President Bush’s No Child Left Behind act has been praised for making public schools more accountable for the quality of education they provide, but there’s no question that the act’s renewed focus on the basic building blocks of education has put the squeeze on subjects that aren’t reading or math-related. Even though NCLB designates the arts as one of five core learning areas, “schools are so concerned with making the grade in math and reading that they’ll pull resources away from the arts, physical education and foreign languages to make it happen.”
Tag: 03.13.07
Tech Companies Want Internet Over TV Airwaves
“The coalition, which includes Microsoft and Google, wants regulators to allow idle TV channels, known as white space, to be used to beam the Internet into homes and offices. But the Federal Communications Commission first must be convinced that such traffic would not bleed outside its designated channels and interfere with existing broadcasts.”
Theatre Staff Sacked As Part Of Funding Rescue
Kent’s Margate Theatre Royal’s “funders have supplied the struggling theatre with a rescue package, including increased subsidy of £210,000 in the first year. However, as part of the deal, the current team, including long-standing general manager Michael Wheatley-Ward, will be axed and the venue’s programming will be changed to include more participatory and education work, as well as music, dance and film.”
Aesthetic Choices (And The Choice Is Beauty)
“Beauty is a product. It takes time, it takes work, it takes sacrifice, it takes marketing and trend-making and finally it takes money. No woman or guy wakes up beautiful in the morning. The beautiful is a result of smart life choices, smart shopping choices, smart diet choices, smart makeup choices, smart outfit and accessories choices and even smart chair-stylist choices.”
The Case To Restore NEA Funding
In the 1990s the NEA’s budget was slashed by 40 percent by a Republican Congress. “Part of the rationale for the federal cuts in the 1990s was that private funding could fill the void. But the share of philanthropy being directed to arts organizations also has declined since 1992, said Robert Lynch, president and chief executive officer of Americans for the Arts. That drop represents an $8.4 billion loss to the arts in private sector giving.”
Optimism For The Movie Biz
“Bolstering the nearly giddy mood on the convention floor are recent Motion Picture Assn. of America findings that worldwide box-office sales jumped 11% in 2006, to $25.8 billion, and that 63% of moviegoers say they prefer viewing films in theaters rather than in their living rooms.”
Female Stars Of The Violin
“With the explosion of a new group of top-level female exponents of the instrument, the days of the word ‘violinist’ automatically being associated with a man are fast coming to an end. It’s still more men that jump to mind as major stars in the age range 40-60, but in 10 or 15 years, that’s not going to be true.”
The Secret Behind A 30-Year Literary Feud
“Why did Mario Vargas Llosa punch Gabriel Garcia Marquez, his rival for the title of Latin America’s foremost 20th-century novelist, in a Mexican cinema in 1976, thus beginning the longest feud in contemporary letters? Ah, now there’s a question. And it is one for which – unlike the posers in the rest of that literary litany – there may at last be a definitive answer.”
Charge: Arts Ed Down Because Of “No Child” Law
“According to the Minnesota Music Educators Association, there’s been a 6.5 percent decrease in the number of public school music teachers in the state since 2000. Many elementary schools now offer arts programs for just nine weeks out of the year. Nationally, arts education time in the classroom has dropped 22 percent since No Child Left Behind was enacted.”
No Caravaggio For Caravaggio – Town Distraught
The northern Italian town of Caravaggio celebrated its native son each year. But it turns out that “an art historian in Milan has discovered that Michelangelo Merisi — the artist’s original name — was not born in Caravaggio. He was born in Milan, on September 29, 1571, and baptised at the church of Santa Maria della Passarella. The revelation has shocked the town’s 15,000 inhabitants.”