People Magazine, the Burlington Free Press, the Times Argus and a host of radio and television commercials are touting the “end of (this) season, beginning of (the next) season, MUST-SEE” television offerings.
As if basketball and hockey playoffs weren’t occupying enough of our valuable family-garden-spring cleaning-“off-duty” time, within one week we have the final episodes of “Bones” and “House”; the two-night finale of “American Idol” (Go David!), “Dancing with the Stars”, “Desperate Housewives” and “Scrubs” followed immediately by a host of New! Shocking! Exciting! Revealing! shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “The Bachelorette” waiting in the wings. So much choice and so little time! What is a person to do?
The answer became clear to me last Friday night.
I sat in the balcony at the Barre Opera House while Montpelier’s Contemporary Dance and Fitness Studio performed its spring showcase. Two of my children are dancers. The older one takes Hip-Hop and Jazz; the younger one, just Hip Hop.
I sat for 3 ½ hours to watch my children perform in three numbers totaling about nine minutes. If I’d had to I would have sat for twice that amount of time.
It wasn’t just that my kids performed in front of a packed and hugely supportive crowd. Nor was it just that I knew about every fifth member of the audience and their children who were also dancing.
It was one of those rare times that I suddenly realized I was at the creation of a life-long memory for at least two of my children.
At this age (11 and 12), a lot is going on. In school they are learning all the fundamental issues in math and science and social studies. They’re into things like how plants purify our air. They’re exploring intergenerational issues and problems like global warming. They’re basically kids learning to stretch their minds.
But for my daughter and son, and for the 125 other kids who performed last weekend, the one thing about this whole year that they will always remember is their performance this past weekend.
The make-up. The hair-spray. The lights, the sound, the palpable energy flowing over the stage from the audience. The hoots and applause, the laughter, the flowers and boxes of chocolate. The bottled water. The staying-up-way-past-your-bed-time. The recap of who barely made their entrance, whose costume was falling off the whole time they were on stage, the missed entrances, the awkward pauses, the final positions held until black-out.
I sat rooted in my seat, tears in my eyes. I’m fifty years old, and I was transported back to that precious time when I played a guard to the three wise men and my older brother was one of three mummers in our grammar school holiday extravaganza. I remembered the time I wrote a Star Trek play for seventh grade English class and we staged it for our school and my grandmother came to the performance dressed all in black with a black veil (we don’t discuss her wardrobe choices anymore). I remembered all the times when we kids did things together. We shared our joys and heartaches; won our championships, and lost them together—as a community.
At intermission I ran into the guy who fixes my car. I’ve known him for 11 years. He knows my car intimately. I know next to nothing about him. I asked him which dance his child was in. “The Hip-Hop one,” he replied, “She does a brief duet with a boy up-stage right.” “Funny,” I said, “my boy does a duet in the same place with a little girl.”
It turns out his girl and my boy were dance partners. And thus another shared moment goes into the memory banks.
It’s likely that most of the little kids who were featured in the beyond-cute beginners’ classes will not, by the time they graduate from high school, be involved in any meaningful way with dance. In every class, especially the beginners’ classes, there were only a few performers who stood out. By the time all the rest of those kids get to be seniors, they will have experienced a self-selection process that will push them towards soccer, lacrosse, hockey, theater, science club, or a host of other worthy activities. But one thing is certain. Everyone who participated in the program will always carry this experience with them. They will always be able to say, with increasing fondness as the years go by, that for one magical weekend they created a community’s worth of lifetime memories.
Sure, I’ll probably watch the American Idol finale. But 10, 20, 40 years from now I’ll have forgotten whether the winner was David Archuleta or David Cook, and even who Simon Cowell was. But I will still remember last week’s performance at the Barre Opera House, and so will my children and my auto mechanic and his daughter, and their 125 friends and family members.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
LEGISLATIVE RECAP
Two days after Arts Achievement Day in the Vermont State House I took my family to Florida for Spring Break, leaving behind a cultural afterglow in the State House that would carry us through the end of the session. I returned 10 days later to find the legislature deep in its final discussions—full of new economic incentive plans laid on at the 11th hour, and trying to figure out how to fix education, improve health care, handle criminals, and fill pot-holes.
I also returned to a legislature that would, in the end, recommend a 2.5% increase to our appropriation and only a 10% (not 25%) cut to our Cultural Facilities Grant program. This is a success story, and here’s why:
First, more of you participated in Arts Achievement Day than ever before and left legislators with the very clear understanding of why the arts are important in our communities, our educational efforts, and in our economic development efforts. Your presence in the State House was felt strongly and very positively.
Second, the Senate had the most difficult row to hoe since the latest earnings projections for the State came out right after the House finished work on its Appropriations Bill approved an additional 2% increase over the Governor’s recommend. Thus, the Senate had to make $25 million dollars worth of cuts to the House bill. That we survived with essentially a cost of living increase is, frankly, a minor miracle.
Third, the Capital Construction Bill, in which the Cultural Facilities Grant program is located, had to absorb the bulk of the emergency transportation spending which forced a $50,000 (25%) cut on the $200,000 recommended by the Governor. The fact that the legislature put back $30,000 of this funding in the final day or two is a significant statement about the importance of our cultural facilities to our state’s economy.
So, am I disappointed? Yes and no. We did not get the additional $90,000 we needed in order to have funds to support community-based Art Fits Vermont (puzzle project) activities. And our Cultural Facilities Grant program took a 10% hit which means there will be one or two fewer cultural facilities grants awarded next fall.
But…
We have a much stronger advocacy presence than ever before with a much clearer, cleaner message that is being heard…
We survived what several folks have described as “a bloodbath…” and will continue to press our case into the election season.
