ARTS EDUCATION FALLS VICTIM TO BUDGET CUTS

At a time of widely proclaimed fund drives to build new Orange County arts complexes, educators are bemoaning what they consider a fiscal crisis that is undercutting classroom arts programs in the county’s public schools.

Many Orange County school districts, already battered by declining enrollments, have announced or are considering their biggest arts program cutbacks since the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, the landmark measure that led to a sweeping overhaul of governmental financing.

For years, Orange County has been pictured as a bastion for public arts education by maintaining relatively strong classroom programs in spite of cutbacks statewide. The county’s parent-backed lobbying groups, visiting-artist projects and other support programs also have won praise.

But four districts--Saddleback Valley Unified, Orange Unified, Ocean View elementary and Fountain Valley elementary--have already given preliminary approval to drastic cuts in the numbers of music teachers.

And administrators in other districts, although they say they are “holding the line” on current arts programs, say they, too, may have to consider major cuts if the proposed state budget goes into effect.

Critics contend that the current school crisis is due to Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposed 1987-88 state education budget, which if adopted this summer will result in massive cutbacks for hundreds of districts statewide. Affected, they say, will be classroom programs and services in numerous curriculum areas, including the arts.

“The arts are an absolutely essential subject. But arts programs are among those already cut to the bone. We’re trying to be optimistic, of course, that the (proposed state) spending picture won’t be as bleak as it looks now,” said John Nicoll, superintendent of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and among those educators who concede that the arts are still widely regarded as a curriculum frill.

David Humphrey, director of the National Alliance for Arts Education, acknowledged that there’s been significant national acceptance of the arts as a basic curriculum subject. “But this has been more on an individual basis, not by governmental bodies. Arts integration is still a highly disputed concept,” Humphrey said.

Based at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the National Alliance founded the nationwide Imagination Celebration arts education festivals. Orange County’s second annual Imagination Celebration will be held April 25 through May 10 and include youth-oriented concerts at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Statewide, the number of district-level arts administrators has dropped from 400 in 1978 to 37 today, according to Miguel Muto, arts consultant with the state Department of Education. In Orange County, the number has held at 13 for the past few years.

At one time, Orange County boasted one of the most lauded integrating-the-arts projects in the state. Called IDEAL (Inter-Disciplinary Education Through Arts and Language), it brought more arts teachers and visiting artists into the classrooms and expanded field trips to museums, concerts and other arts sites.

The aim, IDEAL organizers said, was to demonstrate that the arts not only tapped creative expression but also reinforced instruction in the traditional basics, including math and English.

But after five years, IDEAL, which involved as many as 10 districts at its peak, folded last year. Member districts had failed to find public funds or raise enough private underwriting to replace the earlier state grants, said Marie Clement, arts consultant for the county Department of Education.

The controversy over the Deukmejian education budget is chiefly over the $17.2 billion in state general fund monies the governor has earmarked for schools. The Deukmejian plan has been attacked by state Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig and others as woefully inadequate.

Based on the governor’s current spending plan, nearly all 28 Orange County school districts have projected huge 1987-88 operating budget shortfalls. Some reported plans to draw local funds from emergency reserves or lottery allocations. Others have approved cost-saving proposals, such as teacher layoffs and cuts affecting transportation, counseling, after-school sports, gifted projects and maintenance.

Virtually all the arts cutbacks planned by the four Orange County districts are at the elementary level. (According to Clement, about 120 classroom music specialists are spread through the 300 elementary schools countywide. Each week, pupils receive an average of 30 minutes of music instruction.)

The Saddleback Valley Unified School District plans a $500,000 cut that includes dropping all 12 vocal and instrumental music teachers and one visual arts specialist for the elementary grades.

The Fountain Valley School District is planning to cut $376,000 by eliminating the district’s seven vocal and instrumental music teacher positions. Orange Unified School District’s proposed $210,000 reduction would cut all five vocal teachers at the elementary levels (the district in previous years had cut all five instrumental music teachers at the same levels).

Another elementary district, the Huntington Beach-based Ocean View School District, plans to cut three of six vocal music teacher positions for a $134,000 savings. (The district in recent years had dropped all eight of its instrumental music teachers.)

Parents in both the Saddleback Valley Unified and Ocean View districts have formed groups to seek increases in state support for those district programs, including the ones affecting music teachers, now facing cuts.

“We just can’t let this happen. We have to speak out and get to the governor and the Legislature,” said Diane Wieder, spokeswoman for the Ocean View parents’ newly formed Political Action League. In addition to the music teachers, the district plans to cut an after-school sports program and various staff posts.

Arts educators point to what they consider strong support for the arts-as-a-basic concept. One move, they said, is the new California State University admission requirement of at least one year of high school arts.

But a move to strengthen a state Department of Education policy for arts as a high school requirement has not found enough support in the current Legislature, said state consultant Muto. The present state policy requires a year of either foreign languages or the arts for graduation. The proposed legislation would single out arts as a requirement.

“There’s a disturbing contradiction here. True, you have all the great growth in arts organizations and complexes, such as the new (Orange County) Performing Arts Center,” said Robert Garfias, dean of UC Irvine’s School of Fine Arts and newly appointed member of the National Council of the Arts.

“But I’m afraid we’re falling behind in another way. The (school) cutbacks mean we’re not building the audiences to fill those facilities or training the artists to nourish those organizations.”