CONTENTS:
  >> The Cement of All Subjects
  >> Second-Class Classes
  >> Paving a New Economic Age
  >> The Community as a Classroom
  >> Cut Down to Sighs
  >> Change is Strange

Additional Reporting by Jenna Kulasiewicz and Ashley Dziuk
Header design by Brian Moen

   Ask a group of individuals to define an art class and you’ll get answers all across the board. It’s not because it’s a hard question, but because the arts encompass so much. If you ask veteran elementary art teacher Pat Binder, the answer becomes simple.

    “Art is the center and cement of all subjects,” she says, as if it’s a mantra she’s repeated for years. “Art uses all subjects, and most people don’t know or see that.”
    
Mrs. Binder has taught art in the district for 34 years, at Northwoods, Lakeshore, Meadowview, and Sherman elementary schools, and was a driving force in developing the art curriculum. And though she retired in spring, Mrs. Binder was recognized by the Wisconsin Art Education Association last fall as the state’s most outstanding art teacher.
    
I sat in and observed one of Pat’s classes last spring, and it didn’t take long for me to realize exactly what she has been saying for years. Art is the cement of all subjects.

    When I walked into the class, about 18 second graders were gathered on a small carpet, with Mrs. Binder at the center providing cultural and historical perspective on the day’s project: clay storyteller sculptures.

    On the chalkboard were photos of sculptures made famous by Helen Cordero, and the New Mexico locations where historical sculptures were uncovered and later handed over to museums. Already I’m seeing her subject integration at work. There’s history, geography, sociology, anthropology, and (of course) art.

    Soon the kids were hard at work on their clay turtles with people atop them. Some concentrated intensely on their task, working alone; some worked on their projects and constantly looked to others at their table, mimicking their projects for approval within a group; some were determined to deviate from the rules by adding unique details, changing the landscape, or making the turtle the storyteller instead of the person; others constantly raised their hands for help; a few were clearly not digging the project.

    Before long Mrs. Binder unveils a surprise instruction for the class: each of them will need to invent and write a story about the characters they create. Almost instantly the kids’ minds and mouths were in a fury, and they probably hadn’t even noticed that their art class had now taken on an English component.

    Last year the state of Colorado released a report about its public schools that found a tight correlation between art classes and overall academic success. “Students who do well in reading, writing, and science attend schools that offer a rich and varied arts program – regardless of the students’ racial composition or socioeconomic status,” the report stated. Local art teachers weren’t surprised by the findings.

    “I do think including some form of art within lessons heightens grades,” said Pam Henning, a teacher at Eau Claire Montessori Charter School. “I think it makes it more meaningful to the students and they take pride in their work. Also, the physicality of the cutting, gluing, painting, getting up and moving around (drama), or even listening to music has shown a better understanding of concepts and comprehension.”

Altoona’s Pedersen Elementary School’s former Artist of the Month, Madysen, is crazy about all forms of art. When I asked what her favorite form of art was, she said, “That’s the hardest question on earth.” While she finally decided on coloring and drawing, Mady informed me that she really liked it when they used art in science and math, as well. The then-third grader confessed through fine wisps of hair that when she doesn’t understand something in math, her teacher, Deanna Schleusner, “Will do a graph to explain and I will get it.”

    The Colorado study found likewise: “The arts help keep students in school. Schools that scored high on the arts index had lower dropout rates. For many students, the arts are the crucial connection that motivates them to learn and gives them the confidence to tackle other subjects.”

    Sam Davey Elementary teacher Danielle Johnson says there is a certain “richness of the understanding when students make cross-curricular connections. Often times they will see art and connect it to other places they have been or subjects they are learning about, these ‘ah ha’ moments happen all the time in art class!”

    Though Mrs. Binder insists that most people don’t know about these “ah ha” moments, some local parents are noticing their kids’ changes at home.

    “You need to have that creative side for a more balanced academic side,” Nicci Lee said of her 7-year-old daughter at Lakeshore. “It’s a huge thing for them. You have to be able to express yourself in different ways and that’s an outlet for them to do that. It has definitely benefited her just as much as any of her math classes.”

    The Colorado report is one of many that have been released, both before and since, that allege the benefits of arts education to other areas, including gains in reading, language, math, thinking, social skills, motivation, and positive school environment. Research has even shown that students in arts classes get better SAT scores.

    When the Wisconsin Arts Board was analyzing its role in the state, Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton said they identified education as the No. 1 priority “because everything else comes from it.”

    George Tzougros, executive director of the board, said what has been interesting since then “is that it has resonated across disciplines, and the people I heard from most immediately were scientists saying, ‘Yeah, absolutely we’re all about creativity. We want to know how we can get involved.’ What that says to us goes against what the community normally thinks: with science and math they get everything; or with sports they get everything. But when you pull back and think of creativity, what you find is that science and math are actually allies in the conversation. If everyone wants to get together and talk about this and compete in a global economy, we need to get our kids thinking differently. Because no matter which route they choose or which way their brains are wired, they need to be able to think creatively.”

    Professional artist and art teacher (both locally and nationally) Alan Servoss summed the situation up beautifully.

    “Despite reams of research stretching over years and countries that schools with vibrant arts programs also have students with higher academic achievement overall, very little has changed in the underlying attitude that arts are a ‘frill.’”

    As Pixar director and visionary Andrew Stanton wound down his acceptance speech at this year’s Academy Awards for WALL-E he said, “and I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank my high school drama teacher for 28 years ago casting me as Barnaby in Hello, Dolly! Creative seeds are sown in the oddest of places.”

    While most people just went on enjoying the epic, four-hour red carpet event, those involved in education took that comment as a telling sign of the current education system. What makes a school “the oddest of places” for creativity? Shouldn’t that be the exact place where creativity breeds?

    “The whole system was invented ... to meet the needs of Industrialism,” says Sir Ken Robinson, internationally renowned education expert and author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and The Arts in Schools: Principles, Practice, and Provision.

    “Something struck me when I moved from Stratford (England) to Los Angeles,” Robinson said at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference in 2006. “Every education system in the world has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on Earth.”

    It is because of this outdated system that Robinson contends we are squandering the creativity of our youths. And the solution to that problem, according to Robinson, is an increased presence of art, music, drama, dance, photography, film, and creative writing. “Right now, creativity in education is as important as literacy, and should be treated with the same status,” he said.

