Last month, the superintendent of the Minneapolis Public Schools recommended that North High School be phased out. I was on tour all month and only learned of this through an email from KBEM, the jazz radio station that operates out of North High, but the proposal made headlines locally, and rightfully so. Though the message stated that the radio station "continue[s] to have the support of the school board and the Minneapolis Public Schools," the thought of North High closing makes me sick regardless.
I'm a biased observer working with limited information, but there's plenty about this that stinks. A Minnesota Public Radio story from last month states that,
There were more than 1,100 students attending North High School just six years ago. This year, there are just 265, and only about 40 of those are freshman who started this fall.
and later that,
North is the only high school in the city without an attendance zone, which means it's no one's default school. Even families living across the street from North are assigned to Henry or Edison. District leaders acknowledge that, but add the enrollment problem has been around longer than those attendance zones.
To my knowledge, the attendance zones go back to at least 1996, when my parents and I decided to buck them, instead gambling on another Northside high school with low enrollment and a checkered history, Patrick Henry. (North and Henry are arch rivals, and played some wildly entertaining basketball games while I was a student. The prospect of there never being another one of those games is unfortunate by itself.) I don't know what North's attendance zone was in 1996, or if there was one, but I know for a fact that such a system was in place. Even without knowing what North's precise enrollment was in 1996, that last comment rings hollow to my ears.
It was Henry that had enrollment problems in the early 1990's, but it also had a small built-in clientele of affluent, mostly white students from the very outer edges of northwest Minneapolis bordering Robbinsdale and Brooklyn Center, as well as the city's newest outpost for the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which was what drew me there, and what ultimately proved the school to be worth the substantial commute. They've recently started an IB program at North in hopes of attracting more students. It worked for Henry; according to this data, enrollment there topped out at 1,564 in 2003-04, which is about twice what it was when I got there seven years earlier. It seems they're not willing to give North that kind of time, though.
In the snippets of last night's school board meeting that I skimmed through today, I heard multiple references to "changing the culture" of North High in order to boost achievement. I never attended the school, and I haven't been in the building for years, so I can't speak to what kind of culture has grown up there, but the phrase bothers me anyway. It reeks of focus group naivete. I loved the culture on the Northside, though I could never truly call it my own, and I miss it in many ways. If North is a failing school, it's because the rest of us failed them. Closing the current school and reconstituting it with freshly minted focus group platitudes plastered on the walls isn't going to address the bigger issues at play here, but it's better than not having a high school on the near Northside at all, which would be criminal.
Showing posts with label government funding of the arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government funding of the arts. Show all posts
10 November 2010
04 March 2009
Government Funding of The Arts (iii)
The final installment in this trifecta of turn-offs deals with the idea of return on investment. In casually following the blogospheric reaction to the threat of cutting NEA funding from the recently passed stimulus bill, I found this study cited more than once by well-meaning commentators, specifically the statistic that every $1 of arts funding returns $7 in revenue to the government.
Artists and audiences alike have long since grown weary of artworks being judged sheerly by the amount of money they fetch. Indeed, in many circles, to express such an opinion would be to mark oneself as a spectacularly naive and shallow observer. Yet when arts funding is in jeopardy, it seems that few are shy about espousing a nearly identical position. Is judging the work by how much people spend on dinner before or after the show really that different from judging the work by what people are willing to pay for it directly? The former may, in fact, be worse, considering that it is even further removed from the audience's opinion of the work itself. What of those who spring for an expensive pre-show dinner only to be thoroughly let down by the evening's events? More importantly, what of art endeavors which don't live up to the $7 standard? Are they inherently less worthy of government support?
It's a long-standing cliche for jazz musicians performing at clubs to complain that in the eyes of the management, "You're just there to sell drinks." I don't think it matters whether those drinks are sold before, during or after the show; the implication is the same. Stomaching such attitudes may be part of life when dealing with booking agents and venue owners, but it shouldn't have to be part of defending the validity of one's life's work in the politcal arena.
