Survey Says...

I missed my weekly Thursday entry last week to devote the night before to prepping the CA Arts Advocates Action Alert calling for support of Assembly Bill 700, The Creative Industries Economic Revitalization Act. Today, we'll find out if it moves from the Appropriations Committee to the full Assembly, remains in the "Suspense File" until next January, or is voted down. If you are in California and haven't emailed your legislators in support of the bill it's easy to do so here.

Because the budget news in Sacramento is so bad (we have over a $20 billion deficit if you hadn't heard) the pressure on local governments across the state is building fast with balanced budgets due by July 1. The arts and arts education are likely to suffer acutely. That is certainly the case at the San Diego Unified School District with its $180 million gap to close.

Fellow AJ blogger Richard Kessler highlighted SDUSD's inovative approach to gathering parent and community input on educational/budget priorities through a survey in this March posting. Despite the fact that 63% of survey respondents said the Visual and Performing Arts Department (VAPA) should never be considered as a solution to balancing the budget (coming in a close second to athletics' 66%) the Superintendent and three of the five members of the Board of Education are on track to eliminate it instead of opening up labor contracts to renegotiation; the parents' preferred method of balancing the budget according to the survey. And the local paper has missed the threat to arts education in its most recent coverage.

This is a stark reminder that surveys and online voting might be effective for game shows and reality tv contests but they are not an advocacy substitute.

So, a week after calling all hands on deck to communicate with legislators in Sacramento, we're doing it again in San Diego. The Board of Education will likely vote on Tuesday, June 2nd at a Special Meeting. Of course, the meeting agenda isn't clear - its taken conversations with arts supporters inside the district to know what is coming.

This is the nightmare side of the "government rewrite" I focused on in my first blog posting. In San Diego's case, the elimination of the VAPA department means the elimination of 29 elementary music and art teachers travelling to multiple schools each week. We are not talking about beaurocratic shuffling, we're talking about a reduction in teaching.

There is unquestionably more advocacy work to be done than ever before and more people needed to make it successful. Get involved and get others involved. And if you know anyone in San Diego, send them word of this impending vote and direct them to this website to find out how they can contact our local Board of Education members.

If you have similar situations developing in your community, post a comment below with details and resources. You never know who will be reading and can help spread the word.