    What makes the concept of creativity so vital for children is that they have innate confidence. By the time we get to be adults, children have lost that capacity, and are frightened of being wrong, Robinson says. “We do this in our companies. We stigmatize mistakes. And we’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst things you can do. The result is we’re educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said ‘All children are born artists; the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.’ ”

    A perfect example is the infamous “paperclip study,” in which individuals of varied ages were asked to come up with as many ways to use a paperclip imaginable. Adults averaged about 10, while elementary schoolers came up with around 50.

    “As children grow, their brains are customized, hard-wired, around the uses they make or do not make of them,” Robinson wrote in Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, citing the ease with which children in a multilingual home can absorb both languages.

    The fact is our current education system is heavily based on testing and scores, which doesn’t take into account things like divergent thinking, creativity, or the act of creating something.

    Since DeLong music teacher Cathy Reitz started 28 years ago, she has noticed that grading and scores have become more important. “Yet I often don’t see the real fruits of my class until years later when I see a former student still involved in music, going to concerts, teaching their children songs they learned at school, being a consumer of music, etc. How do I grade that?”

    It is this insistence on testing that School District Superintendent Ron Heilmann credits as a main cause of the subject hierarchy. “We have an assessment culture that increasingly demands that we turn out high school graduates who can demonstrate core competencies in traditional subject areas,” he said.

    In general, teachers don’t like the testing-based model. And if you want to get them really riled up in a conversation, mention No Child Left Behind.

    “Whoever thought of that title clearly gets irony,” Ken Robinson wrote in a column for The Huffington Post. “The fact is this legislation is actually leaving millions of children behind. I can see that’s not a very attractive name for an education bill – ‘Millions of Children Left Behind’ – but it’s closer to the truth.”

    No Child Left Behind shrinks local curriculums and the freedom teachers used to have with methodology and subject matter, Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton explained on the WPR program Conversations with Kathleen Dunn. Plus it increases the frequency of standardized testing, which doesn’t require creativity whatsoever.

Under the line of thinking that testable subjects are paramount, arts subjects then become second class. And, unbelievably, the classes and their teachers quickly become stigmatized.

    They’re known as the “fun,” “frill” classes, perhaps thought of as breaking up the monotony of the “core,” “meaty” classes so they have a short break to relax themselves before going back to the real stuff. Their instructors are labeled as “specialists,” but they’re thought of as anything but.

    Johanna Peterson said the arts classes have been referred to as “non-academic.” “Despite all the research and experts that say otherwise, it’s still looked at as a frill and not a necessity.”

    This mindset plays out further in school scheduling, as administrators schedule “core” subjects first, and the arts go around that, several teachers said. So while core teachers have, say, an hour of prep time or team time (where they collaborate with other core teachers on ideas and strategies), the arts teachers have 45 minutes or must liaison detention, the pool, study halls, the hallways, etc.

    “The solution to this is difficult, if not impossible, given the way schools are currently structured,” said Alan Servoss, who has taught art around the country and world for 30 years. “We’re talking about a major societal shift in perception, here.”

    Memorial High School art teacher Dan Ingersoll put it quite simply. For decades we’ve only been concerned with asking our children, “Are you intelligent?” When, really, we should be asking, “How are you intelligent?”

    Intelligence according to game shows and most academia is essentially the capacity for remembering and recalling factual information such as names, dates, events, etc. MENSA, IQ tests, and SATs, meanwhile, test logical analyses. But is that intelligence, really?

    A high school student could create a Grammy-winning album or write a best-selling novel, but their school would still grade them on how well they can write an analytical paper about it. “If human intelligence were limited to the abilities measured in IQ tests, most of human activity would stop or would never have started,” Ken Robinson wrote in Out of Our Minds.

    Of even more concern – both the availability of and attendance in arts classes in Wisconsin are dropping. Music and visual art classes are nearly universally available in middle and high schools, but the offerings are low and participation drops as students get older.

    Perhaps the decline in participation is due to the stigmas attached to the arts, but Tim Leibham thinks there’s more at play. For instance, ninth graders have twice as many required classes as seniors, and there’s more pressure today to take Advanced Placement courses to prepare for college. “So when do you expose yourself to these things?” he asked.

    That’s not to mention the pressures of testing, grades, and class choice is far greater than generations such as Leibham’s, when it wasn’t hard to get into a college for $300 a semester and you had the freedom to take just about anything for classes.

    “And some don’t think they should take art because they’re not good at making ‘artsy’ things,” he added. “But it’s not about that. Just because they don’t think they need it, doesn’t mean it can’t benefit them.”

    Leibham, as well as many art teachers, said the state requirements for high school need to be reprioritized and incorporate things like arts, personal finance, and computers to better reflect the times.

    Even more disappointing is that even within the arts offerings, there exists yet another subject hierarchy. Music is No. 1, closely followed by visual art, then much further down the chain fall drama/theater and dance.

    The Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education’s report showed that dance and theater are almost never offered in state middle schools. In high school, theater has a much better presence, but involves less than 5 percent of students. About 19 percent of districts have dance, mostly in “urban” districts, but a mere 1 percent of students participate.

    Theater arts teacher Amber Dernbach considers her students fortunate that Memorial still offers two theater courses each semester. “Many of my public school teaching counterparts in other cities have only one theater course, or none,” she said.

Lucas Risinger, North’s theater teacher, says this stems from the focus on core classes, which is why his school recently lost a journalism class. “Also, in this geographical area at least, there are very few teachers interested enough in taking on (theater). For example, Chippewa used to have a theater class until they lost their veteran instructor and her replacements were not that interested in theater.”

    That’s something that Toni Poll-Sorenson, a dance professor at UW-Eau Claire these past 41 years, fears may happen to her. “I am a dancer/choreographer and, at my age, it is hard to let go of that,” she said. “I’m afraid that if I died, retired, or left UWEC the dance program would go with me.”

    Like theater arts, dance is also often offered as an after-school extra curricular, but Toni said dance team and cheerleading is hardly a substitute for dance as an art form. Unlike theater, however, the state mandates that children have three weeks of dance exposure. But, once again, a unit in gym class from a non-specialist is hardly a substitute for the art form.

    Doug Markofski has taught phy ed in the district for 19 years, and said the typical protocol is circle and aerobic dances for young kids, while older ones tackle folk, line, and square dancing.

    Dance is a sadly underused art form, said Michael Doran, co-director of the Lynn Dance Company and a teacher for about 40 years. “My own study and practice of this form has greatly enriched my life and helped me immeasurably,” he said. “And as the Russian actor Stanislavski, observed, ‘I studied the art of acting to become a better actor; in the process I became, as well, a better man.’ ”  

    Poll-Sorenson and Risinger agreed that the failing presence of theater and dance has less to do with money and more to do with appreciation. “We teach what we value,” Poll-Sorenson said. “The Eau Claire community has a ways to go, in my mind,” Risinger added.

