The Source of the Arts Education Nile: “Money is Policy”

When the categorical funding line for arts education in the New York City Public Schools was elminated, essentially to “empower the principals” and to increase the total budget available to each school, a good friend and colleague of mine who works for the NYCDOE said: “money is policy.”

Short and sweet. Don’t ya think?

And let’s be clear here, we’re not talking about soft money, which tends to be relatively small and short-term. We’re talking about good old fashioned tax levy money, real deal school dollars. The kind that is in increasingly short supply

There are many who will take issue with this. The arguements against this statement center around money not necessarily changing anything for the long haul, and in the absence of more thoughtful strucutures that give context and meaning to the money, the long-term intentions behind the change brought about by funding tend to be evanescent.

In this particular case, the money we were talking about was a categorical funding line that was intended to incent arts education at the school level. Principals could only spend the funds on hiring of certified arts teachers, arts supplies, and services of cultural organizations. The money was never viewed not intended as total arts spending, but rather as a lever of change, and perhaps most importantly, as a finanical incentive that helped counter balance an educational idustrial complex built on state test scores in ELA and math. This is the important contextual piece to consider here, for a financial incentive would not be necessary if the scales weren’t so heavily tipped against arts education (and other subjects including physical education).

We spend a great deal of time at CAE working on our policy and legislative agenda. It has a rather talmudic feel to it. But one way or the other, unless and until the most fundamental policy changes take place in the area of accountability, we end up with the homing pigeon of arts education policy: categorical funding programs that incentive arts education at the school level.

It’s all very ground hog day, for I cannot tell you how many times people have told me to drop the advocacy to restore the cateogorical funding program for arts education in the New York City Public Schools, aka Project ARTS. I have even had people tell me that I was obssessed!

But, there you have it, the policy debates and strategy discussions end up at the very same place: the need to provide financial incentives for school leaders, matched by programs and policies that help to provide and build quality instruction.

Is such funding the sole answer? Absolutely not. But, as my friend said, money is policy, and if you don’t believe it, take a good, hard look at the Race to the Top and the i3, for they prove my friend’s theory, big-time.