LAUSD is moving forward!

 This is just a quicky, but I’ll write more about all of this soon.

I am so excited by what is happening in the Los Angeles United School District.  At a time when there are plenty of news stories to get our ire up, the LAUSD is taking steps to ensure that their students leave school more prepared for college than students in years past.  They are doing so by brining to the forefront a curriculum that, for years, has been seen as unnecessary at best. 

            On October 9^th, 2012, LAUSD school board member Nury Martinez presented, and the board passed unanimously, a resolution to raise the arts to an essential “core” subject.  This resolution not only creates a space for the arts to stand on equal footing with all other curricular areas, but also restores $60 million in budget cuts over the next five years and calls for the development of a plan to integrate the arts across the curriculum.  This is particularly well timed, as the state is readying to implement the Common Core and now the arts will be forever linked with the idea of a complete curriculum.  Even more appropriately timed is the passing of Proposition 30 by the state of California, which calls for a sales tax hike which will allow schools across the state to breathe a little easier, reinstate furlough days and restore the school calendar to 180 days.  This also gives space for the planning of the integrated curriculum in Los Angeles. 

            It is impossible to write quickly the impact that the passing of this resolution could have on the nation’s view of arts education.  Yet, it will only have that impact if the effects are tracked and documented and people are given something to which they can pay attention.  I can only hope that at some point this resolution and its lasting effects will get more space in Education Week than two column inches at the bottom of page 4.