    The Eau Claire community, thankfully, has quite a few dance and theater options. But those opportunities aren’t equal access for all students, as they involve costs, transportation, and time. The same thing goes for extra curriculars, which have the added inconvenience of forcing students to choose between dozens of options that all have similar time slots.

    “It feels like we’re competing for smaller pieces of pie,” North’s Janice Roberts said, adding that there has been a drop in art-related extra curriculars over the years, perhaps because of increasing conflict with others.

    The woes of theater and dance are only part of the story, arts board director George Tzougros said. “We also need to think about newer disciplines of film and video, or media arts, and where that fits in schools, plus one that the arts typically don’t take credit for, because it’s lodged in the English department, and that’s creative writing.”

    So the whole system is riddled with problems, and loads of expert opinion and research has been put forth. Now the problem is selling people on this, Johanna Peterson said. “It all sounds great, but how do we change how everyone thinks? It comes down to what people value.”

    I have to admit that I was shocked to hear how much time and effort Tim Leibham, who was then the principal of Memorial, has put into this exact dilemma. “We need to all gather in a room and have a discussion about classes and why they’re here in terms of value,” he told me in spring. “Some programs are more popular than others, but that doesn’t mean they’re more valuable. One of our least visible is the model train club – we have one of the only ones in the state – whereas boys’ basketball is huge, yet they’re equal in what they offer participants.”

    Leibham added that, nationally, of the kids that go to college, half drop out within two years. He blames this on the fact that they haven’t learned perseverance, creative thinking, or time management – things that arts classes help impart.
   
     “The arts and the development of children’s creative capacities are as essential and as much of core curriculum as science of math. We’ve over time come to think of it as enrichment, when actually it’s core curriculum,” Barb Lawton says.

    Think of the last time you asked a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Even think back to when adults asked that same question to you as a child.

    “I want to be a firefighter ... or a policeman.”

    “A hero! Oh, you’ll do us proud young Johnny.”

    “I want to be a veterinarian.”

    “A doctor! Now that’s an ambitious and respectable position indeed, my dear Jane.”

    “I want to be an artist.”

    “An artist, huh. Like making paintings or music or
something? Hmmm .... Well that’s fine for now, but we kind of always thought of you as a lawyer ... or a teacher ... or a policeman ... or a doctor.”

    Because of the current structure of our school system – which was designed to meet the needs of Industrialism – for decades we’ve been trained to value only the subjects that directly relate to concrete jobs. “So you were probably steered benignly away from things at school when you were a kid, things you liked, on the grounds you would never get a job doing that,” education expert Sir Ken Robinson said in his 2006 TED Conference talk. “Don’t do music; you’re not going to be a musician. Don’t do art; you won’t be an artist. Benign advice. Now, profoundly mistaken.”

    “The consequence,” Robinson continues, “is that many highly talented, creative, brilliant people think they’re not (brilliant) because the thing they were good at in school wasn’t valued or was actually stigmatized. We can’t afford to go on that way.”

    In the book Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, Robinson contends that the economy is going through a revolution driven by technology in the same scale as the industrial revolution. Only in this economic age, we aren’t looking only for the math- and science-centric education, but one also centered on the arts and creativity. And Robinson is far from alone in this assessment.

    Daniel Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future, outlines four major economic ages in our history: the Agricultural Age (farmers), Industrial Age (factory workers), Information Age (knowledge hounds), and the age we’re in right now, the Conceptual Age (creatives). It is in this fourth stage where Pink focuses on how modern businesses can be successful, and fostering creativity is paramount.

    Likewise Professor Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class, and The Flight of the Creative Class, has received acclaim for his theory that metropolitan markets with high concentrations of tech workers, artists, musicians, and LGBQT persons correlate with a higher level of economic development and long-term prosperity.

    Georgia politician Jack Kingston bashed President Obama’s plan to inject money into National Endowment for the Arts this past spring, saying, “We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs – as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project – is disingenuous.”

    Prof. Florida responded in a letter to The Toronto Globe & Mail:

    “The familiar kind of stimulus – the ‘shovel-ready’ kind that built highways and roads, and worked so well during the Great Depression – worked precisely because it didn’t stimulate that period’s aging agriculture economy. Instead, it accelerated the transition to a new economy based on housing, autos, and all the products of the industrial assembly line, from refrigerators and washing machines to air conditioners and television sets.”

    For those who still insist that the creative economy is just hot air, look to the numbers.

. The creative economy already includes about 30 percent of Canada’s workforce and almost a third of America’s.

. In 1988, Great Britain traced 6 billion pounds of its economy as coming directly from the arts. By 1998, it was 60 billion.

. In America, the Intellectual Property Association estimated $360 billion as coming from the arts. That’s more than the auto, agriculture, or aerospace industries. “It’s growing twice the rate of economy and generating jobs three times faster,” Robinson said.

Want something closer to home? As of 2006, Americans for the Arts counted more than 500,000 arts-related businesses in the nation that employ 2.7 million people, and Wisconsin is home to more than 8,000 of the businesses and 43,000 of the full-time employees. In a discussion at Eau Claire’s State Theatre in spring, Arts Wisconsin Executive Director Anne Katz said the non-profit arts sector generates $418 million in economic activity in Wisconsin. That’s not ticket sales, mind you, that’s just ancillary spending like babysitters, gas, and parking.

    “Even though this is an anxious economic time and we don’t know if we’ve hit bottom yet, the arts are looking like they’ll play a big role in helping save us,” Katz said, adding that NEA recently awarded about $320,000 to preserve Wisconsin arts jobs.

    When it comes to the economy and jobs, the arts are the real deal. It isn’t like your parents, their parents, and their parents once thought. But since that mindset has existed that long, it makes the job of the Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education (developed by Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton and former state superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster) that much harder.

    In her fight to gain the state’s economic momentum, Lawton continually cites Charles Landry’s mantra that, “Creativity is one of the last remaining legal ways to gain an unfair advantage over the competition.” Unfortunately, as we continue to cling to the same educational hierarchy and to factory-based economic model, the other countries that are our competition quickly overtake us.

    A study that the consulting firm McKinsey released recently, titled The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools, illustrates that fact all too well. A 2006 assessment to measure problem-solving among 15-year-olds in 30 countries, the U.S. ranked 25th and 24th in math and science, right alongside Portugal and Slovak Republic.

