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Newspaper Article from the Pueblo Chieftain 7/08/07
Fine Arts Crucial to Excellent Schools in Pueblo
#60
Mark Hudson is chairman of the Department of Music at
Colorado State University-Pueblo.
Success! The Pueblo City Schools new Strategic Plan has been finalized and approved.
The efforts of more than 300 community leaders, led by the vision of Superintendent John
Covington, are to be applauded.
The plan clearly mandates an integrated pre-kindergarten through 12th grade (PK-12)
curriculum that includes the fine arts. In addition, a focus on developing individualized
education plans for all students is central. This appears to be a plan truly worthy of
developing "World Class Schools."
Of the schools around the world that have been identified as "world class," the
overwhelming majority are "arts-rich" schools.
Meanwhile, damage has been done. A number of arts programs and educator positions have
been eliminated. In some cases, arts educators have been reassigned with little regard
for their particular strengths and areas of specialty or the needs of a given program.
Dynamic new teachers have left in search of jobs elsewhere, citing overwhelming
uncertainty and a district in disarray. The result: The arts are denied to many of our
children.
I have been assured by a district official that these positions and programs will be
restored and even increased, and soon, once the district’s financial woes are
addressed.
In fact, Objective 6 of the new Strategic Plan reads, "Pueblo City Schools will secure
and utilize 100 percent of human, financial and physical resources required to create and
sustain world-class public schools and this strategic plan," which includes integration
of and opportunities for all students in the arts.
They’d better; it’s the law. Passed in December 2001, the bipartisan
education act, No Child Left Behind, includes the arts in the definition of "core
academic subjects."
Funding is made available to implement this legislation. However, since the arts are
not evaluated in high-stakes testing, building and district officials often think they
can sacrifice these particular "core academic subjects" in favor of those that are deemed
more important.
This is like telling a child to clean his/her room, but never checking to ensure it
gets done. Administrators' jobs are on the line, so they take what appears to be the
"safe route" in spite of what’s clearly best for students.
This is pure folly. If they want test scores to improve to the point that they no
longer have to fear falling below standards, they should emphasize and integrate the arts
from Day One. Momentum is building across the nation and even here in Colorado to realize
the obvious - success through the way we humans are designed. A whole-brain approach will
take care of those pesky standardized tests without having to sacrifice programs on the
altar of assessment.
Some in the community seem to think this new Strategic Plan is just "smoke and
mirrors," as discussed by the school superintendent in a recent Chieftain article. As one
who was involved in the development of the plan, I have adopted a "wait and see"
attitude.
Will the leaders of Pueblo City Schools truly implement this plan and all that it
entails? Again, they’d better. It’s on the table now for all to see, and the
community is watching. The recent Open Forum on the Arts, graciously sponsored and hosted
by the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center, was proof positive of this.
However, that isn’t enough. If we don’t speak up regularly and often,
those in authority at both the building and the district levels assume we don’t
care about such issues.
Does Pueblo care about education for the future of our children, about developing
informed and intelligent young people through the arts and our culture heritage in
partnership with the so-called "academic" subjects, about the arts themselves? If so,
(and who would deny this), we cannot be complacent and passive. We must ensure that this
plan is implemented in its entirety at all levels.
"Making arts education a budget priority requires an
extraordinary sense of political will, and purpose, and dedication. But none of us should
settle for having our children cheated and not having the capacity to participate and be
vitally involved in an arts education as a part of their total school experience.
We’ve got an obligation to touch the talent of every child, not just the handful
that fit our predetermined molds of what education should produce." - Arkansas Gov. Mike
Huckabee.
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