It’s true, Barack Obama has an education platform that includes arts education, and during the primaries he spoke any number of times about the importance of arts education. That being said, if you want to find his platform for arts education, be prepared to click through any number of times until you get to his fact sheet on arts.

John McCain has an education platform that doesn’t mention arts education specifically, but lists a number of priorities buoyed by vouchers, charter schools, and NCLB.

There was a point about six months ago when people were emailing around Obama’s fact sheet, excited by what it said about arts education and the arts in general. Of course, things change once the general election begins.

Yesterday on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” in response to a question on where he would break with the Democratic Party, Barack Obama said that “”I think that, on education, we do have to improve accountability. And
I’ve not only supported charter schools, which the teachers’ unions
have opposed, but I’ve also said that we should look at
pay-for-performance,” he said. “That’s not something that’s popular in
my party.”

Once upon a time, the lines that separated the two parties was pretty clear and pretty firm. That has changed. For a long time you could count on the Republicans to advocate choice, privatization, merit pay, accountability, and be harshly critical of the teachers’ unions. The Democrats have always depended on the unions, and historically have been opposed to things like privatization of public schools.

Today, well, increasingly you have Democrats sounding these long held Republican themes.

You may ask, exactly what difference does this make for arts education? Well one thing is for sure, the efforts building for influencing policies on the Federal, state, or local level that are arts education positive become meaningless if all the schools are privatized. If you were at or read about the platform developed at the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver, well kiss that goodbye, or at least the arts education portion. For those who found interest in the recent RAND/Wallace Foundation report on coordinating systems to improve arts education, well, if you go to a system of choice, charter, voucher, etc., the thrust of that report becomes moot.

The big question out there is really one of whether or not public schools should exist anymore? So, you may ask how vouchers and charter schools could possibly bring down the public school system? I mean, after all, why shouldn’t you be able to pull your child out of his or her school, if you don’t like the education provided, have the money in hand in the form of a voucher, and give that money to the private school that admits your child. What’s the problem with that? Wouldn’t this pressure force the public schools to improve? Competition is the answer to the problems with the schools: “you give me competition, I’ll show you progress,” sounded Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a recent announcement on charter schools in New York City.

On the matter on vouchers, does anyone really think the private schools will accept all students? It’s not a reasonable assumption, based on simple math or the ways in which private schools operate. What you will end up with will be the cream of the crop being accepted by private schools, and then public schools left with only special needs students, troubled students, or simply those who’s parents did not have the capacity or inclination to find a private school. Once that happens, public support for public schools will disappear into thin air.

As for competition, I am not sure what precisely will establish the “market forces” for real competition among schools, other than standardized test scores in reading and math. At the very least, it doesn’t bode well for arts education.