Richard Kessler: November 2009 Archives

Click here to read his evaluation of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

People say to me, what's the problem? Is anyone really against the arts in schools?

My typical response is that it's not often one single event, it's more about the waves that wash it off the beach. Those waves have been the back-to-basics movement, NCLB, budget cuts, accountability, principal empowerment, site-based management, and so much more.

It's why some of us in NYC have dug in our heels about fighting to restore dedicated funding (Project Arts) for the arts. This dedicated funding is often the only thing that holds the arts in place, the only anchor so to speak when that wave hits hard.

Also, combined with things like minimum instructional standards, is the only thing that establishes an equitable starting point for all kids in a system. In essence, it's a tool of both equity and quality with a subject area that needs to be treated in ways different from other subjects, in light of how severely the deck is stacked against it. And by the deck, I mean the educational-industrial-testing-complex.

There are big waves, and then the small ones, which end up in the category I would like to call "death by a thousand little cuts." Do you know that phrase?

Here is another of the little cuts. Maybe not so little if you have a kid in one of these district schools:  A story in Gotham Schools about how the NYCDOE's plan to expand charter schools into district school space will result in the loss of arts spaces, science labs, etc.

If you don't know how it works, or can't believe it, sorry, well it basically works like this. Part of your school building is given over to a charter school. Yes. In essence, that's just what happens. Kiss your art room goodbye. Applied for a grant from the school district to create a sprung floor for a dance room, and got the money to make an appropriate space for dance education. Tough luck. Kiss your dance room goodbye. 

The precise term is "turned," a diminutive of "turnaround," I presume. Turnaround being the latest and greatest craze in school reform.

I believe the term is used in the espionage business as well. As in she "turned rogue."

So, in short order:

A middle school in the well-to-do Georgetown section of DC fails to attract students from its zoned area. Those parents choose to send their kids to private schools.

Responding to a directive from the then Board of Education, the school develops a strong arts program and institutes a screened process for admission.

The school becomes a "gem" in the system, with a winning arts program and comparative high performance on standardized tests.

The school gets a new building.

The economy tanks, leading more parents from the predominantly white neighborhood to look at the school as an option for their students.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the school's student population is more than 70% African American.

So, here comes the Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, ready to "turn" this school in ways not yet announced officially, but clearly targeting how the a repositioning of the school as a feeder for the local families.

It's a great story of the how difficult it must be to be a school system leader, an educator, and a parent. What is coherent and successful one day, is incoherent the next, particularly in terms of policy. And, this is also a great example of the relationship between policy and practice.

Certainly worth the read.

Not Eager to March to Rhee's Drum--Parents and Staff Fret over Schools Chief's Plan for Hardy Middle, The Washington Post

Nearly three-quarters of its students are proficient in reading, according to last spring's standardized test. Its acclaimed fine arts and instrumental music program, built by longtime Principal Patrick Pope, draws students from across the city and has helped develop artists such as bassist Ben Williams, winner of the 2009 Thelonious Monk jazz competition.

What needs to turn, she said, is the attitude of the school's leadership, which she said has not always been welcoming to neighborhood families. The school has an application process, which includes a letter of recommendation and "evidence of experience" in art, music or theater in the form of a portfolio or program from a school performance. Students also must take a 90-minute "workshop" with the school's arts and general education teachers.

That has left the misimpression, Rhee said, that Hardy is specialty school not open to the surrounding community. "We need to do a lot of clarifying," she said. "Hardy has an arts component, but you don't have to think you have the next Whitney Houston on your hands to send your kids to this school."

I will try hard to be positive and productive with this blog. I promise.

Okay, the long awaited Race to the Top final guidelines have been released. At the bottom of this entry I will provide a set of the links to the Executive Summary, full guidelines, press release, etc.

First, let's address the question: what about arts education?

The short answer is that the news is not good.  Arts education is an outlier in RttT.

It is possible to fit it in between the lines here and there, but an opening for something larger is pretty hard to discern on any practical level. Will some of the state applications include aspects related to arts education? Yes. How significant will they be? Most likely what we will see in arts education and RttT will be relatively minor.

The way it stands, well, a state department of education (the applicant) would have to go out on a limb for arts education as a literal reading of the guidelines do not support any major efforts in this regard.

Interestingly, in her Artsjournal.com blog today, Judith Dobrzynski/Real Clear Arts asks "what happened to the Education Campaign Pledge?"