We have very good relations with the Governor, the Administration, the House and Senate leadership, and leadership on the four “money” committees: House and Senate Appropriations and Institutions Committees. This is due, in no small part, to all of you who wrote letters, made phone calls, or visited the State House this spring.
I attended a nice arts gala in St. Albans last Friday, the day before the legislature adjourned. The Governor was also there and in his remarks he was quite articulate in describing the increasingly important role the arts and cultural sector is playing in revitalizing Vermont. He clearly “gets it.”
The more important question, however, is where will he go next? Where will his opponent in the fall election stand on the arts? For that matter, where does your legislator stand? His/her opponent?
You can tell where this is going, can’t you? Our work has only just begun. We have a lot of tools to use, and resources to bring to bear on educating all of the candidates for election next fall on the value of supporting the arts. The design of our downtown spaces, our roadways and bridges; the ability of our schools to instill a sense of imagination and civic engagement in our children; the ability for our cultural institutions to serve as the “reserve bank” of creative social capital in our communities—all of these and so much more depend on a healthy arts and cultural sector. A healthy arts and cultural sector, in turn, depends so much on decisions made by people you elect. Make sure, during this election season, they have ample opportunity to “get it.”
We will be putting together information for you to use when examining the positions of your candidates for office. Remember, if the arts are important to you (and if you’re reading this, I hope I may assume that they are!) then they also must be important to your legislators.
In the meantime, “Art Fits Vermont” kicked off with all the pomp and circumstance a press conference in the State House could muster. Our funding and operational partners are all hard at work creating puzzle pieces. Keep an eye on our website for more news and information about this incredible project.
Finally, get out and enjoy the sunshine. An while you’re out there, enjoy some art…!
I also returned to a legislature that would, in the end, recommend a 2.5% increase to our appropriation and only a 10% (not 25%) cut to our Cultural Facilities Grant program. This is a success story, and here’s why:
First, more of you participated in Arts Achievement Day than ever before and left legislators with the very clear understanding of why the arts are important in our communities, our educational efforts, and in our economic development efforts. Your presence in the State House was felt strongly and very positively.
Second, the Senate had the most difficult row to hoe since the latest earnings projections for the State came out right after the House finished work on its Appropriations Bill approved an additional 2% increase over the Governor’s recommend. Thus, the Senate had to make $25 million dollars worth of cuts to the House bill. That we survived with essentially a cost of living increase is, frankly, a minor miracle.
Third, the Capital Construction Bill, in which the Cultural Facilities Grant program is located, had to absorb the bulk of the emergency transportation spending which forced a $50,000 (25%) cut on the $200,000 recommended by the Governor. The fact that the legislature put back $30,000 of this funding in the final day or two is a significant statement about the importance of our cultural facilities to our state’s economy.
So, am I disappointed? Yes and no. We did not get the additional $90,000 we needed in order to have funds to support community-based Art Fits Vermont (puzzle project) activities. And our Cultural Facilities Grant program took a 10% hit which means there will be one or two fewer cultural facilities grants awarded next fall.
But…
We have a much stronger advocacy presence than ever before with a much clearer, cleaner message that is being heard…
We survived what several folks have described as “a bloodbath…” and will continue to press our case into the election season.
We have very good relations with the Governor, the Administration, the House and Senate leadership, and leadership on the four “money” committees: House and Senate Appropriations and Institutions Committees. This is due, in no small part, to all of you who wrote letters, made phone calls, or visited the State House this spring.
I attended a nice arts gala in St. Albans last Friday, the day before the legislature adjourned. The Governor was also there and in his remarks he was quite articulate in describing the increasingly important role the arts and cultural sector is playing in revitalizing Vermont. He clearly “gets it.”
The more important question, however, is where will he go next? Where will his opponent in the fall election stand on the arts? For that matter, where does your legislator stand? His/her opponent?
You can tell where this is going, can’t you? Our work has only just begun. We have a lot of tools to use, and resources to bring to bear on educating all of the candidates for election next fall on the value of supporting the arts. The design of our downtown spaces, our roadways and bridges; the ability of our schools to instill a sense of imagination and civic engagement in our children; the ability for our cultural institutions to serve as the “reserve bank” of creative social capital in our communities—all of these and so much more depend on a healthy arts and cultural sector. A healthy arts and cultural sector, in turn, depends so much on decisions made by people you elect. Make sure, during this election season, they have ample opportunity to “get it.”
We will be putting together information for you to use when examining the positions of your candidates for office. Remember, if the arts are important to you (and if you’re reading this, I hope I may assume that they are!) then they also must be important to your legislators.
In the meantime, “Art Fits Vermont” kicked off with all the pomp and circumstance a press conference in the State House could muster. Our funding and operational partners are all hard at work creating puzzle pieces. Keep an eye on our website for more news and information about this incredible project.
Finally, get out and enjoy the sunshine. An while you’re out there, enjoy some art…!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
GETTING CONTROVERSIAL
If this were a normal week, I would be guiding you towards the highlights of our April 16th Arts Achievement Day celebration in the Vermont State House. But, like many people across the country, every year around tax time I get anxious about money, and April 16th is just one day past the dreaded “Ides of April.”
About seven years ago I read an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman that instructed us, every time we read the word “tax” followed by the word “cut” emanating from the Bush Administration, to substitute the word “service” for the word “tax.”
A couple of weeks ago the Brookings Institution—a so-called “left-leaning” think tank based in Washington DC—published an article on the implications of the Bush II Tax Cut legacy.
Reading this article made me understand better why there is no money in the state of Vermont. The burden of paying for everything we depend on our government for has fallen almost exclusively on the shoulders of the state. And Vermont, like a few others, doesn’t have a large enough population to support all the programs and services that used to be covered either wholly or in part by the federal government.