I can already hear the reaction to what I've just written: that I'm overreacting, perhaps overthinking also, that arts advocates mean well, that no one's insulting anyone here, and that as long as the NEA funding got put back in the bill, it doesn't matter how it got there. I would be as relieved as anyone if this proves to be an overreaction, but it's hard to ignore the red flags. The first is a familiar one and need not be dwelled on for too long as I've discussed it many times before: in short, none of us became artists because we saw it as a boon to the economy, a way to keep kids off drugs, or any of the myriad extrinsic features so often attributed to The Arts in defense of government funding; more likely, it was just too damn much fun. This is, at the very least, an honesty issue.
But more important than simply disavowing the reliance on extrinsic features in the name of some abstract conception of honesty is to ask whether it is truly in our best practical interests to judge artists and artworks by such features in the first place. In this case, it is most certainly not; in fact, the return on investment standard threatens to become a bludgeon wielded against many of those whom it is disingenuously being used to defend. For example, arts events that take place in dense commercial districts where there are lots of opportunities for audience members to spend money before and after the show would seem to be favored over those that take place in neighborhood galleries or rural areas where few businesses surround the event*. Concerts in bars and restaurants where food and drink are sold would take precedence over those that happen in "performance spaces" where little or no hospitality is offered and a free will donation rather than a flat cover charge is imposed. Visual artists who buy many expensive supplies would be seen as contributing more than than those who work cheaply with found objects. And so on and so forth.
Though the dialogue has been framed to avoid dealing with artworks case-by-case and instead to speak only of "The Arts" generally, this charade can be maintained only for so long. If the return on investment standard is established as a legitimate defense of government funding of the arts, the public interest then becomes to maximize the results by funding the art and artists which promise the greatest return. How long until a subsequent study is released which identifies specific types of arts events as more or less worthy of funding based on their proven return on investment? Perhaps appealing to the generalism of "The Arts" is a blessing in this case as it prevents us from making such distinctions for the time being. However, they can't be far off.
*If you just thought to yourself that audiences buying more gasoline counts as return on investment the same as buying dinner before the show, you and I have some irreconcilable differences.
Artists and audiences alike have long since grown weary of artworks being judged sheerly by the amount of money they fetch. Indeed, in many circles, to express such an opinion would be to mark oneself as a spectacularly naive and shallow observer. Yet when arts funding is in jeopardy, it seems that few are shy about espousing a nearly identical position. Is judging the work by how much people spend on dinner before or after the show really that different from judging the work by what people are willing to pay for it directly? The former may, in fact, be worse, considering that it is even further removed from the audience's opinion of the work itself. What of those who spring for an expensive pre-show dinner only to be thoroughly let down by the evening's events? More importantly, what of art endeavors which don't live up to the $7 standard? Are they inherently less worthy of government support?
It's a long-standing cliche for jazz musicians performing at clubs to complain that in the eyes of the management, "You're just there to sell drinks." I don't think it matters whether those drinks are sold before, during or after the show; the implication is the same. Stomaching such attitudes may be part of life when dealing with booking agents and venue owners, but it shouldn't have to be part of defending the validity of one's life's work in the politcal arena.
I can already hear the reaction to what I've just written: that I'm overreacting, perhaps overthinking also, that arts advocates mean well, that no one's insulting anyone here, and that as long as the NEA funding got put back in the bill, it doesn't matter how it got there. I would be as relieved as anyone if this proves to be an overreaction, but it's hard to ignore the red flags. The first is a familiar one and need not be dwelled on for too long as I've discussed it many times before: in short, none of us became artists because we saw it as a boon to the economy, a way to keep kids off drugs, or any of the myriad extrinsic features so often attributed to The Arts in defense of government funding; more likely, it was just too damn much fun. This is, at the very least, an honesty issue.