Specifically she asks: "One speech does not a policy make, but some people are wondering about President Obama's commitment to arts education after hearing his speech on education last week."

The long answer is that the administration is in a sort of dilemma. What appeared in the education platform leading up to the primary, in terms of arts education, disappeared in the general election when the campaign released what was its last and final education agenda prior to the general election.

You can read about that here.

So, what we have is a case of an administration that is supportive of arts education but cannot find a way to fit it into major education policies. Another case in point with another administration: Remember NCLB, where arts became a core subject. And...and...and?

Without question, President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have spoken more about the importance of arts education than we have ever witnessed from any White House whatsoever including that of Clinton.

That being said, they may not know what to do about it beyond using the bully pulpit.

Judy is correct to ask the question. I would refine the context quite a bit by stating that the question should be based not upon the content of Obama's November 4th speech in Wisconsin, but instead upon the writing that appeared on the wall a long time ago.

I ran into a friend very shortly after Arne Duncan held a brief phone conference with the arts education field and issued a open letter to school superintendents and other education officials advising them on the importance of arts education and the ways in which Title One funds could be used to support it.

She said to me, with a big smile and a bounce in her step: "isn't this great; don't you think?"

My reply: "talk is cheap." Seriously, that's what I said. (It was early in the morning...)

Am I taking aim at the administration on this?  Well, yes and no. I believe that the focus on STEM subjects in RttT is a great example of how an opening for arts education could have been created in the guidelines. It was the prime moment to make good on the rhetoric.

Perhaps this is the fault of the arts education field?  As I was looking over the final guidelines this morning, I wrote on the back of the document: does RttT define an agenda?

What I mean by this is: what is missing from RttT and what are the implications for future actions?

At the same time, as I mentioned above, this helps to clarify the challenge to us: arts education is an outlier in education, plain and simple. So, while speeches from the administration about the importance of the arts are indeed important, they only go so far. We're not going to see more I believe, without us as a field helping to show the way. A tall order. I know. And, I don't think it's as simple as Quincy Jones convening a group of people to make demands.

So, I finish for the moment with this question: while Duncan's letter to school leaders is important, as I wrote about it at the time, well, what is someone to do: brandish the letter and show it to a principal or superintendent who decides to cut the arts?

USDOE Race to the Top

RttT Executive Summary

A Summary of Changes Made to the Final Guidelines

The Full Guidelines

It's not the smoothest time for teacher unions these days. They're a a pretty easy target when people wring their hands about the state of K-12 public education. But, hey, what would their critics do without them. Who would they have to criticize and blame? (The answer is: teacher colleges and school boards, in case you haven't heard.)

If you look around at most of the arts education programs nationally, you will find that the local teachers union is rarely part of the project. I believe that most people tend to view these unions solely through the lens of labor issues. And in an era when charter schools are the simple answer for many, many people, the teachers unions are in a difficult spot public-relations wise.

We have a slightly different perspective. This Saturday, The Center for Arts Education is presenting the first of three city-wide professional development conferences in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers Teacher Center (UFTTC). The UFTTC Teacher Center is the long-standing educational arm of the local New York City teachers union: The United Federation of Teachers. This first conference will focus on the integration of the arts, grades K-5.

Our colleagues at the UFTTC refer to this as a professional teacher conference.

The second conference in February will focus on arts education curricula and resources grade K-12. The final conference for this year, in May, will look at Career Readiness and Awareness Through the Arts, Grades 6-12.

Partnering with the teachers union is an easy call for me. First, they helped to found The Center for Arts Education, being incredibly supportive from the very first moment. Second, we've worked with them in an assortment of ways over the years, including partnering with them to create our Promising Practices publication in 1999. Lately, they've become an important partner in our advocacy work. Third, perhaps most important, is that we believe the best route to working with teachers in a school system that is becoming increasingly decentralized, is to find the pathway right to the teachers. What could be a better way than through the educational arm of the UFT, which has provided a wide range or professional development and support for teachers and para professionals for many, many years.

Moreover, these partnerships are expanding to include NYSUT, the state-wide teachers union in New York, as well as the American Federation of Teachers, which is the national union for the UFT and other local AFT chapters across the country.

I have been to just a few conference on arts education over the years. What I have found is that the number of school teachers and administrators that attend is always very, very small. So, the thought of working directly with teachers through their union holds great promise for connecting with the teachers without having to depend on the school district for access.

