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Back From the Brink: A Teacher’s Perspective
AdvocacyReport
This article, which is part of the “Back From the Brink” series originally published in February 1999, is reprinted with permission from the National Association for Music Education, formerly MENC, Teaching Music.
A Teacher’s Perspective
by Cindy Lippert
Elementary school music students playing percussion in a Sarasota music classroom. Photo: Ann Wykell, Sarasota County Arts Council
AAs a music teacher in the Sarasota County School District from 1971-97, I spent much of my career being proud of Sarasota County schools. In fact, I had attended elementary, junior high, and high school in Sarasota myself. As a product of the system, I knew firsthand that we had great music education in our schools, and I also knew that we had wonderful music, art, and theater in our community. As a young teacher in the 1970s, I was incredibly busy, learning how to teach well and raising my own family. It was not until the 1980s that I began to notice that the arts were not valued as highly as before in Sarasota County schools. Programs were not as well funded as they had been. Suddenly, everyone seemed to be focused on getting “back to the basics”—and the “basics” apparently did not include the arts. In 1988, the position of fine arts specialist for the school district was eliminated. Music and art teachers were devastated. The Sarasota County School District embraced the idea of school-based management and decentralization, calling on each school to manage most of its own funds and staffing. Meanwhile, state funding for public education, always a complex issue in Florida, continued to decline. In 1995, a particularly acute budget shortfall prompted school administrators to propose a new plan. Elementary and middle school art and music teachers would be eliminated, with the exception of band teachers. Only eight itinerant consultants would continue to work in these special areas, traveling from school to school in order to help classroom teachers “integrate” the music and art curricula into their classroom content areas. This plan, implemented in the fall of 1995, failed miserably. During the ensuing academic year, classroom teachers became painfully aware that they did not want to teach music and art, nor did they feel capable of delivering the specialized curricula of these subjects. Fortunately, relief came with unexpected speed. In the spring of the same academic year (1995-96), the arts community, through the Arts Education Task Force of the Sarasota County Arts Council, staged a major campaign
A Teacher’s Perspective
that succeeded in returning art and music teachers to their classes and in launching a new world-class arts education program for Sarasota County.
As a result, new art and music teachers were hired. In fact, the number of arts teachers doubled in one year. During the 1995-96 academic year, there were only twenty-three music teachers; in 1996-97, there were forty-seven. In January 1996, the district hired a new superintendent, who promised to bring to our schools a curriculum and education—including education in the arts—of highest quality. A coalition of arts advocates, the Community/ Schools Partnership for the Arts (C/SPA), was formed at the superintendent’s direction. This alliance included art and music teachers—of whom I was one—community members, central school administrators, principals, and classroom teachers. Many arts teachers distrusted the new superintendent’s claims initially, suspecting that he might be simply trying to pacify the noisy community arts leaders. Teachers wondered if he would really implement recommendations that C/SPA made.
Within C/SPA, we immediately set about the task of defining our mission and our vision. The partnership was co-chaired by Wilma Hamilton, then director of curriculum, and Ann Wykell, assistant director of the Sarasota County Arts Council. Hamilton saw her first task as fostering a sense of trust among county administrators, teachers, and members of the arts community.
Next, C/SPA put together an “advocacy packet” for principals, citing research that supports arts education. We also included a “wellness audit,” showing a profile of a thriving arts program, based on recommendations in National Standards for Arts Education (MENC, 1994). In addition, we worked out K-12 course and scheduling recommendations in music and art for the following academic year. The partnership leaders addressed the principals and recommended that a fine arts coordinator be hired. The recommendation was accepted and quickly implemented. Teachers—myself included— were amazed that things were really happening—and so quickly!
Photo: Frank Weber
In 1997-98, C/SPA began to develop an extensive fiveyear plan. We called together groups that we considered to be “stake holders”—those with vested interests in the welfare of the arts in Sarasota County—and we asked them what they thought music, visual art, theater, and dance education should look like in the schools, now and in the future. These groups included community arts representatives, teachers of the various art forms, parents, and students. Each group was invited to dream freely—to imagine the very best. All were encouraged to think of ways in which the schools and community could collaborate to create a unique, ideal arts education program for Sarasota students.
