Chicago Reporter (https://www.chicagoreporter.com/tag/arts/)
The city normally removes campaign signs from public property, but otherwise they become eye sores that residents have to clean up themselves.
The founder of Third World Press continues his lifelong mission of building sustainable black institutions.
The last time CPS finances imploded, arts education took a devastating blow. Will three decades’ worth of organizing and policy change protect the arts now?
Two years ago, when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled an arts plan for schools, it was unclear how much arts instruction was already being offered to students – either by certified teachers or through partnerships with community organizations.
Now, schools and arts leaders know the answer: There are more teachers than many would have guessed, but they are inequitably distributed across the city and the total is far below the goals.
As part of its arts education plan, CPS has rolled out the district’s first-ever effort to rate schools on the quality of their arts programs and linked the ratings to arts funding of $500 to 750 per school.
Our children on the South Side, who need a school such as ChiArts, will now most likely be displaced, just like the students from closed schools. CPS did not care to take this idea into consideration before they decided to move the school further to the Northwest Side instead of choosing the other, more centrally located option that had been in the works for years—a location at Malcolm X College.
We will accomplish little if we only align our energies with social remediation. After all, if you don’t think arts educators should be held accountable for overall student achievement, why should they be working in a school?
The film projects are about issues that are personal to them, and producing the films gives students a chance to talk about the issues as they write a screenplay, shoot the film, edit it and present it to the public.
“We have forests and deserts,” says Mario Rossero, CPS’ director of arts education. “How do we learn from the forests and how do we direct more resources toward the deserts?”
Like dozens of other CPS schools, Key Elementary on the West Side has no arts program—no teacher and no partnership with the Joffrey Ballet or the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or any of the other arts institutions that grace Chicago.
Though CPS pays for a half-time arts teacher at smaller schools of up to 750 students, Key Principal Margo Giannoulis-King says she couldn’t find a candidate who wanted a half-time job. Instead, she opted to hire a full-time librarian (which the district would pay for).