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Guest Blog, Jane Remer: The Metropolitan Opera to the Arts Ed Rescue?????
Jane Remer’s Cliff Notes: Problem: The Arts Are Dwindling in Our Schools. Especially opera. Solution: The Metropolitan Opera to the Rescue??? “Here I go again I hear those trumpets blow again All aglow again Taking a chance on love” —Ethel Waters singing in the great movie, Cabin in the Sky I am a passionate opera/music…
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The Nation’s Report Card for Reading and Math: Will Dismal Results Bring More of the Same (higher stakes testing)?
As Igor Stravinsky once said, good composers borrow; great composers steal. So, instead of writing my own setting of the stage, let me steal from my fine colleague and friend at Common Core, Lynne Munson: I challenge anyone to think of a nation that works as hard as we do to find silver linings in…
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People You Should Know: Laurie Lock–Music and Arts Education Advocate
A tribute is in order, I strongly believe, because I know few people who have been such fierce, honest, and strategic advocates for music and arts education as is Laurie Lock. You see, Laurie, after 11 years of directing programs and policy at VH1 Save The Music Foundation, is stepping down to care for her…
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GIA Conference D1: The Times They Are A-Changin’, The Times They Are A-Changed
So, how does one take a dozen pages of hastily typed notes covering approximately seven hours of a conference day, including plenary, panel presentations, and forum-type sessions? Hell if I know. Let’s call it a blog in process. I have to give everyone credit for how things kicked off. Right from the start, Janet Brown…
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Guest Blog, Bruce Taylor: What is the Future Role for Arts In Public Education?
What is the Future Role for the Arts In Public Education? by Bruce Taylor The increasingly contentious debate about school reform juxtaposes two contrasting realities about the arts: one, that their place in our schools has been steadily and seriously eroded; the other, that the skills inherent in artistic practice are rapidly becoming essential to…
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Federal K-12 Arts Ed Funding on the Chopping Block Again
In case you missed it, on September 29th, in Ed Week’s Curriculum Matters blog was this article: STEM Ed. Among Cuts Sought in Draft House Budget Plan. The House is at it again, proposing the zeroing out of K-12 arts education at the USDOE, as well as a host of other vital programs, including the…
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Guest Blog, Nick Rabkin: The Three Horsemen of Arts Education
It makes me happy to welcome back my good pal Nick Rabkin to Dewey21c. –RK The Three Horsemen of Arts Education by Nick Rabkin I’ve done research on teaching artists for the last three years—from Boston to San Diego—at NORC at the University of Chicago. (My report is available for download at…
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A Shot To The Foot: How The Arts Ed Field Can Be Its Own Worst Enemy
I have been meaning to write about this these two horribly disappointing Opininator posts in The New York Times: Beyond Baby Mozart, Students Who Rock, by David Bornstein Rock is Not The Enemy, by David Bornstein For about as long as I have been in this field, which is longer than I would now like…
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Guest Blog, Jane Remer: A Paradox, A Paradox, A Most Ingenious Paradox –The Common Core of State Standards and The Untamable Core of the American Class System
Jane Remer’s CliffNotes: September 29, 2011 “A Paradox, A Paradox, a Most Ingenious Paradox” (Pirates of Penzance/Gilbert and Sullivan), The Common Core of (Voluntary) State Standards and the Untamable Core of the American Class System. The 21st Century is young, but it’s clearly becoming a paradox. The now developing Common Core meticulously charts the paths and…