The state of Vermont is unable to support the ambitious plans to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival on the lake that now bears his name. Funds that could have been used for that purpose have been-or will likely be—diverted to shore up the worst parts of our crumbling transportation, health care, public safety and education infrastructure.
There is nowhere near enough money in the State House to replace funds that no longer come from Washington. Since 2001, as a country we have foregone $1.7 trillion (with another $1.8 trillion if the tax cuts are made permanent) in tax revenue and borrowed heavily to pay for not one but TWO foreign wars at the same time.
Every time I turn around I hear more bad news. As a result, I have come to one inescapable conclusion:
What terrorists could never have accomplished in their wildest dreams by destroying the World Trade Center in 2001, our own government has accomplished in its response to that terrible crime in less than seven years.
Our country is bankrupt, dependent on China to purchase our ever-increasing debt burden in order to stay operational. Manufacturing jobs are gone; and service jobs are next on the chopping block. We live in fear that our innocent calls to our relatives living and working overseas will be tapped and we will be put on some “no travel” list. We have to all but disrobe every time we get on a plane (jackets, belts, shoes, toiletries over 3 oz.—what’s next, dental floss?). We are, in effect, no longer free citizens living in a democratic republic.
You put all this together, and “shock and awe” doesn’t come close to describing how I feel.
For those of you that haven’t had to pay your heating bill lately, or haven’t had to pay for emergency medical services at your local hospital out of pocket; if you haven’t had to buy milk, bread or eggs in the past couple of weeks, or fill your car with gas, you might not necessarily agree with what I’m about to say. But here it is anyway.
Repeal the Tax Cuts. Put that money back into the system. Starving government for the sake of starving government is no way to establish, much less enforce, good public policy.
And next time, pay attention when someone offers you $600 in return for “a better economy.” And pay double attention if they offer you $1200 (plus $300 per kid).
Like I said, every year at this time I get anxious about money. So my advice to me and to you is to get past the 15th, and come to State House on the 16th for Arts Achievement Day. It will restore your hope and faith in the great things we can accomplish together. After all, this is the United States of America. And even better, this is Vermont…
About seven years ago I read an op-ed piece in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman that instructed us, every time we read the word “tax” followed by the word “cut” emanating from the Bush Administration, to substitute the word “service” for the word “tax.”
A couple of weeks ago the Brookings Institution—a so-called “left-leaning” think tank based in Washington DC—published an article on the implications of the Bush II Tax Cut legacy.
Reading this article made me understand better why there is no money in the state of Vermont. The burden of paying for everything we depend on our government for has fallen almost exclusively on the shoulders of the state. And Vermont, like a few others, doesn’t have a large enough population to support all the programs and services that used to be covered either wholly or in part by the federal government.
The state of Vermont is unable to support the ambitious plans to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s arrival on the lake that now bears his name. Funds that could have been used for that purpose have been-or will likely be—diverted to shore up the worst parts of our crumbling transportation, health care, public safety and education infrastructure.
There is nowhere near enough money in the State House to replace funds that no longer come from Washington. Since 2001, as a country we have foregone $1.7 trillion (with another $1.8 trillion if the tax cuts are made permanent) in tax revenue and borrowed heavily to pay for not one but TWO foreign wars at the same time.
Every time I turn around I hear more bad news. As a result, I have come to one inescapable conclusion:
What terrorists could never have accomplished in their wildest dreams by destroying the World Trade Center in 2001, our own government has accomplished in its response to that terrible crime in less than seven years.
Our country is bankrupt, dependent on China to purchase our ever-increasing debt burden in order to stay operational. Manufacturing jobs are gone; and service jobs are next on the chopping block. We live in fear that our innocent calls to our relatives living and working overseas will be tapped and we will be put on some “no travel” list. We have to all but disrobe every time we get on a plane (jackets, belts, shoes, toiletries over 3 oz.—what’s next, dental floss?). We are, in effect, no longer free citizens living in a democratic republic.
You put all this together, and “shock and awe” doesn’t come close to describing how I feel.
For those of you that haven’t had to pay your heating bill lately, or haven’t had to pay for emergency medical services at your local hospital out of pocket; if you haven’t had to buy milk, bread or eggs in the past couple of weeks, or fill your car with gas, you might not necessarily agree with what I’m about to say. But here it is anyway.
Repeal the Tax Cuts. Put that money back into the system. Starving government for the sake of starving government is no way to establish, much less enforce, good public policy.
And next time, pay attention when someone offers you $600 in return for “a better economy.” And pay double attention if they offer you $1200 (plus $300 per kid).
Like I said, every year at this time I get anxious about money. So my advice to me and to you is to get past the 15th, and come to State House on the 16th for Arts Achievement Day. It will restore your hope and faith in the great things we can accomplish together. After all, this is the United States of America. And even better, this is Vermont…
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
HOW SMALL IS 9-1000ths OF A PERCENT
I’ve been helping my fifth-grader work out some math problems during the past few weeks and doing so has provided me with even more perspective on the work we do at the Arts Council.
Some of the problems had to do with the relationship between decimals and percentages. No matter how often I said the conversion from decimals to percentages was a mere matter of moving the decimal two places “over to the right,” it didn’t sink in until I started putting some examples into play.
Starting with a dollar, I asked her how much 10% was. She immediately responded “10 cents.” And how do you show ten cents? “$0.10,” was the reply. Right, I said, so point 10 equals 10%. See how it’s the same number, only the decimal place has been moved from the left side of the number ten two places over to the right when it’s expressed as a percentage?
“Duh, Dad!” was the reply.
Okay Miss Smartypants, let’s do one that is a little more complicated. Express 546,000 as a percentage of 1,235,740,000.
