Okay, by now, if you haven’t heard about the passage and signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, there’s no hope for you at all.
While the arts field is focused on the $50 million allocated to the National Endowment for the Arts, including the efforts necessary to secure, and subsequent questions about the future of arts advocacy (click here to read Greg Sandow’s column in the Wall Street Journal: The Arts Need Better Arguments), I remain focused on the education portion of the stimulus package.
Simple math:
$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$100 billion for Education
Of the $100 billion, $5 billion has been set aside as a fund to support innovation, including $650 million for school districts or districts in partnership with non-profit organizations. This fund is at the discretion of Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education.
Now, of course this means organizations such as charter school operators, but presumably there is an opening for innovative work by arts education organizations in partnership with school districts. It is not that far off the beaten path of arts education programs currently run by the USDOE. It is a crowded field and the clearly the funding is targeting the improvement of student achievement. Nevertheless, there is an opportunity here to advance education and the arts.
As for the rest of the $100 billion, much of which is going towards staving off teacher layoffs, renovation of school facilities, etc., there may also be opportunities for arts education.