What has it been like to work with them you may be wondering?  I cannot say thank them enough. The two point people we've been dealing with at the UFTTC, Aminda Gentile, who runs the UFT Teacher Center, and Roberto Benetiz, our liason (he's a former teacher and administrator) are huge champions of the arts and have rolled up their sleeves to get our conferences, which I view as a beginning, off the ground.

I should also mention that the UFT has a new President: Michael Mulgrew. His pathway from professional carpenter, to Career and Technical Education Teacher, to union leader, gives him a very strong understanding and appreciation of the arts.

I am looking forward very much to this first conference on Saturday morning at the UFT Headquarters in Lower Manhattan...

Maybe I will have some pictures for you.

Presumably, this blog will be subject to some criticism by the Association of Hypnotherapists.

In today's New York Daily News, there is an article about the New York City Department of Education dropping almost $375,000 on the services of a "new age hypnotherapist." 

Apparently, this consultant was brought on board to "boost productivity and morale among middle managers" in the district.

Really, I am not putting you on here. I promise.

In a system  where spending on arts supplies was reduced by $7 million before the economy tanked, you have to wonder just a wee bit about how it can be spending money on a consultancy like this. You also have to wonder why it needs productivity and morale boosted, through the services of a hypnotherapist no less ?

Is there a logic model for this? What are the outputs? Is there an growing issue with past life recall among middle managers? So many questions, so little time...

Now, let me see, how many copies of the NYCDOE's Arts Blueprints could be made available for free with $375,000?

(Yes, the hard copy must be paid for, by schools and outside organizations.)

Here are a few tidbits I have come across recently and not so recently; most in person and a few in writing:

You arts people think that all principals have to do all day is think about arts education.
School District Official

Do you really, in your heart of hearts, believe that any other subject other than the arts should be taught?
School District Official

I would rather kids have nothing than have arts education of low quality.
School District Administrator

Children are transformed by simply walking into ____________ (performance venue--you can fill in the blank).
Famous Artist and Board Member of Unsaid Institution

We are proud to have served the millionth child.
Performing Arts Organization Promotional Materials

The integration of the arts cannot be done at the high school level.
School District Administrator

I am only really interested in a broad arts education that is integrated across the curriculum.
Principal

The integration of the arts has no quality and no sequence and cannot be accounted for.
Professor of Education

When is the arts program going to include us?
A non-arts subject area teacher in middle school.

We like arts because there are no wrong answers.
School Principal

We do not like the arts because there are no wrong answers.
CEO

Parents are the key to arts education.
Foundation Staff Member

Parents are a waste of time.
The very same Foundation Staff Member

Parents in low income areas don't care about the arts.
Arts Education Consultant

Parents in low income schools understand that the arts are part of a well-rounded education.
Grass Roots Organizer.

Low performing students shouldn't be required to have the arts.
School District Official

Music Saves Lives.
Arts Advocate

There would be no arts education without cultural organizations.
Arts Administrator

There is no arts education in our schools.
Elected Official

This year is going to be another great year for arts education.
City Official (in the same school district as the elected official)

I had no arts in elementary school.
Middle School Student

95 percent of Elementary Schools have an arts teacher.
School District Official

We must do something about ensuring that artists entering schools have basic training.
Director of Arts Education/Cultural Organization

After all the training artists have already received, why should we have to receive additional training? We're not teachers; we're artists.
Teaching Artist

Oh, I saw you complaining, er, I mean advocating for something or other in the press the other day.
Former School District Official (and friend)

Okay, that's my blog for today...consider this part one of a recurring motif...and yes, I promise, they are all for real, none have been invented.

To read the previous installments of Ted's arts education travelogue click here for the first entry; here for the second; here for the third; here for the fourth; and here for the fifth.

I want to thank my friend Ted for these thoughtful, rich, and fascinating posts. I am grateful that he chose Dewey21C as a vehicle for sharing what it was like for the New York Philharmonic's education program to tour overseas. And besides these posts being just plain interesting to read, I think they also give a great sense of the caliber of people we have as colleagues in this field.

Thank you Ted. Really swell job!!

 RK

***********************************************************************************************************
Nov. 1 2009

A solid month of travels and projects in three different countries leave so much for the Teaching Artists and me to process. And we will. We have many new relationships to continue and the promise of continuing work in all these places. But for now, a few parting thoughts.