After a moment of concentrated engagement with her calculator, she said (a little perplexed) “4.418e minus 4…What does THAT mean?”
It means that the result is so small that the calculator has to tell you to move the decimal point over four places to the left in order to give you your answer. Frowning in thought, she returned to the task, and said “Okay, 546,000 is 0.0004418 of 1,235,740,000 or--pausing to move the decimal two places over to the right--.004418 percent. Why this number?”
Why, indeed. Very few people besides me would recognize the ratio—44/1000ths of a percent—as being the Arts Council’s appropriation compared to the State’s General Fund budget.
Yes, our budget is a mere 44/1000ths of one percent of the State Budget. Our requested increase of $103,000 (to meet the required match from incoming Federal Funds from the National Endowment for the Arts) would increase that figure by 9/1000ths of a percent of which most would be spent in communities across the state on local community arts projects.
But it appears that even that tiny increase is too rich for our elected officials in these times of austerity. The House Appropriations Committee has done its bipartisan best to increase our request during the past couple of weeks.
But all of us who lurk about the State house at this time of year keep hearing “there just is no money.” Why, though, am I having a hard time believing it…?
I run an organization. I pay attention to the money we spend. I don’t like to waste a dime. And I don’t focus only on the expense side of the ledger. I look for ways to enhance our revenue—or at the very least look for ways to leverage revenues from other sources to provide financial benefits to our arts and cultural constituents.
Next year the National Endowment for the Arts will give us $103,000 more than it is this year. The State (appropriation) is supposed to match this increase. In turn, the Council is supposed to use this increase to provide grants and services to the field. Of the $206,000 combined increase, we have committed to putting $180,000 out in direct grants. These grants, in turn, require a one-to-one match from local municipal and private sources. When all is said and done the State’s increase of $103,000 will generate an additional federal ($103,000) and local ($180,000) match totaling $283,000. That’s an ROI of 275%!
It’s also the part of the revenue stream that is by far the easiest to measure.
The rest of the revenue stream is what happens when the combined state/local matching funds of $360,000 starts underwriting cultural activities all over the state, such as festivals, art openings, concerts, plays, performances in parks, and local events around the “Art Fits Vermont” project we are about to announce to follow up our wildly successful Palettes Project.
People travel to those events. They eat at restaurants and stay in hotels. They shop for mementos, for clothes, for works of art and craft. They come back. They bring friends and family. They spend money—a portion of which finds its way back into the coffers of the local municipality and into the coffers of the State of Vermont.
The revenue generated by Vermont’s “cultural community” (i.e. the community that tends to look to us for support) is usually captured in the tourism statistics. But that’s usually not what is most significant about our work.
The things that are most significant about our work are the relationships that people form in their communities from shared memories of evenings spent at the lake listening to Mozart, attending a barn dance, or raising money at an art auction for a local senior center. Social scientists tend to call these intangible results “social capital.” Difficult to measure, sure, but no less real than the sales and meals tax collected by restaurants on Church Street right before the Flynn has an event.
The bottom line is this…a $103,000 increase to the Arts Council will result in an immediate $283,000 increase in additional spending in Vermont’s Creative Sector. I can’t believe the State cannot find 9/1000ths of a percent lurking somewhere in some “rainy day funding pot.”
Meanwhile I continue to help my daughter with her math. She couldn’t comprehend 44/1000ths of an inch so I gave her a tangible example. According to the Times Argus, the Bennington Monument is 308 feet tall. If the Bennington Monument represents the State Budget, the Arts Council portion is not quite 1 2/3rds inches of it. About the length of my daughter’s little finger. The requested increase—add another knuckle’s-worth.
Maybe the Senate will find it. Stay tuned…
Some of the problems had to do with the relationship between decimals and percentages. No matter how often I said the conversion from decimals to percentages was a mere matter of moving the decimal two places “over to the right,” it didn’t sink in until I started putting some examples into play.
Starting with a dollar, I asked her how much 10% was. She immediately responded “10 cents.” And how do you show ten cents? “$0.10,” was the reply. Right, I said, so point 10 equals 10%. See how it’s the same number, only the decimal place has been moved from the left side of the number ten two places over to the right when it’s expressed as a percentage?
“Duh, Dad!” was the reply.
Okay Miss Smartypants, let’s do one that is a little more complicated. Express 546,000 as a percentage of 1,235,740,000.
After a moment of concentrated engagement with her calculator, she said (a little perplexed) “4.418e minus 4…What does THAT mean?”
It means that the result is so small that the calculator has to tell you to move the decimal point over four places to the left in order to give you your answer. Frowning in thought, she returned to the task, and said “Okay, 546,000 is 0.0004418 of 1,235,740,000 or--pausing to move the decimal two places over to the right--.004418 percent. Why this number?”
Why, indeed. Very few people besides me would recognize the ratio—44/1000ths of a percent—as being the Arts Council’s appropriation compared to the State’s General Fund budget.
Yes, our budget is a mere 44/1000ths of one percent of the State Budget. Our requested increase of $103,000 (to meet the required match from incoming Federal Funds from the National Endowment for the Arts) would increase that figure by 9/1000ths of a percent of which most would be spent in communities across the state on local community arts projects.
But it appears that even that tiny increase is too rich for our elected officials in these times of austerity. The House Appropriations Committee has done its bipartisan best to increase our request during the past couple of weeks.
But all of us who lurk about the State house at this time of year keep hearing “there just is no money.” Why, though, am I having a hard time believing it…?
I run an organization. I pay attention to the money we spend. I don’t like to waste a dime. And I don’t focus only on the expense side of the ledger. I look for ways to enhance our revenue—or at the very least look for ways to leverage revenues from other sources to provide financial benefits to our arts and cultural constituents.