    One of the most interesting things Lawton noticed from the task force’s report was the slippage between what entrepreneurs wanted and what school administrators were trying to produce. “A manufacturer in Sheboygan, said ‘Listen, what I need are students, not who can solve problems, I need ones who can identify the problems that are before them or about to come, and who have the confidence to take risks and try things,’ ” Lawton said.

    George Tzougros, the executive director of Wisconsin Arts Board, recalled a study done by The Conference Board for the Arts, where they asked business leaders and school administrators about the most important skill needed for a school graduate. “The business leaders said problem identification. The administrators said problem solving. That doesn’t sound like it’s a big deal, but it’s a huge deal. And the arts are a part of the problem identification, as well as solving,” Tzougros said.

    Though these two examples generally make school representatives look foolish in terms of preparing youths for the “real world,” I uncovered a very different outlook from local teachers like DeLong’s Kathy Bareis and Northstar’s Johanna Peterson. These two educators have developed engaging programs that are as “real world” as it gets, because they recognized the educational injustice at play.

    Johanna’s program is the Visioneer Challenge. This program invites professional designers to present students with a real-world problem. This past year, groups at Northstar, DeLong, and both high schools designed a new city museum that highlights something vital to the area. A few of them decided to design a Hank Aaron Museum for Carson Park. At the end of the project, the students met with the school district architect, city’s associate planner, and a model maker at Chippewa Valley Museum to discuss the feasibility of their projects. And, believe it or not, a group in town has been discussing a Hank Aaron Museum for a few years now, so the students’ projects that were meant to simulate a real-world occupation may actually come to life.

Kathy Bareis brought the knowledge of being a stained glass artist to the classroom for the entrepreneurial venture Prime Products, in which students develop a product and their own company through which to sell their work. Since this started in 2000, Prime Products has become 100 percent sustainable, meaning it has made enough money to fund the next year, plus an extra $4,000 in profit, which they give to the Children’s Museum and Humane Association.

    In order for the products they develop to sell at conferences, Oakwood Mall, and Fanny Hill, Bareis says they have to be unique. The cuteness of a child’s project will only get so far in the heartstring department; it needs to be pretty darn good to break into the purse string department.

    As Kathy took me through her cabinets of student work, a young lady rushed into the room to announce a breakthrough. “Look at this whistle,” she said emphatically, extending her hand to Kathy. “It’s made of wood, and it works!” It seems this young lady is from her Prime Products class and is trying to make ceramic whistles. The end of the semester was nearing, and her project failed at least four times already, but Kathy said nothing was curbing her confidence in the idea. She is a shining of example of the nearly 150 students Kathy hopes to get in that class this year.

    Perhaps the most amazing thing about Kathy and Johanna’s programs is that they are made possible simply because they spend their own time and money developing them. Johanna said she spent around $800 last year for Visioneer, since the budget has been so tight. Even more amazing and promising is that these types of real-world applications are happening in our arts classes all the time.

    Kathy and Johanna’s classes have helped make posters for the annual Eau Claire Jazz Festival. Jan Bowe’s North High School photography students have worked with Hope Gospel Mission on stool and rug displays, and Syverson and Clairemont rest homes on glamour shoots. Dan Ingersoll’s classes at Memorial have seen several professional artists come in to present real-world problems (one class even made a logo for a small company), and said several former students have contacted him to say they’re currently making a living in art.

    Alan Servoss has taught art at schools in Platteville, Australia, and Chetek, plus workshops around the country. Now he’s a professional, and quite successful, full-time artist. “An art career can be a very viable thing,” he says, “but it all depends on what direction one pursues and it certainly depends on one’s definition of success. ... I never thought about being an artist. It’s just what I liked to do and I was better at it than other things. I tell people, when the subject comes up, that I’m still trying to be an artist.”

    Economic development is not going to happen until we change our schools, Lawton said on the Wisconsin Public Radio program Conversations with Kathleen Dunn. “It helps us breed bolder, more visionary thinking. Even if you go to MIT, their engineers for 40 years have been required to take classes in the arts and humanities because they’ll be better engineers.”

Despite all the experts and research saying the arts are not only a viable career pursuit, but a necessary one, we still have stories like Gillian Lynn. At his famous TED talk, Robinson explained that when she was in primary school, Gillian (the world renowned choreographer of Cats and Phantom of the Opera) was constantly fidgety, and teachers suspected a learning disorder. A specialist met with the mother, leaving Gillian in his office. Before they left, the doctor turned on the radio. As they watched Gillian from the other room, they witnessed her tapping her feet and eventually prancing around the entire room. The doctor turned to the mother, “She isn’t sick; she’s a dancer.” Robinson adds, “Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.”

    “I’ve lost track of the number of brilliant people I’ve met, in all fields, who didn’t do well at school,” Robinson wrote in The Huffington Post. “Some did, of course, but others only really succeeded, and found their real talents in the process, once they’d recovered from their education. This is largely because the current systems of public education were never designed to develop everyone’s talents. They were intended to promote certain types of ability in the interests of the industrial economies they served.”

    If the arts are indeed a frill, as our culture is led to believe, then name another subject that adds more to the community – from the thousands of people drawn to festivals, thousands of dollars spent on entertainment, and the incalculable amount of culture that each activity yields.

    For a few years now, Cyndee Kaiser and Cheryl Starr have acted as in-residence artists for schools such as Longfellow and Roosevelt. They’ve created a clay city and world map outside of Longfellow, offered cartooning classes and animal art for youngsters, helped kids write stories and plays to read at senior homes, and hope to work with the Boys & Girls Club to create art banners for Phoenix Park.

    These programs not only come from the kindness of the community members’ hearts, but also from Bernice “Bea” Wagner, who made a donation to the Eau Claire Regional Arts Center that would allow for after-school arts activities at schools with “at-risk and financially underserved kids,” Kaiser said.

    The best part is these types of kindnesses happen all the time for school arts programs. Cathy Reitz, the DeLong music teacher, routinely invites musicians from the university and community for Musicpalooza. This past fall 450 Lakeshore students got to see The Ahn Trio at The State Theatre, the cost of which was covered by an anonymous donor.

    Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton says the involvement of non-profit organizations and community members in school art programs is tremendous in Wisconsin. She particularly cited rural areas, where there’s sometimes fewer options, as being incredible examples where local artists come in and supplement students’ education.