People talk about the world getting smaller, but for me it gets bigger. Yes, we've found much that is the same about kids and about learning, but at this point I'm thinking more about the seemingly bottomless levels of difference among Japanese, Korean, and American cultures - and don't even get me started on Arabian. The history of conflict and commerce among China, Japan, and Korea influences differences that seem subtle only to us. And that's only one way to think about it. Then I imagine multiplying the layers and complexities by regions of each country - rural versus urban, dominant culture versus tribal cultures - and then by 140 countries. It's really not a small world, after all.

OK, so what about Arabia? Case in point. Abu Dhabi presented so many puzzles I can hardly begin to reflect on it. And how much of the Arab world does this capital city of the tiny United Arab Emirates even begin to reveal? Part of what makes Abu Dhabi so puzzling is that what one sees is such a mix of cultures - expatriate actually more than Emirati - that have jostled together for only a few decades, in the midst of extreme wealth, rapid development, and punishing climate. Our Teaching Artists Ensemble played to receptive audiences in six private schools, mostly British and American, all co-educational, with familiar educational values. Many families from these schools followed through by attending the Philharmonic's Young People's Concert. But what kind of educational philosophy would we find in the state schools? What happens when you separate boys and girls from the start? And who goes to those schools? From what we saw, Emirati families are more likely to be more affluent and wield more gadgets than expats. Does the army of service workers, who get bussed in every morning to the big hotels, have children in the country, and are they in the state schools? So much more to explore on return visits.

One incident in Abu Dhabi stands out in memory. In a private school that's all-Emirati, and co-educational, classes were seated on the floor for our interactive concert, as usual, with younger classes in front and older in back. In only the back two rows, girls were wearing head scarves, having reached the age of about 12. And following what seems to be a global law, hands shot up and kids participated everywhere except in the back rows of older kids. But one girl back there picked up on the gestural activity of tracing a melody in the air, and for the rest of the concert vigorously responded with her arms to music by Messiaen, Francaix, and Mozart. Was she so very different from the others? Teachers whom we asked afterward didn't seem to think so. Was she expressing what others felt, but could not express? Or had our multiple-intelligences-informed approach succeeded in tapping the particular competencies of this girl? What did her peers think of her active participation, and would those opinions be pretty much like those in the United States, or would they be colored by culture and religion? Might the connection she found with music then carry over into her enjoyment of other music, or might it conflict with a prohibition on dancing? I fear the questions reveal more naivete than insight, but we have to start somewhere.

Perhaps the bafflement I felt at this girl's extremely positive response to Western music, and to our presentation, is emblematic of where we are right now in this ongoing intercultural experiment. Bringing aesthetic education, student-centered learning, interactive performance and all the rest into very different cultures can be deceptively easy, and can hit roadblocks that take a long time to unravel. All indications are that we will be able to continue working in these countries and perhaps others as well, and we'll seek to understand more. At the same time, I think our greatest value and expertise is not in anthropology or sociology but in performance and the style of teaching we've developed. Ultimately, I leave it to the experts in each country to decide what to make of what the New York Philharmonic has to offer, and to adapt whatever seems useful to local culture and need.

Theodore Wiprud
Director of Education, New York Philharmonic
************************************************************************************************************
Theodore Wiprud has directed the Education Department of the New York Philharmonic since October 2004. The Philharmonic's education programs include the historic Young People's Concerts, the new Very Young People's Concerts, one of the largest in-school program of any US orchestra, adult education programs, and many special projects.

Mr. Wiprud has also created innovative programs as director of education and community engagement at the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the American Composers Orchestra; served as associate director of The Commission Project, and assisted the Orchestra of St. Luke's on its education programs. He has worked as a teaching artist and resident composer in a number of New York City schools. From 1990 to 1997, Mr. Wiprud directed national grantmaking programs at Meet The Composer. During the 1980's, he taught and directed the music department at Walnut Hill School, a pre-professional arts boarding school near Boston.

Mr. Wiprud is also known as a composer and an innovative concert producer, until recently programming a variety of chamber series for the Brooklyn Philharmonic. His own music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and voice is published by Allemar Music.

Mr. Wiprud earned his A.B. in Biochemistry at Harvard, and his M.Mus. in Theory and Composition at Boston University, and studied at Cambridge University as a Visiting Scholar.

September 2008