Next year the National Endowment for the Arts will give us $103,000 more than it is this year. The State (appropriation) is supposed to match this increase. In turn, the Council is supposed to use this increase to provide grants and services to the field. Of the $206,000 combined increase, we have committed to putting $180,000 out in direct grants. These grants, in turn, require a one-to-one match from local municipal and private sources. When all is said and done the State’s increase of $103,000 will generate an additional federal ($103,000) and local ($180,000) match totaling $283,000. That’s an ROI of 275%!
It’s also the part of the revenue stream that is by far the easiest to measure.
The rest of the revenue stream is what happens when the combined state/local matching funds of $360,000 starts underwriting cultural activities all over the state, such as festivals, art openings, concerts, plays, performances in parks, and local events around the “Art Fits Vermont” project we are about to announce to follow up our wildly successful Palettes Project.
People travel to those events. They eat at restaurants and stay in hotels. They shop for mementos, for clothes, for works of art and craft. They come back. They bring friends and family. They spend money—a portion of which finds its way back into the coffers of the local municipality and into the coffers of the State of Vermont.
The revenue generated by Vermont’s “cultural community” (i.e. the community that tends to look to us for support) is usually captured in the tourism statistics. But that’s usually not what is most significant about our work.
The things that are most significant about our work are the relationships that people form in their communities from shared memories of evenings spent at the lake listening to Mozart, attending a barn dance, or raising money at an art auction for a local senior center. Social scientists tend to call these intangible results “social capital.” Difficult to measure, sure, but no less real than the sales and meals tax collected by restaurants on Church Street right before the Flynn has an event.
The bottom line is this…a $103,000 increase to the Arts Council will result in an immediate $283,000 increase in additional spending in Vermont’s Creative Sector. I can’t believe the State cannot find 9/1000ths of a percent lurking somewhere in some “rainy day funding pot.”
Meanwhile I continue to help my daughter with her math. She couldn’t comprehend 44/1000ths of an inch so I gave her a tangible example. According to the Times Argus, the Bennington Monument is 308 feet tall. If the Bennington Monument represents the State Budget, the Arts Council portion is not quite 1 2/3rds inches of it. About the length of my daughter’s little finger. The requested increase—add another knuckle’s-worth.
Maybe the Senate will find it. Stay tuned…
Thursday, March 13, 2008
FOSTERING DIVERSITY
This week I attended a diversity luncheon in Burlington hosted by numerous prominent businesses in the for- and not-for-profit sectors. The purpose was to introduce to attendees the concept of planning for and accommodating a diverse workforce.
It was a very good effort. Despite the last minute cancellation of keynoter Ted Childs , one of the foremost experts in the country on workforce diversity, the speakers and hosts clearly seemed to understand the importance of reaching out to new populations, to people of color, and to those who look, talk, and act different from “us.” As Thomas Friedman says in his bestselling book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, the world is getting smaller every day and we have to “do business with all of them.”
But the panel of business leaders that was pulled together to discuss strategies for developing and supporting diversity in the work place, completely avoided one crucial issue—and thus made it doubly conspicuous by its absence from the discussion. No one, including me, had the courage to stand up to the microphone and ask the simple question: what are we in this room doing to support our schools’ efforts to manage the issues around diversity? Tolerance for diversity starts in the family and is pretty much cemented in place during the school years.
It’s easy to fall into the generations-old discussion surrounding race relations (or lack thereof) in this country. But the issue is so much bigger. It involves an understanding of religions other than those that are Christian; of governments and institutions that are other than those that are republics; of art forms and cultural expressions that are other than “classical” or “western.” It requires, in the words of Adjutant General Michael Dubie who filled in for the keynote speaker, all of us to be far more “culturally aware” than we are now.
The principal of the Burlington High School did rise to the microphone to say that 27% of her students were “students of color” and that more than 20 languages were the primary language spoken at home.
But as I sat at lunch, wave after wave of frustration passed over me at the thought of how much opportunity we have been allowing to slip past us and will continue to slip past us if we continue to educate our children “the same old way.”
We built our current educational infrastructure in the late 1800s in response, in large part, to the increasing demand for skilled workers in an industrial society. Before then, of course, very few people had any formal education because we were largely an agrarian society that worked almost exclusively with its hands. But during the latter part of the 20th century we moved away from the industrial model—in terms of our workforce needs—but never really changed the methodologies we use to educate our children. As a result we are putting our children through school, expecting them to pop out the other end able to handle the complex relational requirements of a fluid, changing society that by necessity needs to speak multiple languages and multitask in several different time zones.
I’m not too surprised that Johnny can’t read and do math or set up a lab experiment that tests a hypothesis with a control. And it’s even less of a surprise that he also can’t recite poetry, distinguish between Bach and Mozart, or Monet or Vermeer. But honestly I can’t really blame the schools. Why? Because the whole system is set up to do things that are completely out of touch with what society requires of it. Furthermore, our schools, like our legal system, tend to follow precedent far more than they follow the latest research.
In my experience, kids are profoundly curious about everything, but not all at once. They also have different aptitudes at different ages. Research tells us that we should be immersing our kids, through age 12, in languages and the arts (music, drama, drawing, creative writing)—building on the biological synapses that are primed to absorb and retain information in those disciplines in particular. History, Science, Math, and the other core subjects are certainly important in the early years, but there is always time later on to put additional focus on those areas.
But what our schools teach during the primary and secondary years is pretty much what they’ve taught for the past 100 years or more. Why? Because that’s how they’ve always done it! To do things differently they’d have to change all their curricula. They’d have to create an arts and culture-centered focus for all kids through the sixth grade and then play massive catch-up in science, math, reading, social studies, etc. afterwards. They’d have to retrain their teachers how to teach. And after doing all that, there is still NO guarantee that kids would do any better on those pesky tests foisted on us by No Child Left Behind …so why bother?
