Arts for LA Launches Advocacy Campaign for LAUSD Arts Education
Los Angeles, CA: Arts for LA announced today the launch
of its advocacy campaign enlisting a broad coalition of stakeholder groups to
voice support for arts education in LAUSD, the second largest school district
in the nation. The campaign was developed in response to California's
continuing fiscal crisis and LAUSD's subsequent proposal to eliminate 50% of
Elementary Arts Teachers, or 173 of 345 teachers, for the 2010-2011 school
year. The purpose of the campaign is to win board support to maintain the
integrity of LAUSD's Arts Education program by retaining its elementary arts
teachers.
Powered by over 70 arts organizations, Arts for LA (www.artsforla.org) is the regional advocacy organization working to foster a healthy environment in which arts and culture in our region may thrive and be accessible to all in Los Angeles.
Using its new online letter writing capability, Arts for LA has created an Action Center at www.artsforla.org/groups/lausd to inform and inspire students, parents, business owners and the creative communities throughout the region to participate in this unprecedented advocacy effort. Arts for LA will mobilize hundreds of stakeholders to send letters to their School Board representatives, and is encouraging local organizations to pass board resolutions in support of LAUSD arts education. In addition, a forum for LAUSD students to share the impact of arts education on their lives has been established via YouTube, Flickr and Facebook.
Background Information:
In 1999, the Los Angeles Unified School District took an historic leadership role in restoring standards-based arts education by adopting a ten-year plan and hiring key implementation staff. LAUSD invested millions of dollars in this initiative. The investment focused on three areas: Classroom Instruction, Teacher Development and Community Partnerships. LAUSD has spent ten years recruiting, training, and supporting these teachers. As California witnessed after Proposition 13, once educational programs are lost, they can take decades to rebuild.
The current budget to fund elementary arts education is already at a baseline level, streamlined to provide arts instruction to students in all schools. Eliminating arts education for more than 150,000 elementary, middle and high school students only provides a cost savings of 3% to the budget. This impact on student lives does not justify the proposed cost saving strategy.
Known as the Creative Capitol of the United States, one in five jobs in Los Angeles is directly related to the creative economy. Arts education is a key component of a complete education for every student and for the future prosperity of our regional economy. Stakeholders have a great opportunity to voice support for this nationally recognized program of LAUSD and fight for it to continue to impact the lives of students across the socioeconomic spectrum.
For more information on the campaign, please contact Danielle Brazell at dbrazell@artsforla.org or 213.225.7580.
Arts for LA Media Center:
http://www.artsforla.org/arts_ed/media
Photos with credits for media use, media inquiries & resources.
Advocacy Action Center:
http://www.artsforla.org/groups/lausd
Letter-writing campaign, additional information, stakeholder community.
Arts Education Facts:
http://www.artsforla.org/whyartsed
Statistics on the benefits of arts as K-12 core curriculum.
Arts for LA's Social Media Sites:
To download this release, click here. 