    George Tzougros, executive director of Wisconsin Arts Board, was sure to mention this trend as a double-edged sword, however. Especially in poor economic times, when cuts to classes loom, some communities see that kind of involvement as a substitute for normally scheduled arts education. When that’s the case, the school board cuts arts offerings. “Arts organizations are wondering when they should go into schools to help. If it’s too soon, then administrators see them as replacements and they cut a teacher. If it’s too late there’s not going to be any structure, or kids; it’s already lost,” he said.

    The flip side is that arts classes continue to reach out to the community, as well. After asking almost every arts teacher in Eau Claire what their classes take part in, I compiled quite a list – from displaying art at The State Theatre, LE Phillips Library, city council chambers, on city buses, and for hospitals to playing music at parades, sporting events, car shows, and senior homes – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

    Despite the fact that thousands of people attend these events, the teachers that often organize them are told not to be so ambitious.

    “We love to go ‘beyond the four walls’ and get out to perform in local, regional, and national projects – dances, benefit concerts, festivals, you name it,” said Memorial music teacher Bruce Hering, who organized the massively successful sendoff concert for the jazz students that saw them playing with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon (they came back from New York with a first place prize at Essentially Ellington for the first time in the school’s history). “I have always been told to ‘hold back,’ ‘don’t do so much.’ … I’ve had to fight to be able to do these kinds of things ... and that has been that way for a good long time, my whole career, basically. It’s not just a reflection of current economic issues.”

    These are people like Kathy Bareis (DeLong), who uses her own time to offer art workshops for middle and high school students in the summer, art classes for United Cerebral Palsy, plus art classes for the community that have a waiting list. And, believe it or not, they’d all love to do more.

But this is near-impossible, North High theater teacher Lucas Risinger said, because the current funding does not provide transportation costs for such endeavors. The most recent budget cuts in spring cut all field trips to save $72,000.

    An unfortunate scenario, given the Task Force for Creativity in Education’s findings that student involvement in these activities leads to more social and civic development/appreciation. It also improves the overall school climate, according to first-hand experiences by Champions of Change, North Carolina A+ Schools, and Arts @ Large.

    With the help of Arts @ Large co-director Teri Sullivan this past year, DeLong created a team of staff members to create an inclusive environment that integrates the arts. The Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities contacted Arts @ Large to do this and suggested using the hip-hop group Figureheads as a muse. Until then, Arts @ Large had worked exclusively with Milwaukee schools, but agreed to give a few Eau Claire schools a try.

    DeLong used about $75 per student in funding for a beautification project with the school’s gardens, a Shakespearean festival, and workshops by Figureheads. The Great River Shakespeare Festival brought a Winona group to DeLong for a two-day workshop (in which Northstar and South also participated), where students related The Bard to their everyday lives and took part in seven play adaptations.

    “When you see the environments we create and the students’ responses, it’s just phenomenal,” Sullivan said.

    In the four schools that they piloted in Eau Claire, three of them “showed less bullying and more inclusivity,” said Fil Clissa, of Wi-BPDD, adding that the fourth school dropped out.

    Fil said she was blown away by the work of Arts @ Large, and fondly recalls a showcase she attended where Figureheads asked everyone to come up front. “And without any promoting from others this one little boy went over to a little girl in a wheelchair and helped her up out of the wheelchair and stood behind her supporting her as they all sang,” she said. “We often have a hard time defining ‘What is inclusion,’ but at that moment there was not doubt in my mind that that act was indeed inclusion.”
The year-long Figureheads workshops (at DeLong, Lakeshore, Longfellow, Putnam Heights, Roosevelt, and Sherman) culminated in a State Theatre performance that involved students. Imagine that, students on the stage of the biggest arts venue in the city.

    When it comes to Arts @ Large, DeLong principals Michele Wiberg and Tim O’Reilly said they noticed the changes in all areas of the school and that the program was overwhelmingly worthwhile.

    Not being from here, my first exposure to Eau Claire’s arts in education came a few years ago at South Middle School’s Renaissance event. I was blown away. Every hallway and nearly every classroom was occupied by the various amalgamations of the arts, from the community as well as the school: a pianist at the entrance, jewelers upstairs, art games in classrooms, arts books in the library, and student bands in the gym. I had never seen, nor heard, of any school having anything remotely like this massive celebration of the arts.

    All of this was made possible by the incredible volunteer efforts of teachers and community members, just as I’ve been mentioning throughout. So imagine my disappointment when a lack of resources (time, money, volunteers) stopped this phenomenal event’s existence a few years ago. Until people stop and take notice of these life-altering arts programs in the community, thanks to our schools, this is a story that will sadly be repeated.

    Last spring Eau Claire had its own $6 million man, only ours was a budget shortfall played out by the school board and not a fictional cyborg played by Lee Majors. Both were high-octane drama, though.

    Parents were up in arms. Administrators and board members were blamed. Classes were discontinued. Teachers lost their jobs. It wasn’t pretty.

    While the school board made some aggressive cuts to make up for the shortfall (not unlike other districts in the state), we’re far from out of the woods. Due to insufficient state funding, local and regional experts say the schools’ saving grace may be in the form of a referendum (short-term solution) or a combination of political bravado and community outcry (long term) at the state and federal levels.

    “It takes visionary leadership,” says Wisconsin Arts Board Executive Director George Tzougros. “But it also takes active parents and local people. Unfortunately I think a lot of the time people are sitting down relaxed until someone stands up and says ‘We’re gonna cut this’ and everyone goes crazy and jumps forth. We can’t do that. It takes being involved at a regular basis.”

    Perhaps the most prominent stereotype about the arts, right up there with being “frill,” is that, in the event of budget cuts, they’re the first to go.

    Local parent Keo Glennon said that very thing, as her three children from Lakeshore Elementary showed their artwork at the district-wide show in spring. “Though the arts are innovative and progressive in every way, it seems we’re stepping backward instead of forward by cutting them.”

    At least part of the problem is that administrators and school board members, the people leading the districts, often don’t have an arts education themselves, Tzougros added. “In districts where administrators had some arts background, you’re not going to see them go first.”

    Locally the arts didn’t have much of a program to cut until the past decade or so, when the district built a program from almost nothing to one of the best curricula in the state. In the 80s, the school district relied solely on teacher John Beck to handle the visual arts education in 20 schools. He saw each class twice a year, DeLong’s Kathy Bareis recalled. When art teachers Sue Carey and Pat Binder started more than 20 years ago, there were two teachers covering 10 schools each, shoving supply carts from one school to the next.