We should “bother” because our schools are becoming less relevant to our children. Our kids are less engaged in learning than ever (you don’t want to even SEE those statistics!). And we are putting our teachers in the position of parent, social worker, and educator but only barely funding even one of those roles.
Therein lies the problem. We can’t do it all at once and, even if we wanted to “cure the patient,” the patient has to want the cure. Our education system hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. We can continue to function with lowered expectations and dependent on the hyper-achievers among us to carry a heavier load. But it will be harder and harder to get money to sustain our diseased system and one day pretty soon, the whole thing will implode.
Or will it? I am heartened by various new approaches to education, by the work coming out of our newest education graduates who are eager to apply the latest research and help transform our schools into paragons of the 21st Century Learning Environment.
And one of the most effective ways to start this transformation is for every one of the 150 businesses that attended the luncheon this week to rise and demand that our schools start preparing our kids for the 21st Century, not the 19th, and then put some of their money where their mouth is. As an indicator of their commitment, I should have taken a straw poll of the room and asked how many of those in attendance voted to approve their school budgets at town meeting day last week. But like I said, I didn’t have the courage. Shame on me.
It was a very good effort. Despite the last minute cancellation of keynoter Ted Childs , one of the foremost experts in the country on workforce diversity, the speakers and hosts clearly seemed to understand the importance of reaching out to new populations, to people of color, and to those who look, talk, and act different from “us.” As Thomas Friedman says in his bestselling book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, the world is getting smaller every day and we have to “do business with all of them.”
But the panel of business leaders that was pulled together to discuss strategies for developing and supporting diversity in the work place, completely avoided one crucial issue—and thus made it doubly conspicuous by its absence from the discussion. No one, including me, had the courage to stand up to the microphone and ask the simple question: what are we in this room doing to support our schools’ efforts to manage the issues around diversity? Tolerance for diversity starts in the family and is pretty much cemented in place during the school years.
It’s easy to fall into the generations-old discussion surrounding race relations (or lack thereof) in this country. But the issue is so much bigger. It involves an understanding of religions other than those that are Christian; of governments and institutions that are other than those that are republics; of art forms and cultural expressions that are other than “classical” or “western.” It requires, in the words of Adjutant General Michael Dubie who filled in for the keynote speaker, all of us to be far more “culturally aware” than we are now.
The principal of the Burlington High School did rise to the microphone to say that 27% of her students were “students of color” and that more than 20 languages were the primary language spoken at home.
But as I sat at lunch, wave after wave of frustration passed over me at the thought of how much opportunity we have been allowing to slip past us and will continue to slip past us if we continue to educate our children “the same old way.”
We built our current educational infrastructure in the late 1800s in response, in large part, to the increasing demand for skilled workers in an industrial society. Before then, of course, very few people had any formal education because we were largely an agrarian society that worked almost exclusively with its hands. But during the latter part of the 20th century we moved away from the industrial model—in terms of our workforce needs—but never really changed the methodologies we use to educate our children. As a result we are putting our children through school, expecting them to pop out the other end able to handle the complex relational requirements of a fluid, changing society that by necessity needs to speak multiple languages and multitask in several different time zones.
I’m not too surprised that Johnny can’t read and do math or set up a lab experiment that tests a hypothesis with a control. And it’s even less of a surprise that he also can’t recite poetry, distinguish between Bach and Mozart, or Monet or Vermeer. But honestly I can’t really blame the schools. Why? Because the whole system is set up to do things that are completely out of touch with what society requires of it. Furthermore, our schools, like our legal system, tend to follow precedent far more than they follow the latest research.
In my experience, kids are profoundly curious about everything, but not all at once. They also have different aptitudes at different ages. Research tells us that we should be immersing our kids, through age 12, in languages and the arts (music, drama, drawing, creative writing)—building on the biological synapses that are primed to absorb and retain information in those disciplines in particular. History, Science, Math, and the other core subjects are certainly important in the early years, but there is always time later on to put additional focus on those areas.
But what our schools teach during the primary and secondary years is pretty much what they’ve taught for the past 100 years or more. Why? Because that’s how they’ve always done it! To do things differently they’d have to change all their curricula. They’d have to create an arts and culture-centered focus for all kids through the sixth grade and then play massive catch-up in science, math, reading, social studies, etc. afterwards. They’d have to retrain their teachers how to teach. And after doing all that, there is still NO guarantee that kids would do any better on those pesky tests foisted on us by No Child Left Behind …so why bother?
We should “bother” because our schools are becoming less relevant to our children. Our kids are less engaged in learning than ever (you don’t want to even SEE those statistics!). And we are putting our teachers in the position of parent, social worker, and educator but only barely funding even one of those roles.
Therein lies the problem. We can’t do it all at once and, even if we wanted to “cure the patient,” the patient has to want the cure. Our education system hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. We can continue to function with lowered expectations and dependent on the hyper-achievers among us to carry a heavier load. But it will be harder and harder to get money to sustain our diseased system and one day pretty soon, the whole thing will implode.
Or will it? I am heartened by various new approaches to education, by the work coming out of our newest education graduates who are eager to apply the latest research and help transform our schools into paragons of the 21st Century Learning Environment.
And one of the most effective ways to start this transformation is for every one of the 150 businesses that attended the luncheon this week to rise and demand that our schools start preparing our kids for the 21st Century, not the 19th, and then put some of their money where their mouth is. As an indicator of their commitment, I should have taken a straw poll of the room and asked how many of those in attendance voted to approve their school budgets at town meeting day last week. But like I said, I didn’t have the courage. Shame on me.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
SHARPEN YOUR PENCILS
Sharpen you pencils, uncap your pens. Limber up your dialing finger. Dust off that keyboard. Sip some coffee; sharpen your mind.
