School District Seeks to Boost Arts Funding

Music and other arts programs in Los Angeles public schools, which have been shredded over the last three decades by funding cuts, are expected to get a $4.6-million infusion for next year.

A proposal to be voted on today by the Los Angeles school board would significantly increase arts funding and establish a 10-year master plan for arts education. It is aimed at restoring luster to music, visual arts, dance and drama and ensuring that they become as basic a part of schooling as math or science.

“The practice of arts education has been inconsistent from school to school,” said Don Doyle, an advisor in the performing and visual arts unit of the 700,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District. “We’re now trying to provide a consistent program, not just for the talented students but for every student.”

The district would initially use general funds to send art specialists into elementary schools to train teachers, develop curriculum and relay information about partnerships with art and cultural organizations. As the program progresses, arts instruction would be built into the annual $6-billion-plus district budget and expanded to secondary schools.

Arts advocates applauded the plan, citing the growing body of research showing that early training in the arts--music in particular--enhances learning and can even boost standardized test scores. By approving it, they said, Los Angeles could move into the vanguard on an issue that is drawing national attention.

“My hat’s off to L.A. Unified for bringing this back,” said Pat Page, executive director of the American Music Conference, an organization that promotes music education.

Throughout the nation, arts programs have often been considered a frill, making them the first to go under the knife if funding grew tight.

In Los Angeles, as elsewhere, many schools patch programs together with the support of parent groups, enthusiastic principals, and teachers and community arts groups. But programs are inconsistent, and many youngsters in disadvantaged areas can hope, at best, to spend a few minutes each week with a traveling music teacher. Current district spending on arts instruction is $8 million.

Overall, the U.S. record on arts education has been spotty, with arts instruction often nonexistent or relegated to after-school programs, said John L. Benham, president of Music in World Cultures, a Minneapolis-area nonprofit group that works with parents and teachers to rescue threatened arts programs.

A study released last fall by the U.S. Department of Education showed that, whereas 81% of schools report that their students are taught music at least once a week, only one in four eighth-graders in these programs report actually singing or playing a musical instrument at least that often. In addition, fewer than 25% of students attend schools where dance or theater is offered.

“At a time when creativity and communication skills are at a premium, arts should be used for their rich potential to captivate and engage students in the process of learning,” U.S. Education Secretary Richard W. Riley said at the time.

The master plan, written by Los Angeles Schools Supt. Ruben Zacarias, is meant to provide the instruction needed to help students meet standards adopted last year by the Los Angeles school board. The standards set benchmarks for students as they progress through the system, requiring ultimately, among other things, that they be able to analyze and make informed judgments about works of art and performances on the basis of form, content, technique and creativity.

School board member Valerie Fields, a longtime proponent of arts education, had vowed in her campaign to bolster arts education. She had been an advisor on arts and education in the administration of Mayor Tom Bradley.

Two years ago, with Zacarias’ support, she formed a 46-member panel to explore how to return the arts to school curriculum. It was co-chaired by Harold M. Williams, president emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust, and Steven Lavine, president of CalArts in Valencia.

Much of the impetus for the arts initiative, Fields said, came from the comments of jazz musicians who at her behest taught master classes to Los Angeles schoolchildren in the mid-1990s.

Williams, who as a boy attended public schools in East Los Angeles, credited the arts programs for instilling in him a love for the arts and a desire to play cello. He said the district’s new arts standards will give area arts organizations like the Getty some guidance so that they can shape programs that help students learn what is required.

That, he added, could create something “pretty special, pretty powerful.”