    Slowly, but surely, the district added more teachers, and Bareis remembers how big a deal it was when the city council OK’d the addition of one teacher a year for three years. At that same meeting, the subject of the Carson Park scoreboard arose. “They were ready to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars when my father stood up and said to the council members, ‘Why don’t we put up a third this year, a third next year, and finish it up three years down the road?’ ” she said, of his sarcastic attempt to show them where their priorities are.

    Memorial art teacher Dan Ingersoll started right when the local “art boom” happened, and the number of teachers doubled in four years (from four to eight) and 50 minutes of art every other week became 50 minutes weekly. Dedicated art rooms were built, and new schools erected, he said. This was likewise a period of growth for music and phys ed, he added.

    “In Eau Claire, the visual arts gained a great deal of respect,” Binder said. The state gave Eau Claire an award for their curriculum at this time, which then needed a two-inch binder when only years before it was a mere three pages (one-sided). It was a respect that Eau Claire schools maintained, Ingersoll said, until the budget forced program and staff erosion.

    “It makes me sad that we are constantly trying to defend our curriculum and trying to justify its importance,” music teacher Liz Mosher said.

    Obviously it’s not hard to find teachers upset about the budget woes, but the students and parents at the district-wide art show were pretty vocal, too.

    “I know you need to have certain stepping stones, and I don’t see why this isn’t a stepping stone in their education as well,” said Nicci Lee, a parent of two local students. “(Cuts) happened in my high school just before I graduated, and it was a huge loss for some kids because that was their only social outlet. … It’s really sad when things like that get cut.  … They shouldn’t be considered luxuries.”

It is likewise worth pointing out that many local schools have reported high participation in their art classes. At Memorial, where arts are elective, former principal Tim Leibham said 25 to 30 percent of students take a visual arts class and more than 50 percent take an arts class of some kind (music, art, theater).

    Over the course of his education at Sherman, South, and Memorial, student Noah Williams said he noticed cuts most prevalently in increased class sizes and fewer teachers. In his final semester at Memorial last spring, he said his orchestra teacher balanced three schools in one day, and could tell it was taking a toll. “I wasn’t totally unscathed, but I feel pretty lucky that I’m almost through before the real cuts hit.”

    The real cuts that Noah referred to came into effect this school year, but meeting rooms and local media were abuzz in March and April as administrators and the school board decided what to trim. An April 6 meeting yielded about $2.2 million in cuts, including 35 classified support staff positions, five custodial staff at elementary schools, a maintenance position, and the staff development/assessment coordinator. The April 20 meeting saw another $1million-plus in cuts, including six high school teachers, 1.1 library/media specialists, 1.5 early learning jobs, two assistant football coaches, all district-funded field trips, two bus routes, two art teachers, all elementary art/music/phys ed coordinators, and elementary art went from an hour a week to 45 minutes.

    Board member Trish Cummins was the only one to vote against the cuts, and consistently lobbied for the arts during her time on the board. At her last meeting on April 20, she openly challenged the other board members to evaluate high school reform and further cuts in the coming years.

    It may come as a surprise, but local teachers overwhelmingly praised the district’s administrators during interviews. They recognized their difficult duties of making cuts, and when they do so teachers feel that they’re trying to be fair, and cut a little from everyone instead of specifically targeting one area.

    Memorial art teacher Dan Ingersoll referred to administrators as largely being “hamstrung” into what they’re able to do. Of course, ours hasn’t been the only school district making aggressive cuts in recent years. The very same evening as Eau Claire cut $2.2 million, Altoona’s school board cut seven staff positions. Green Bay had a more than $6 million budget gap when it infamously cut a band and orchestra program, Beaver Dam’s district needed community members to provide instruments for their students to play in band, and only a little while ago UWEC cut the music therapy program. California’s much-publicized budget woes have made all arts classes extracurricular.

    Since the district increased arts programs in the 90s, Sue Carey said their commitment has been fairly consistent and “they understand how important it is.” The constrictions instead come from the amount of time arts teachers have to prepare for class and work with students individually, especially since class sizes are getting bigger and teaching positions are shrinking forcing a fewer number of teachers to balance more classrooms.

    A few years ago, the average class size increased by two students, elementary art teacher Pat Binder recalls. “It doesn’t seem like much, but when you have 25 classes, that’s 50 more students,” she said. In spring, one elementary art teacher had 620 students.

    Former Memorial principal Tim Leibham said the class size problem is increasingly difficult when considering lab-type courses (like most of the arts), where a large class is difficult to manage because teachers have to respond to each student uniquely.

    In that scenario, “the gifted or advanced students get less time, which is unfair,” Binder said, citing the fact that they understand directions well, and create their projects with ease, while other students constantly ask questions. “We could do such a better job with more time and fewer kids,” she added.

    Because arts classes need fewer numbers, Leibham said it makes them more vulnerable to cuts, simply from attrition. Meaning, on paper, it looks as though fewer students are signing up for those classes.

    For the arts community, the most frustrating cut in spring was in elementary art, as the school board lowered teaching positions from 7.4 to 5.1 and class time from 60 minutes to 45. Perhaps none were more disappointed than Pat Binder, who over the course of 34 years was a vital component in building the visual art program from the ground up.

“I don’t think they realize the ramifications of their vote,” Pat said. “They pretty much trashed our program.”

    Pat was planning to retire after this school year, but these cuts meant a far more taxing year ahead, with five teachers handling 4,000 students, so she decided to retire early. Her retirement also meant she saved one of her colleagues’ jobs. “I didn’t know I was going to be done until three days after the board meeting, when we reviewed all the things we wouldn’t be able to do next year.”

    The state merely “recommends” that elementary children get at least 90 minutes of art a week, so the board is not in compliance with the DPI's recommendation. Binder and Carey said their hands are tied, and the standards of the program may very well suffer. Taking into account attendance, clean up, and giving directions, both teachers could barely fathom how their students would manage to have work time. Even more frustrating is the fact that the school board members that made the decision never met with someone from the department nor have they visited a class, they said. “We’re the experts, but they’re not sitting down with us,” Pat said. “We just went back 25 years.”

    It’s inevitable when talking about cutting arts in schools that, eventually, someone will bring up the sports programs. And though the school board approved increasing athletic fees and cutting two assistant football coaches, it opted out of such discussed money savers as cutting five high school sports, junior varsity hockey, intramurals, and combining the high school teams.

    “I’m not a big fan of cutting anything,” said Carrie Burnett, whose child attends Lakeshore. “I grew up here in Eau Claire, so I realize that sports are important, but I think education is far more important. I don’t care what type of academic it is; it’s way more important than a sports program.”