It’s time to take action!
The House Appropriations Committee just began “mark-up;” an annual exercise in which they starting putting numbers into columns and next to names. We want the number next to our name to be increased by $103,000. Here’s why: The National Endowment for the Arts has increased its support to the Vermont Arts Council by $103,000. This increase requires a 1:1 state match. The Governor has suggested $13,000. We need $90,000 more from the legislature.
The Arts Council will spend $180,000 the combined state/federal increase as follows:$90,000 to support community projects associated with our “Art Fits” (Puzzles) statewide community arts project. $50,000 to restore community arts organization project grants support which had suffered cuts from previous years.$40,000 to support Local Arts Service Organization Grant Initiative.
All $180,000 of the grants we award will likewise require a 1:1 local/private match—making the leveraging effect of the legislature’s increased support to the Arts Council amount to 4:1 ($360,000:$90,000). (The remaining $26,000 will just cover administrative increases.)
Here’s how you can help.
Now is the crucial time for you to contact your state representative (with a cc to your state senator) indicating your wish for him or her to support the Arts Council’s request for “$90,000 over the Governor’s recommended increase of $13,000—or $103,000 total.
We strongly recommend you pick up the phone and leave a message for your legislator. If you are not comfortable doing this, snail mail directed to their home is next best—unless your legislator only responds to email (as some do!).
Tell your legislator a story about why the arts matter to you personally. Let them know, for example the impact that participating in “Palettes of Vermont “ had on you as an artist, or an educator, or as a member of your local community organization that participated in it. Let them know you really care about this effort. Let them know what a difference a small grant from us meant to your local community arts organization.
If you are going to email your legislator, PLEASE DO:Identify yourself as a constituentAsk if he/she is aware of the Arts Council’s request for additional funding totaling $103,000Remind him/her that the Arts Council funding request is in response to conditions placed upon it by an increase from its federal grantRemind him/her that all but about 12% of the requested increase will directly benefit communities all over Vermont, especially those that participate in Art Fits (Puzzles) with cash infusions that each will require a 1:1 match—for a total leveraging effect of 4:1.ASK HIM/HER to support the requested increase (and take note of his/her response and communicate it to me)THANK HIM/HER for doing such a hard job under such difficult economic conditions.
Cc your state senator(s)Cc me at aaldrich@vermontartscouncil.org
PLEASE DO NOT:Copy every member of the House/Senate Appropriations Committees, especially the Chairs (they are well aware of our request)Cut and paste this message into your own email; use your own words—they are sure to sound better!Delay. Do it right now, while the inspiration is in you!
If your local representative is on the House Appropriations Committee, he/she has already heard the pitch from me, Steve Ames (River Arts), and Peggy Kannenstine (Center for Cartoon Studies).
If your representative is NOT on the House Appropriations Committee, please ask him/her to support the Arts Council’s request in two ways:By talking with their colleagues on House Appropriations about the request and asking them to support it (this needs to be done within the next couple of days!)By voting in favor of the increase when it comes to a floor vote.
One final piece of advice—
This is a very important legislation for us. Do not argue with your legislator. Just make sure he/she understands that without their support, our federal appropriations increase could be seriously at risk, and our ability to leverage the increased state funds 4:1 to benefit communities all over Vermont would be jeopardized. Take note of their response to these points and let me know what they say.
The fun is just beginning!
It’s time to take action!
The House Appropriations Committee just began “mark-up;” an annual exercise in which they starting putting numbers into columns and next to names. We want the number next to our name to be increased by $103,000. Here’s why: The National Endowment for the Arts has increased its support to the Vermont Arts Council by $103,000. This increase requires a 1:1 state match. The Governor has suggested $13,000. We need $90,000 more from the legislature.
The Arts Council will spend $180,000 the combined state/federal increase as follows:$90,000 to support community projects associated with our “Art Fits” (Puzzles) statewide community arts project. $50,000 to restore community arts organization project grants support which had suffered cuts from previous years.$40,000 to support Local Arts Service Organization Grant Initiative.
All $180,000 of the grants we award will likewise require a 1:1 local/private match—making the leveraging effect of the legislature’s increased support to the Arts Council amount to 4:1 ($360,000:$90,000). (The remaining $26,000 will just cover administrative increases.)
Here’s how you can help.
Now is the crucial time for you to contact your state representative (with a cc to your state senator) indicating your wish for him or her to support the Arts Council’s request for “$90,000 over the Governor’s recommended increase of $13,000—or $103,000 total.
We strongly recommend you pick up the phone and leave a message for your legislator. If you are not comfortable doing this, snail mail directed to their home is next best—unless your legislator only responds to email (as some do!).
Tell your legislator a story about why the arts matter to you personally. Let them know, for example the impact that participating in “Palettes of Vermont “ had on you as an artist, or an educator, or as a member of your local community organization that participated in it. Let them know you really care about this effort. Let them know what a difference a small grant from us meant to your local community arts organization.
If you are going to email your legislator, PLEASE DO:Identify yourself as a constituentAsk if he/she is aware of the Arts Council’s request for additional funding totaling $103,000Remind him/her that the Arts Council funding request is in response to conditions placed upon it by an increase from its federal grantRemind him/her that all but about 12% of the requested increase will directly benefit communities all over Vermont, especially those that participate in Art Fits (Puzzles) with cash infusions that each will require a 1:1 match—for a total leveraging effect of 4:1.ASK HIM/HER to support the requested increase (and take note of his/her response and communicate it to me)THANK HIM/HER for doing such a hard job under such difficult economic conditions.
