Everyone believes in the value of arts education. Sort of.
At Kearney Elementary, on the city's southside, in one of the portable buildings that have become a ubiquitous feature of Santa Fe schools as population expands beyond bricks and mortar resources, Gretel Wanenmacher is preparing to teach a sixth grade art class and she is not happy.
For one thing, she's got the prolonged head cold that's synonymous with winter and elementary school and which makes hustling around the room in the few minutes between classes-cleaning up from the last and getting ready for the next-more of a chore than usual. Her long brown hair sweeps across a stack of collages on
newsprint as she rushes to file them away and pulls out several three-dimensional shapes which will serve as a starting point for a whiz-bang 45 minutes of drawing and discussion about light, shadow, horizon and perspective.
But what's really bothering Wanenmacher is how the sixth graders are playing catch-up; their understanding of shapes, lines and basic forms is no further along than Wanenmacher's second graders.
For most of them, this is their first art class.
"Imagine if we were just now introducing these kids to reading and writing," says Wanenmacher.
"Consider the basic skill set we take for granted in an 11-year-old and think of starting from scratch. That's where these kids are with art."
The only reason Wanenmacher's students-and other elementary school kids throughout the state-have art at all this year is the Fine Arts Education Act (FAEA) of 2003.
The law, shepherded through the Legislature by former Democratic State Rep. Max Coll of Santa Fe, was intended to encourage school districts to give elementary school
students the opportunity to participate in fine arts activities: music, theater, dance, the visual arts. Any school district with a plan to implement arts education that meets certain criteria can receive funds through the State Public Education Department. Structured to gradually increase funding over a period of three years FAEA was designed, once fully implemented, to have just enough
funds to accommodate all of New Mexico's 89 school districts. Bare bones as it is, arts advocates and educators are overwhelming in their praise and gratitude for the legislation.
"It tells all the people who've been working so hard for arts education for so many years that they've been heard," says Adelma Hnasko, chairwoman for the Santa Fe-based Arts Learning Collaborative, "to see the State step up to the plate really matters."
But the State's commitment to the funding is questionable. Many insiders say this year's legislative session, which began Jan. 18, will include a push to freeze the funding at its current
level. Indeed, while acknowledging that "arts education will help improve educational outcomes and enrich the lives of children," Education Secretary Veronica Garcia also points out that there are many other education components that require financial attention.
"We want to maintain the funding as it is," explains Garcia's Public Information Officer Jennifer Chavez. "We're not cutting anything, we're just not adding money."
At a Jan. 17 media availability, Gov. Richardson-in response to questions from SFR-pronounced the program to be increasing, with "more schools covered next year." Yet the amount of money Richardson cites for the next budget cycle is approximately the same as what was allocated under FAEA this year. Statutorily FAEA must increase funding this year. Not doing so-essentially freezing the FAEA funding-would require changing the law itself, although the governor said he did not believe his proposal would require such a change.
But others do and say such a proposal will meet resistance. "The governor needs to stop this cycle of allowing the funds to be threatened," Wanenmacher says. "It doesn't do the kids any good, it's not good for morale and it just makes the public think all of this is wishy-washy-it's totally inappropriate."
Further, arts education advocates say, threatening arts education undermines both the State's beleaguered educational system and well as its alleged economic development
goals.
The debate, in part, reflects the limited resources in public education funding. But, more importantly, it is a sign of the evolving understanding of the importance of arts education.
"The arts are emerging as a powerful way of transforming education," says Chairman of the New Mexico Alliance for Arts Education Randy Barron. "Rather than just an add-on, the arts can be integrated through the whole system. By preventing our students from studying the arts for so long, we've been disabling them."
The New Mexico Legislature dropped the arts in the Reagan years of the 1980s as the prevailing national mood deemed it an unnecessary component of public education.
In recent years, with art standards included in No Child Left Behind, arts
education has become a topic of debate and lawmaking.
FAEA, in its first school year, provided $4 million that served more than 80,000 students in 29 school districts. Gov. Richardson, then, expressed concern that the program wasn't reaching enough students-the state has 89 school districts and more than 325,000 students.
