NEA Receives Funding Increase In House Subcommittee
I want to share with you some good news for the arts amidst the gloom in the news. Last week the National Endowment For The Arts (NEA) received an initial $15 million increase in the House subcommittee for fiscal year 2010. This increase brings the agency’s current budget up from $155 million to $170 million! Woo hoo!
Now before I get too excited I also want to address this to naysayers who feel we’d be better off spending our nations public capital or stimulus money elsewhere.
While core disciplines in math, history, language arts, and science form the antiquated thinking of what education ought to be, the arts and humanities need to be contemplated as more than an appended accessory in academia. It should, for instance, no longer be branded as some afterschool (and therefore an afterthought) rescue activity, along with sports, to safeguard troubled youth.
Rather like any of its sister disciplines, its expressive field provides variety and added context with which the learner can relate; exercising multidimensional viewpoints facilitate the approach towards any given solution. Especially with the youth studies show music is the most expedient subject to which they reach out.
When President Obama stated that education cannot face setbacks and must be sustained to provide future generations any glimmer of hope, I’m sure the arts were included under its umbrella and not as some plugin.
Watch below for a couple examples what the East Wing has done to foster the arts! These featured clips are videos from the first ever White House Poetry Jam! How do they inspire you?
“An Evening Of Music, Poetry & The Spoken Word” The White House (Intro Speech)
“An Evening Of Poetry, Music & The Spoken Word” The White House (Opening Performance)
If ever there was a time in global civilization where economies are contracting, nations are turning towards protectionism, and the hunt for the world’s resources are increasingly vicious, now is the time to open or to invoke from within our creative dexterity to reverse the myopia and inertia; to explore beyond mere aesthetic qualities and expand ethical discourse; to stir archaic or dysfunctional systems into higher states of organization.
Though we may not have yet evolved our educational infrastructure to measure artistic aptitude as well as, let’s say, reading, writing, or arithmetic, we should not allow that to undermine the value of the arts as conduit and transducer of emotional communication. Zero’s and one’s require emotion to even begin the debate that you are human.
Abstract as it may for now seem access to artistic expression enables our connection with the diaspora of cultures sometimes separated by distinctions made from race, geography, and well…mis-education.
Congressman and Chairman Norm Dicks noted that “the endowments are vital for preserving and encouraging America’s arts and cultural heritage.” And as a reminder America is a heritage comprised of global, international ancestries and backgrounds.
Notable witnesses that provided testimonials to call for the significant increase in NEA funding include Artistic Director Of Jazz At Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis, legendary singer Linda Rondstadt, renowned singer-songwriter Josh Groban, Reinvestment Fund CEO Jeremy Nowak, and Americans For The Arts President and CEO Robert Lynch.
Send letters to your member of Congress and let them know the arts are important and a vital discipline that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest. You can also stand up for the arts by joining the Americans For The Arts Action Fund. Memberships range from free to annually pledged subscription contributions.
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