Cc your state senator(s)Cc me at aaldrich@vermontartscouncil.org
PLEASE DO NOT:Copy every member of the House/Senate Appropriations Committees, especially the Chairs (they are well aware of our request)Cut and paste this message into your own email; use your own words—they are sure to sound better!Delay. Do it right now, while the inspiration is in you!
If your local representative is on the House Appropriations Committee, he/she has already heard the pitch from me, Steve Ames (River Arts), and Peggy Kannenstine (Center for Cartoon Studies).
If your representative is NOT on the House Appropriations Committee, please ask him/her to support the Arts Council’s request in two ways:By talking with their colleagues on House Appropriations about the request and asking them to support it (this needs to be done within the next couple of days!)By voting in favor of the increase when it comes to a floor vote.
One final piece of advice—
This is a very important legislation for us. Do not argue with your legislator. Just make sure he/she understands that without their support, our federal appropriations increase could be seriously at risk, and our ability to leverage the increased state funds 4:1 to benefit communities all over Vermont would be jeopardized. Take note of their response to these points and let me know what they say.
The fun is just beginning!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
CELEBRATE
In this week’s ArtMail we ask for nominations to receive the Council’s Governor’s Award in the Arts and the Walter Cerf Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts.
Why do we do this?
Several reasons…
The most obvious is because it provides all of us with an opportunity to come together in celebration of the work of a Vermont artist who has made a lasting impact on the arts, on the state of Vermont, and on some essential aspect of our humanity. There is something viscerally pleasant about being around someone while his or her work and influence is recognized and celebrated.
An equally important, but much less tangible reason we recognize our artists is to make sure that we retain—and even sustain—our connection to them. Recently I was party to a conversation among colleagues where the subject of “elitism and the arts” was raised. It was the same old discussion in which one person argues how “art” is usually something that only highly-educated, wealthy people with leisure time on their hands are able to enjoy. The response is usually along the lines of no, art is for everyone, it is a reflection of the human condition as seen through the eyes of someone who has the facility of communicating through visual means, dance, poetry, and other art forms. Blah blah blah. But then someone else observed:
“It’s not about elitism. It’s not about wealth, or access, or leisure time. It’s not that simple. What creates a separation between “us” (the people) and “them” (the artist and their work), is a sense of reverence for what “they” are able to do with a few brush strokes, a pen, a musical instrument, or an idea.”
Humans are drawn to those expressions like moths to a candle. How an artist’s work speaks to us, we may not quite understand. However, the more I am around great art and artists, the better I understand this sense of reverence that people direct towards them. It’s not an elitism thing, it’s a “wanting-to-be-connected-to-them” thing. It’s a connection that everyone should be allowed to experience often in their lives.
A third reason we recognize our artists is because someone who labors in the arts all their life is likely to get little else in the way of tangible remuneration. I had the pleasure of chatting with Ella Fitzgerald once back in the mid-1980s. She was well into her old age, but still making public appearances and, apparently, still “singing for her supper.” She was in a crowd and when I reached her I suggested we sit because she looked a little tired. She thanked me for my concern and I led her over to a seat and after a few words of small talk, I asked her, what brings you here tonight, performing for this particular crowd? Her answer stunned me:
I still have to pay the rent.
So, on behalf of all the Ella Fitzgeralds out there, please let us know who we should be celebrating. And while you’re thinking about it, make a donation to your local arts organizations or better yet, buy a work of art, or purchase that song you just downloaded from a friend.
Then join us in celebrating our next award recipients, whoever they may be.
Why do we do this?
Several reasons…
The most obvious is because it provides all of us with an opportunity to come together in celebration of the work of a Vermont artist who has made a lasting impact on the arts, on the state of Vermont, and on some essential aspect of our humanity. There is something viscerally pleasant about being around someone while his or her work and influence is recognized and celebrated.
An equally important, but much less tangible reason we recognize our artists is to make sure that we retain—and even sustain—our connection to them. Recently I was party to a conversation among colleagues where the subject of “elitism and the arts” was raised. It was the same old discussion in which one person argues how “art” is usually something that only highly-educated, wealthy people with leisure time on their hands are able to enjoy. The response is usually along the lines of no, art is for everyone, it is a reflection of the human condition as seen through the eyes of someone who has the facility of communicating through visual means, dance, poetry, and other art forms. Blah blah blah. But then someone else observed:
“It’s not about elitism. It’s not about wealth, or access, or leisure time. It’s not that simple. What creates a separation between “us” (the people) and “them” (the artist and their work), is a sense of reverence for what “they” are able to do with a few brush strokes, a pen, a musical instrument, or an idea.”
Humans are drawn to those expressions like moths to a candle. How an artist’s work speaks to us, we may not quite understand. However, the more I am around great art and artists, the better I understand this sense of reverence that people direct towards them. It’s not an elitism thing, it’s a “wanting-to-be-connected-to-them” thing. It’s a connection that everyone should be allowed to experience often in their lives.
A third reason we recognize our artists is because someone who labors in the arts all their life is likely to get little else in the way of tangible remuneration. I had the pleasure of chatting with Ella Fitzgerald once back in the mid-1980s. She was well into her old age, but still making public appearances and, apparently, still “singing for her supper.” She was in a crowd and when I reached her I suggested we sit because she looked a little tired. She thanked me for my concern and I led her over to a seat and after a few words of small talk, I asked her, what brings you here tonight, performing for this particular crowd? Her answer stunned me:
I still have to pay the rent.
So, on behalf of all the Ella Fitzgeralds out there, please let us know who we should be celebrating. And while you’re thinking about it, make a donation to your local arts organizations or better yet, buy a work of art, or purchase that song you just downloaded from a friend.
Then join us in celebrating our next award recipients, whoever they may be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
