At the end of the hour, Ms. Acevedo told her students not to worry if their projects were incomplete. Ms. Lonergan's students provide most of the money for art supplies themselves through their thriving arts businesses at fence shows throughout the city -- selling silkscreened T-shirts, street portraits, printed calendars and envelopes, calligraphy and buttons. Although this would not be happening in schools facing extreme budget cuts, where everything but core subjects are cut, it is possible in many other school districts. The Great Recession may have accelerated this trend, but according to a 2012 report from the Department of Education, the economic downturn followed a prolonged decline in funding for public school dance and theater programs (the proportion of elementary schools offering these subjects dropped from 20 percent to 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively). The organization campaigns to maintain public funding for the arts, works to increase access to arts education for public school students and builds public support for the arts. Elimination of an art class usually receives even less emotion from community members. That is not to say that arts education was uniformly good. While elimination of fine arts classes at the high school level is not an option in many cases due to the need for fine arts credits to graduate, course offerings within the fine arts department can be condensed or eliminated altogether. Dade County offers special arts programs for gifted students in elementary, middle and high schools. As a way to save funds, many schools opt to cut music and art programs. Most districts only need to have one art teacher per school, which means this resource can stretch further than most administrators realize. The country's first high school for the arts, the High School of Music and Art, was created there during the Depression, and many high schools had noted art departments that drew students from throughout the city. As states continue to cut into school districts’ budgets and school districts struggle to avoid deficit spending, district superintendents are looking for ways to save money. ↩︎. Arts education, on the other hand, does solve problems. At Charles Drew Elementary School in the impoverished Liberty City neighborhood, students in Marie Mennes's art class work on a vivid and expressive array of ceramic tiles and wrap them as presents in paper they have designed and printed. Teachers scramble for arts supplies. Due to budget constraints, fewer schools offered art … In fact, 75 percent of Americans in a 1989 National Endowment for the Arts report said they had never had any art appreciation classes, and 43 percent had never had art lessons. Yet if arts education has always been spotty, experts say things are worse now. The median budget when looking at all districts was $84,000. But what impresses experts about Miami is that arts classes are consistently available to all children, have won top administrators' support and have been retained despite fiscal strains. (These statistics also appeared in an Evening Standard article two days earlier.) Anyone who has ever seen a powerful play or admired a painting of transcendent beauty shouldn't have to be convinced that arts matter. Sports programs are often cut or downsized when school districts need money, but cutting these types of programs usually results in an outcry from the community and oftentimes becomes a rallying point in a school board election. shouted the teacher, who seemed as excited as the boy. OKLAHOMA CITY – While education advocates are fighting for higher school funding, a new report suggests that many Oklahoma children are not being introduced to the fine arts… Running so fast he lost his breath, a boy rushed into Ms. Acevedo's art room and handed her a bag. The 2009 budget cuts in schools will dramatically affect the arts in public schools therefore we need to help and support the arts. Although this is misguided thinking, aside from the “Band and Choral Boosters,” the outcry from the community is usually much less than if a sports program gets cut. Children across England attend Parliament to tell MPs about impact of budget cuts on education and mental health needs School funding cuts are leaving vulnerable pupils at … They scurried in all directions. There is little reliable up-to-date information on how many schools actually teach art, music, dance or drama. 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