirer since 1989. He earned an undergraduate degree in performance from the University of Miami, and received a master's degree in music criticism from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University.
He’s grateful for news tips, willing to engage in a certain amount of back and forth with readers, but is unfortunately unable to remove old LPs from your basement or post photographs of your cat.
Search
About
This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on August 20, 2008 9:43 AM.
The previous post in this blog was When All The (Live) Music World Has Gone Fishing.
The next post in this blog is Art and Music And The Art Of Raising Money.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.
Movable Type 3.35
Comments (2)
I read the INQ article and was certainly concerned. I hope this doesn't jeapordize the All City Music programs (orchestra, band, choir) that have been in place.
I saw music and arts programs disappear in California 30+ years ago and would hate to see that happen here.
Posted by Alex Wong | August 20, 2008 11:16 AM
Posted on August 20, 2008 11:16
It shouldn't really affect the All City program. The coordinator positions, honestly, aren't what is important. The music teachers and availability of instruments and materials to students are what matters most. When music and art teachers are not valued equally as a say a science or english teacher is where problems occur.
As a former Philadelphia music student who went through the All City program, my foundation came my instrumental instructors - who did/do much more to coordinate the programs than Ms. Lamb.
Posted by C | August 21, 2008 7:48 PM
Posted on August 21, 2008 19:48