    This is a debate that has been had, often in heated discussions, for years. It’s also one that Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton says is unfortunate. “In a time of scant resources we set up an unfortunate sense of competition,” she said on WPR’s Conversations with Kathleen Dunn. “I don’t think the arts and sports need to be weighed against each other. We have a lot of difficult decisions that will be made by school districts across the state this year, and we don’t know what they’ll be able to do in terms of budgets. ... It’s not about adding curriculum or extra curriculars; it’s about rethinking what we do.”

    Part of that “rethinking” movement likewise came in spring, as President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act granted Chippewa Valley schools about $6.5 million in stimulus funds (Eau Claire, Altoona, Menomonie, and Chippewa Falls). Gov. Jim Doyle and then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Elizabeth Burmaster dispersed $366 million to Wisconsin schools to supplement budgets in one-time expenses. It would not cover ongoing budgetary items like salaries, and some one-time expenses like construction are likewise out of the question.

    Despite the good news and some in the community thinking it could save programs and staff, the stimulus funds would do very little to curb cuts.

    During spring’s budget crisis, it seemed everyone had a jackpot solution. Combining schools. Combining athletic teams. Giant bake sale. Realistically, however, teachers and administrators know their best chance on a local level is a referendum. The problem there, as we all know from the one that failed a few years back, is that referendums are a really difficult sell.

    If you think pushing a referendum this soon after one failed is ridiculous, how do you think Altoona feels? Its last referendum in 2006 passed by a mere 11 votes, and asked to exceed the revenue cap by $975,000 for four years. The district superintendent said the topic has come up of introducing another one after the 2010-11 year, but they know it would be a long shot.

    Teachers and administrators are buzzing about introducing a referendum this school year, but nothing has come of it … yet.

    “We have to go to referendum or we simply have to cut programs,” said Ron Martin, president of the Eau Claire Association of Educators. “We also need to advocate for a different mechanism for funding schools in the state of Wisconsin. The budget caps and revenue controls are suffocating school districts! A referendum is a quick fix to a bigger problem. In an economic crisis that our nation is suffering it is rare to get a referendum passed that asks the voters to raise their taxes. The economic situation and the mess from our past board and administration equals a failed referendum in Eau Claire.”

The chances aren’t as bad if Eau Claire looks to Elk Mound, who approved a $9.3 million referendum in April to specifically fund building upgrades. And, based solely on the sample of parents I talked with at the district-wide art show, the community is ready to get the word out and vote “yes.” (Granted, these are parents of students in the district, so obviously not a representative sample, but nonetheless promising.)

    “In the current environment here I don’t think any referendum for the schools is going to go through, no matter what,” said parent Mike Glennon. “People just aren’t going to vote for it. They’re going to say (the schools) need to spend what money they have more wisely.”

    If referendums continue to fail and state funding continues to wane, Eau Claire’s school district is threatened to go the same route as some other unfortunate districts in the state.

    “What we are seeing, and what I think is so dangerous, is school districts merging or some disappearing for another to pick up the kids,” said Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton, adding that a poll taken of all the state districts a few years ago found that nearly a third were worried about going bankrupt. “These are default decisions, and I think the Wisconsin that has had such a long commitment to public education, kindergarten through universities, cannot afford to make these decisions by default. We need to assess what we expect of public education, what it should provide for our children, and how do we make sure we are providing that to everyone in the state.”

    Teachers, administrators, and politicians know that the cause of these problems and the solution to them resides in the hands of the governor and state legislature. Superintendent Heilmann referred to the state revenue caps as “strangling public education,” but is hopeful that when the economy bottoms out our legislators will rethink the revenue limit formula.

    “How do we communicate the need for change in Madison? That’s the question we are dealing with here in Eau Claire, not only with our teacher’s union but administration as well,” Ron Martin said. “We are partnering with the administration and the school board in letting Madison know we need help and we need it now, or I mean yesterday.”

    When Gov. Doyle took office several years ago, he was the first democrat in the gubernatorial seat in 16 years, so many thought he intended to straighten education out. His solution: forming the Task Force for Excellence in Education. Among their 14 primary challenges: school funding. So are the talks happening? Probably. Is something going to happen anytime soon? Not likely.

    Changing funding systems often means raising taxes, and therefore is viewed as political poison. So for any politician to tackle it takes either a lot of bravado or a lot of polls saying they are unpopular and won’t be re-elected.

    The solution, Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton suggested, is making yourself heard. Call, e-mail, or meet in person the people in power until you can no longer be ignored. “We’re compromising the quality of what we’re doing for our children, but I’m not hearing a huge cry for re-evaluating our whole system for financing schools,” she said.

    Though concerned, most arts teachers have a great deal of hope and optimism for what the future holds. Specifically some were rejuvenated to hear President Obama’s promise to boost creativity in classrooms.

    “We’re all so anxious right now, thinking we’ve got to cut this and cut that, but this, too, shall pass. And it’s clear that the arts have never been needed more than now,” Arts Wisconsin Director Anne Katz told a group at The State Theatre in spring. “It will mean change, and change is hard, but it’s also inevitable.”

    Pat Binder and Alan Servoss agreed that if the government’s plan involves mandates and no funding, they will fail. One of the mandates arts teachers are hoping to see, either nationally or on a state level, is some arts requirement in high school. Though they aren’t exactly holding their breath until that happens, teachers hope colleges will follow the University of Minnesota’s lead by requiring arts education of its admissions.

    “It’s hard here in Eau Claire to lift that budget veil and be optimistic. … But in the long run we have to be optimistic that things will change, and people are more in tune with the fact that the survival of our culture depends on the arts,” said Sue Carey, adding that she thinks the budget pendulum hasn’t swung all the way back yet. “Unfortunately I think there’s going to be some back-thinking before forward thinking.”

    To her and most of the other elementary art teachers, that backwards thinking has already began.

    Getting a teacher to answer the question, “What is wrong with our education system?” isn’t hard. The hard part might be getting them to stop answering that question. Proposing a concrete, do-able solution is a far more difficult task. And if there’s one thing I’ll take away from reporting on this feature, one thing that will stick out in my mind, it’s the mind-boggling agreement that experts gave on how to make more creative individuals.

    “My dream school isn’t one with only arts classes; it’s one that integrates the arts into everything, because that’s how it is in the world,” art teacher Sue Carey said.

    Carey’s assessment is one that is shared among arts educators almost unanimously. Arts teachers Kathy Bareis, Lucas Risinger, and Toni Poll-Sorenson likewise have dream schools where subjects are taught through visual art, theater, and dance.

