main

My colleague said to me that "the arts are a core subject in NCLB and that alerting policy makers of this can have a powerful positive affect."It's true, NCLB does include arts education as one of the 10 core subjects.In reality that's a policy fantasy. "Follow the money," said another colleague. Or, "the only accountability is financial accountability," said a senior education … [Read more...] about The New Math: NCLB plus Big Budget Cuts equals??

I thought about it yesterday, what music did I want to listen to, as I was sitting on the train thinking about the election. This morning, I turned to Aaron Copland and his Appalachian Spring, created in 1944 for Martha Graham, with an original set by Noguchi.It seemed just right for the moment. Our composer from Brooklyn, a gay man who was a true progressive democrat, who … [Read more...] about My Soundtrack for this Obama/American moment

I used to love the old fashioned voting booth, where you pushed down a little thingamabob to your candidate's name, and then when done, you would move the handle from one side to the other, which required a bit of muscle, and then you heard a thump, the sound of the machine registering your vote.And then, someone from the polling place would move the handle back to reset it, … [Read more...] about The Art of Voting in Maplewood New Jersey

Last week I was talking with a middle school principal in one of CAE's programs. A network planning meeting was concluding and we got to talking about quality. At first, I thought he was asking about quality arts instruction, as in "how do you support and measure it?" It's the sort of question you want principals to ask. Very quickly the conversation went to a deeper, more … [Read more...] about How I Learned to Love Steve Reich

I am in DC for a three-day  conference being held by the United States Department of Education for its arts education grantees.So, I am looking over the agenda, and lo and behold, I see a roundtable discussion titled: "Arts Education vs Arts Integration." It's the second time in the past six months I have seen this odd and infuriating distinction, which appears on the surface … [Read more...] about Pulling a fast one? Arts Education vs Arts Integration