But when the governor suggested finding a new mechanism to deliver arts in the school, there was a significant outcry of defense for the nascent program. Indeed, for this school year,
all but two districts in the state received funding. There was $9 million allocated under FAEA, but PED spent an additional $8 million over that to fund the programs. Now, according to PED Deputy Secretary Don Moya, both his agency and the governor recommend maintaining funding at the
current $17.2 million. "A change in statute will be required to hold funding at the current level," he says. But that would leave FAEA far short of the total $26 million budget originally envisioned by the Legislature.
"There's a huge body of research to support the value of arts education," says Julia Bergen, director of Fine Arts for Children and Teens, "which clearly was shared with the Legislature when they chose to support FAEA." A growing number of educators and institutions around the country are making the leap from research to practice and understanding the impact that arts integration has. To Bergen the situation is simple. "We have a crisis in this state in terms of education. We have the tools, the resources and the talent to address it. This isn't a short-term proposition and to freeze the arts funding now would be a travesty."
The chairman of the Education Committee, State Rep. Rick Miera, D-Bernalillo, agrees. "We took out arts years ago when people said reading and math was more important,"
he says, adding that, as an educational strategy, eliminating art didn't exactly propel New Mexico to greatness. "Now we're realizing we should be using the right side of our brains; it turns out to help with making better mathematicians and better readers."
Those skills, after all, translate to higher-achieving college students, a more skilled workforce and entrepreneurial growth. "To me," Miera says, "education is economic development."
Ron Stowe agrees. He's the president of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Education and the Arts, a program initiated by the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress.
IEA managed pilot programs in eight New Mexico communities last year. This year IEA will begin a similar pilot project in Ohio. The gravel-voiced and animated Stowe traded a youthful affair as a musician for a career in business. He says that while so far proof of the value of IEA's project here is limited to
anecdotal enthusiasm from teachers and parents, he anticipates-with cautious optimism-marked improvement on test scores to be forthcoming in IEA pilot schools.
But, perhaps more importantly, Stowe is one of many arts-education enthusiasts who recognize that the skills contemporary companies most covet in their employees are skills
created or augmented by the arts.
"Teaching through the arts is not about teaching kids to be artists," says Stowe. "It's great if they choose that path, but we also see people coming out into the workforce who are going to be creative, to be problem solvers, to be ready for the next decade's challenges." Stowe tells the story of counseling a downcast creative writing
major who feared she would never find a good job-he told her, on the contrary, she could get just about any job she wanted. "Training someone in the essential parts of any new discipline is much easier than teaching them to think and analyze and manage ideas," he says. "If you've got that down, you're very valuable."
Creative thinkers are an asset in today's rising companies, Barron says, largely because of the current globalization trend and an economy increasingly dependent on innovation as manufacturing moves overseas and immigrants absorb menial jobs.
"As labor becomes less and less important," Barron says, "higher thinking becomes more and more important."
In Santa Fe, an emphasis on improving education with a healthy helping of the arts is at the top of at least two high-profile agendas.
The City's economic development plan and the Santa Fe Arts Impact Study prepared by the University of New Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research both identify education as the
foremost component in building a wealthy, vibrant community. Both reports also are heavily biased toward a creative economy that capitalizes on Santa Fe's extant cultural assets. So the idea of the State reneging on funds for art programs is met with particular resistance.
"Education has to be our number one economic development priority," says State Rep. Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, whose son is currently in elementary school in Santa Fe and has yet to have an art class this year. "Especially here in Santa Fe, where our economy is arts- and culture-driven, it's critical that our kids are exposed to art through the early years of school."
When the mechanism of an economy is so clear, says Hnasko, it's unfortunate to keep the youth at a disadvantage in terms of growing into leadership roles
in their community.
"New Mexico and Santa Fe are both so rich in the arts, so packed with institutions and museums, and yet most of the people in high arts positions are brought in from other
states," she says.
Stowe's experience reveals similar concerns from other coveted sources of development. "I've talked to some real high-tech companies and they've had a hard time finding kids who are going to be capable of doing the jobs they have and, frankly, it makes them hesitate to locate in New Mexico." Finally, whether children grow up and stay in their own communities or comprise an attractive workforce to companies looking to relocate is secondary to the fundamental task of equipping kids to deal with life, wherever and however they choose.
