Prop 28 addresses arts and music in schools
Editor’s Note: Seven propositions will be on the November ballot. The July 14 edition of the Idyllwild Town Crier had an article describing all seven propositions. Between now and the election on Nov. 8, the Town Crier will report on each proposition individually. In this edition is the first of these articles, Proposition 28, Arts and Music in Schools.
Proposition 28 would increase funding for California public schools, but it would be limited to arts and music education in kindergarten through 12th grade. Prop 28 would allocate more funding just for arts and music courses to local education agencies. The amount of extra money would be 1% of the previous year’s funding via Prop 98 funding.
Initiators of the proposition argue that the quality of art and music education has dropped precipitously in elementary, middle and high school grades. One reason has been the steady emphasis on statewide achievement testing. Consequently, subjects that have minimal chance of improving school scores have had funding cut or even eliminated. Prop 28 is an effort to reverse this trend.
The 1% for arts education will be in addition to the basic funding Prop 98 authorized. It will be allocated based on school enrollment. Of a school’s funding, 70% will be based on its enrollment as a percentage of total state student enrollment. The other 30% will be allocated based on the school’s percentage of economically disadvantaged students of the state total. This percentage can be increased if the school system has preschool students.
School systems must certify that the funding went toward art and music programs and that no more than 1% was used for administrative costs.
If Prop 28 were approved, the funding to local education districts (including public charter schools) would begin in fiscal year 2023-2024. The Legislative Analyst’s Office has estimated the added funding would be about $1 billion annually for public school art and music education, and this would be in addition to the state’s constitutionally required amount of funding for public schools.
“Art and Music in the schools,” pursuant to the Proposition language, would include “… dance, media arts, music, theater,and visual arts, including folk art, painting, sculpture, photography, and craft arts, creative expression including graphic arts and design, computer coding, animation, music composition and ensembles, and script writing, costume design, film, and video.”
For these activities and subjects, the proposition also requires school districts and charter schools with more than 500 students to use at least 80% of the added funding to hire staff. The remaining funding could be used for training, supplies and materials, and for arts educational partnership programs.
School districts will have three years to spend the funds they receive each year. Any unspent funding would be returned to the state to be reallocated in the following year.
As of July 29, “Californians for Arts and Music Education in Public Schools,” the campaign finance committee supporting Prop 28 had spent $8.3 million, of which nearly $6 million was used for circulating the petitions to obtain signatures to qualify for the ballot. The committee then had a cash balance of $78,650.
Monica Rosenthal, an actress, Steve Ballmer and Affiliated Entities had given $1 million each, and Fender Musical Instruments donated $800,000. In addition to six donations between $100,00 and $250,000, loans of several hundred thousand dollars were made. As of the end of July, no donations or loans came from the 92549 ZIP code area.
Since then, the California Teachers Association political action committee has donated $1 million and with three other donations totaling $62,150.
Writing in supporting of the proposal, Austin Beutner, former superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District, and Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education and, also, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, said, “Study after study has demonstrated the importance of arts and music education in the development of children and their success in school and in life. As education leaders, we have seen firsthand the value of an arts education.
“Arts and music education improves cognitive development, reasoning and language acquisition; it corresponds with higher student achievement in reading and math, and it leads to increased school attendance …” Beutner and Duncan argued.
“Despite these clear and demonstrated benefits for children, California is behind when it comes to providing schools with funding for arts and music education … Only 1 in 5 public schools in California has a dedicated teacher for traditional arts programs like music, dance, theater and art, or newer forms of creative expression like computer graphics, animation, coding, costume design and filmmaking.”
No organized opposition against Prop 28 has formed. The Los Angeles Times was an early opponent of the Prop 28 idea. The Times described it as ballot-box budgeting. “This is a bad idea. Right now, state coffers are flush. But when revenue becomes tight in the future, the governor and Legislature need as much flexibility in the budget as possible to make sure that critical needs are funded … The teachers and leaders of individual school districts know what their students most need and should be free to make those decisions,” the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board wrote in November 2021, in anticipation of Prop 28 qualifying for the November 2022 ballot.