    While these ideal situations sound simple enough, many were quick to have reservations and find difficulties in the integration model. Superintendent Ron Heilmann, who agreed that integrating would better serve students, brought up the fact that many “core subject” teachers are ill-prepared to teach through artistic means or just aren’t comfortable doing it. And even if art teachers were on hand for assistance, as many would love to be, that would likely require several arts instructors in each building. And we know that ain’t happening anytime soon. Maybe core teachers can be taught in college on how to instruct like this. That ain’t happening anytime soon, either.

    Photography teacher Jan Bowe and Executive Director of Administration Tim Leibham revisited the difficulty with testing and standards when it comes to the arts. “For some it’s hard to give up because it’s a tried-and-true method,” Leibham said. “The thinking is, ‘It worked for me, and I got through college.’ But to me, it’s still a flawed system.”

    Taking into consideration how things currently work, the most prominent concern with integration was that it would mean something has to get cut.

    The closest thing we have to an arts-integrated school is our Charter branch at Chippewa Valley Montessori School. When I first arrived in the classrooms of Pam Henning and Kurt Lothe (both first through third grade teachers), students were working individually on projects while the instructors taught lessons in rotating small groups.

    Some of them were learning geometry, and were asked to make pictures using at least one triangle and one square. A table of three boys were doing this. One traced several of the shapes, side by side, then colored them in. Another traced the shapes overlapped, like a spirograph. Another used freehand to make a triangle and square, and then proceeded to give them arms, legs, faces, and a story. “They’re doing karate,” he told me.

    Two girls, off on their own, were also doing the project. One traced them side by side. The other used a ruler to make the shapes, and then made them into a horse, superhero, and bad guy. She hummed and occasionally sang, “Superhero!” while drawing. I asked her if anyone rode the horse. “No,” she quickly stated. I assumed she had their story pretty well established.

    For their science lesson students drew frogs and wrote about their bone structure. For math they’re using beads or tiles. For geography they’re doing cut outs of the states and gluing them to construction paper.

    Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton referred to Charter schools as “real laboratories for innovation in education.” The concept is self-motivated art learning, Kurt said, as instructors teach a weekly art project, and if students really like it, they integrate it with core subjects. One student chose to do a collage of geometry shapes, while another wrote a poem, for instance. They never force art upon the students, Kurt added. “I can’t think of a better way than teaching it and letting them have the freedom to do it again if they so choose.”

    There exists, however, an “undercurrent of the arts” in everything they do, from the inviting and colorful environment to the constantly used easel in class.

    The structure of schools fights against compulsive creativity, Kurt contended. “The philosophy here is that they’ll come to it when they’re ready. ... It’s not perfect, but it plays into that side of human nature a bit better.”
    If students shy away from certain activities and exclusively do projects through one medium (art, writing, etc.), Kurt and Pam encourage them to experiment with new activities and practices. They did say, however, that their students that often choose art are also high academic performers, more focused and determined, and far more creative.

It’s not to say that Charter or Montessori schools have it all figured out, and the others are in shambles. The concept of these schools is still comparatively new, and they’re still figuring out the best ways to teach. For instance, grade teachers often aren’t certified to teach the arts, and an outside specialist either comes in or the grade teachers have to double as art teachers.

    Like the other school teachers, Kurt and Pam said their biggest struggles are with the budget and time, but unlike others they voiced concern with their lack of experience. If they had the budget for it, both teachers agreed they’d love to have in-house art teachers to help their rooms.

    While integrating the arts into all subjects may seem like a long way off for public schools, the Wisconsin Task Force on Arts and Creativity in Education hopes to jump start the state’s education system with that very concept.

    The task force was co-developed by Lt. Gov. Barb Lawton and former Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster, who were separately devising ways to boost economic development and revamp the education system, when Lawton said, “Our schools have to develop our children’s creative capacities. It’s the only way to survive and thrive.”

    The task force’s biggest accomplishment came in January, when an overwhelmingly positive response followed the release of its Action Plan. The plan calls for infusing creativity into classwork, often through arts, plus increased learning and outreach opportunities in the community. It also calls for difficult shifts in societal thought and school environment.

    The hope is for a school’s conceptual environment to be more welcoming, where students aren’t afraid to take risks or make mistakes, while the physical learning environment strives for work flexibility (alone, small groups, large groups) and a high visibility of the products created. Kathy Bareis said the visibility of art as defining who they are is a big strength of DeLong. Its hallways have 167 pieces of art created by students.

    One of the gut reactions to the task force’s plan is that of resistance, due to the costs involved in these changes. But Lawton assured that they already have things in motion at the Department of Public Instruction, many of which don’t require large quantities of new funding.

    Specifically the task force is working with seven pilot communities and their schools to put their plan to action. (They’re in Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Solon Springs, and Spring Green.)

    As for how long it will take before local schools transform, Lawton responded, “Who knows? Clearly we know that much of it has become outdated, but it comes back to political questions in deciding how to change things. We need communities to coalesce around a shared agenda for public education. Everybody has a place in this.”

    One thing that is certain is that the task force’s plan is getting noticed. The day before the plan was released the Dana Foundation awarded the task force $50,000 for its innovative efforts. Even more impressive was Lawton’s invitation to speak at the National Forum for the Arts Education Partnership, where the task force’s plan was highlighted as a national model of school reform.

    A large percentage of educators are jaded, perhaps understandably after years of dealing with the push and pull of school boards, politicians, and budgets. In the case of school reform, they know better than anyone it’s not an easy process.

    “Reform is easy, because you’re tinkering with something that already exists, but reformation requires envisioning something new, and that’s hard,” said George Tzougros, executive director of Wisconsin Arts Board.

    In the book Out of Our Minds, Ken Robinson contends that some politicians believe too much creativity in education accounted for the fall in standards in the first place. Tzougros thought the same way.

    “What’s amazing is that with all the visual culture around us and all the music around at every turn, we still have people that don’t value either one. And maybe it’s because they’re so awash of it that they don’t know how important it is in their lives,” he said.

    With a school system that has essentially run the same way for nearly a century, it’s hard for people to imagine it a different way, Lawton said. “They are focused on everything but a system that clearly isn’t working anymore.”

    Yet, Lawton added, those in education remain hopeful that Obama and the new secretary of education are the shot in the arm that they need to head down the path of transformation. “If we’re going to change, we may have to do it all at the same time. And I think we have the eye of a perfect storm coming right at us.”

THE END