The old styles of art, music, theater, and dance education were declared to be inadequate, although everyone agreed that the best aspects of these traditions should be preserved. Teachers often referred to guidelines in National Standards for Arts Education and opportunity-to-learn standards (from Opportunity-to-Learn Standards for Music Instruction: Grades PreK-12, MENC, 1994) in expressing their ideas for the “dream.” Members
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of the community produced ideas that ranged much more widely and were far less conventional—suggestions for “artist-shadowing” (having students spend a day “shadowing” a professional artist, such as a symphony conductor, director of a theatrical company, or painter), school-to-work projects (having art students work alongside curators, restorers, and archivists in the art museum, for example) and unique collaborations between community and school groups (such as workshops run by professional theaters for drama teachers and students). It was exciting and exhilarating to imagine the possibilities!
Some arts teachers were concerned that these ideas were too big, embraced too much, or would be impossible to implement. Community arts leaders were committed, however, to dreaming big, and school district leaders were paying attention to what the community wanted. I joined a core of dedicated teachers who volunteered time for C/SPA committees and meetings. We worked to provide expertise in the areas we knew best: curriculum, scheduling, equipment, and student needs.
With C/SPA now in its third year, we are focusing on several issues that are important to arts teachers. We are working to « increase the number of certified arts teachers in order to boost the quantity « and quality of arts education continue to monitor arts education at each school through records showing the numbers of teachers, amount of time devoted to arts classes, and « courses offered create more opportunities for in-service training to meet the needs of arts « teachers increase the opportunities for schools to collaborate with community arts organizations.
In fact, a number of collaborative projects between community arts organizations and the schools have come into existence already. Professional theaters are providing workshops for drama teachers and students in acting and set design. Our opera company provides teacher in-service workshops. Our symphony sends small ensembles to perform in schools, provides an annual children’s concert for fourth and fifth graders, and runs an excellent youth orchestra program.
C/SPA will also be focusing on creating and refining an arts curriculum. We have now designed most of the curricular outcomes for music and art, and we are currently working on outcomes for dance and theatre. We will be developing a teaching strategy, assessment, and connection to another subject for each outcome.
Recently, C/SPA has been investing considerable time and energy in efforts to condense its extensive five-year plan and transform it into a realistic strategic agenda for presentation to the school board.
During 1999, we will continue to pursue several long-term projects. A survey of arts equipment in the schools will determine needs and possible grant sources to meet these needs. A subcommittee of C/SPA will focus on early childhood music. A nationally recognized early childhood music specialist will spend eight days in Sarasota County over a sixmonth period, working with elementary music teachers, preschool teachers, preschool advocacy organizations, and community preschool teachers. C/SPA will oversee the creation of a preschool music program. A subcommittee will identify possible sources of funding and write proposals seeking grants.
It is difficult to believe that so much has been accomplished in just three years. Some people have said that if Sarasota County schools had not eliminated art and music teachers, thereby sinking to the depths, they might not have risen to where they are now. There is perhaps some truth to this idea. It is harder to fight a slow decline in arts education, as we in Sarasota County schools tried to do from 1988-95, than it is to recover from a sudden fall, such as we suffered in 1995.
I believe that two things energized the turnaround in Sarasota County: « The chance to create a new arts education program that would be better than we had.
This possibility appealed to members of the community and administrators who were not entirely enthusiastic about some of the things that they had « seen in arts education in our schools. The collaboration between the community and the school district. This unique cooperation has enabled the school district to see how the arts are perceived and valued by the community and has generated new ideas for, interest in, and understanding of school arts programs.
I now believe that arts educators must call upon arts advocates in their own communities to help support their school arts programs. They should make their appeal broad and inclusive, perhaps embracing parent activists and members of the business community. People other than arts educators value arts education. We must collaborate with these individuals to marshal sufficient strength to provide the arts education that our students deserve.
Cindy Lippert is the fine arts coordinator and former elementary and middle school music teacher in the Sarasota County School District in Sarasota, Florida.
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