"The world now is so multi-media, so rooted in visual communication," Hnasko says. "If we don't ensure
our kids are up to speed in the language of the times, it's
a disservice."
She believes the larger arts community in New Mexico should provide the Legislature with enough information and encouragement to take a national leadership role in arts-integrated education.
"We're sometimes so busy doing our work that we forget there are a lot of eyes on us nationally.
We're so arts-rich and what are we doing? If a great, vanguard arts program were to succeed anywhere in the US, it ought to be here. Why not the New Mexico Legislature leading the charge to national reform?"
The answer to that question, some say, relates in part to a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of arts education.
"We're not talking about popsicles and glue," Hnasko says. "The educators engaged in this
process are high-quality, top-notch professionals. The programs are well-researched,
developmentally appropriate, logical progressions." Much like mathematics, for example, the arts program in Santa Fe elementary schools is
designed to begin a set of fundamental elements and progress through grade levels with increasingly complex processes, theories and practical applications. Students move through the program learning skills, but also history and different cultural interpretations of music, dance, theater and visual arts, culminating in a broad understanding of how humans have developed art as a universal medium of communication.
"Universal is exactly the word I use," Stowe says. "What is it about music or movement that is such a core part of being alive? Everybody responds to it. Shouldn't we use it to augment learning if we know that it helps?"
The answer is yes according to Hnasko but, she insists, like other core subjects it needs to be part of a continuum.
"Elementary school is a starting point, but
there's always the next rung on the ladder. We can't begin to expose our kids to this neat stuff and then just let it drop off." That is precisely the effect
that is feared when the State considers preventing FAEA funding
from reaching full implementation.
That's partly why Wirth has drafted legislation for this session to expand FAEA to seventh and eighth grades.
"I feel strongly enough about the issue," he says, "and I feel the evidence in support is there-kids should have this across the board, K through 12." However, Wirth says, it's likely his
proposal won't see the light of day this session. "I do feel this is a program that needs to be expanded, but what we need to do right now is make sure there aren't any cuts."
But, as Rep. Miera cautions, in the legislative game, "no cow is sacred." Miera, as chair of the House Education Committee, also chairs the Legislative Education Study Committee, which meets out of session in order to be prepared for the 300 to 400 bills they will wrangle with during the session. Miera says his committee is well aware of the push to nip FAEA's full implementation.
"We talked about it and we decided it would probably be wrong, so in our final budget recommendation it's our opinion we should keep it. The governor can veto it or accept it, but we're putting that money in."
At the end of the day, says Wirth, the will of the Legislature is present in the extant FAEA bill and it appears to be performing as intended. "We need to give this program a chance to be implemented and to really grow," says Wirth. "I will do whatever I can to keep it as a component of our education system."
Barron says many other New Mexicans also are prepared to fight the push to freeze FAEA's funding; just
as a program of this nature is taking root with kids around the state is no time to rob its already meager budget.
"It's hard to read the alleged minds in the Legislature," Barron says, "but this is a bill that's already been voted on and passed, it's not some sort of cash fund that you can just
dip into."
In fact, he says, such a small item in the budget with the potential for widespread positive impact wouldn't ordinarily even be a target.
"We've allowed politicians to oversimplify education entirely," Barron says. "The only way we assess is through testing rather than real communication between teachers and students. But people like simple answers and politicians are good at telling people what they want to hear. If you ask me, though, it's time to stop marginalizing education and hold our government's feet to the fire."
For the time being fire is confined to colors on the walls of classrooms like Gretel Wanenmacher's.
Like most teachers, Wanenmacher is consumed by her day-to-day interaction with the students and has little patience for anyone who would deny the kids
she works on art projects with each week.
For now, though, Wanenmacher is grateful to offer one hour a week for art to all 450 students at Kearny Elementary; it's the most that's currently allowed.
"But it's great," she says. "It's a start. I just wish we could get on with it without the worth being questioned by people who should be supporting us."
She turns back to her class and directs all eyes to her board with the day's lesson. She begins drawing in tandem with her students, carefully explaining the process and principles involved along the way. Today her students are learning to perceive varying values in shades of gray.