But more important than simply disavowing the reliance on extrinsic features in the name of some abstract conception of honesty is to ask whether it is truly in our best practical interests to judge artists and artworks by such features in the first place. In this case, it is most certainly not; in fact, the return on investment standard threatens to become a bludgeon wielded against many of those whom it is disingenuously being used to defend. For example, arts events that take place in dense commercial districts where there are lots of opportunities for audience members to spend money before and after the show would seem to be favored over those that take place in neighborhood galleries or rural areas where few businesses surround the event*. Concerts in bars and restaurants where food and drink are sold would take precedence over those that happen in "performance spaces" where little or no hospitality is offered and a free will donation rather than a flat cover charge is imposed. Visual artists who buy many expensive supplies would be seen as contributing more than than those who work cheaply with found objects. And so on and so forth.
Though the dialogue has been framed to avoid dealing with artworks case-by-case and instead to speak only of "The Arts" generally, this charade can be maintained only for so long. If the return on investment standard is established as a legitimate defense of government funding of the arts, the public interest then becomes to maximize the results by funding the art and artists which promise the greatest return. How long until a subsequent study is released which identifies specific types of arts events as more or less worthy of funding based on their proven return on investment? Perhaps appealing to the generalism of "The Arts" is a blessing in this case as it prevents us from making such distinctions for the time being. However, they can't be far off.
*If you just thought to yourself that audiences buying more gasoline counts as return on investment the same as buying dinner before the show, you and I have some irreconcilable differences.
22 February 2009
Government Funding of The Arts (ii)
Establishing universal health care in this country (the right thing to do anyway) would do more for art and artists of all stripes than $50 million dollars of government "support" ever could. If you don't believe me, take note of the frequency of benefit concerts for uninsured or underinsured musicians who have run up staggering medical bills. As it stands right now, any discussion of the practicality of freelancing starts and ends with health care.
I have spoken unfavorably many times of the unwieldiness of a term as broad as "The Arts," and yet if our aspiration is truly to do something that benefits art and artists across the board, then we have to identify concerns which are shared across disciplines and media. I can think of no more glaring commonality among artists of all kinds than that there are precious few full-time jobs with benefits available that allow them to focus solely on their art.
For whatever reason, talk of supporting The Arts tends to revolve around organizations rather than individual artists. Perhaps it's related to the notion of doing of what's best for the many rather than the few. But sheer numbers aside, it's hardly worth remarking upon the unfortunate condition of "institutions" per se, so pervasive and devastating are their effluents. The idea that the individual artist might avoid being burdened with extra-artistic grunt work undertaken simply because they have no other source of income or benefits is more attractive on the surface. If that is, in fact, the goal, then universal health care is a must, and until it is achieved, everything else is merely nibbling around the edges.
I have spoken unfavorably many times of the unwieldiness of a term as broad as "The Arts," and yet if our aspiration is truly to do something that benefits art and artists across the board, then we have to identify concerns which are shared across disciplines and media. I can think of no more glaring commonality among artists of all kinds than that there are precious few full-time jobs with benefits available that allow them to focus solely on their art.
For whatever reason, talk of supporting The Arts tends to revolve around organizations rather than individual artists. Perhaps it's related to the notion of doing of what's best for the many rather than the few. But sheer numbers aside, it's hardly worth remarking upon the unfortunate condition of "institutions" per se, so pervasive and devastating are their effluents. The idea that the individual artist might avoid being burdened with extra-artistic grunt work undertaken simply because they have no other source of income or benefits is more attractive on the surface. If that is, in fact, the goal, then universal health care is a must, and until it is achieved, everything else is merely nibbling around the edges.
17 February 2009
Government Funding of The Arts (i)
Some would say that the primary importance of government funding of The Arts lies in freeing the artist from the constraints of the marketplace, hence enabling them do what they want rather than merely doing whatever is going to make them the most money. Advocates of this position can point to copious examples of artworks in all disciplines which alienated audiences of their times only to later become widely acknowledged as masterpieces.
Others (particularly detractors of the avant-garde) argue that artists can't be trusted to create anything worthwhile when decoupled from the demands of an audience. This group also cites copious evidence in the form of great works which were created out of economic necessity and/or narrow stylistic demands, essentially taking the position (though they would never freely admit to it) that the price fetched by a given work of art is the best indication of its inherent quality.
If you couldn't guess, I identify more closely with the first group than the second. However, there's a lot more to it than this simple dichotomy. If the criteria for getting funded are just as artistically shackling as the marketplace yet still without being directly tied to it, then this merely gives us the worst of both worlds. Yet it seems that this is exactly what goes for "supporting" The Arts right now: prospective grantees are handcuffed by a myriad of extra-artistic obligations imposed as a condition of getting funded (usually involving educational outreach), so much so, in fact, that the perceived quality of the work scarcely seems to matter to those granting the money to back it.
If facilitating the creation of the next great masterpiece is indeed the goal, giving grants is a bit like playing the stock market: you look at the past performance of prospective grantees and invest in the ones whose history indicates, somehow, a likelihood of success in the near future. Yet we know from history that the ratio of enduring artworks to forgotten ones is almost impossibly small, and that there are no safe bets in this realm, even among established celebrity artists. When funding thus appears to be wasted even in the eyes of the arts community (i.e. by virtue of the near total neglect of the commissioned work after its premiere), it can't possibly be seen in a much better light by the rest of society.
In a democracy, the government cannot possibly support the "right" artists, whether that be all of them, none of them, or any possible subset. This is what gets detractors of government funding so upset. By the same token, every artist is the "right" artist to support in the eyes of at least one person (themselves), and probably in the eyes of at least a few of their audience members. This is what gets arts advocates so upset.
What is conspicuously absent here is any acknowledgment of the vast diversity encompassed by a term such as "The Arts." Indeed, the political necessity of referring only to "The Arts" generically rather than to specific art and artists is by far the most glaring weakness in the current dialogue, not only because it allows detractors to ridicule government support by cherry-picking examples of frivolous-sounding projects, but because it is quite disingenuous to behave as if one believes all art is created equal in the first place.
This is where the supposed extrinsic values of various arts come into play, as in, "If we cannot agree on which of two Mozart symphonies is the better piece of music, at least we can agree that listening to either of them will make your baby smarter." Such extrinsic values (we'll save discussion of their validity for later) are seductive because they are the only sources of consensus that one can appeal to in art, for no single person truly believes that all art is good aesthetically, even if they'll say so in public to keep from offending others.
The essence of democracy is variously said to lie in rational thought, in compromise, or simply in what's good for the 51%. This is anathema to art. Where artists and audiences compromise, where aesthetic judgments become rational, and where a simple majority opinion is good enough to claim the establishment of a broad consensus, art is no longer itself and has become something else. Whatever conclusion we arrive at through these means with regard to whether or not the government should fund The Arts, we can only hope that art remains in such a condition that either position is problematic. This may be a headache, but it's also a sign of life.
Others (particularly detractors of the avant-garde) argue that artists can't be trusted to create anything worthwhile when decoupled from the demands of an audience. This group also cites copious evidence in the form of great works which were created out of economic necessity and/or narrow stylistic demands, essentially taking the position (though they would never freely admit to it) that the price fetched by a given work of art is the best indication of its inherent quality.
If you couldn't guess, I identify more closely with the first group than the second. However, there's a lot more to it than this simple dichotomy. If the criteria for getting funded are just as artistically shackling as the marketplace yet still without being directly tied to it, then this merely gives us the worst of both worlds. Yet it seems that this is exactly what goes for "supporting" The Arts right now: prospective grantees are handcuffed by a myriad of extra-artistic obligations imposed as a condition of getting funded (usually involving educational outreach), so much so, in fact, that the perceived quality of the work scarcely seems to matter to those granting the money to back it.
If facilitating the creation of the next great masterpiece is indeed the goal, giving grants is a bit like playing the stock market: you look at the past performance of prospective grantees and invest in the ones whose history indicates, somehow, a likelihood of success in the near future. Yet we know from history that the ratio of enduring artworks to forgotten ones is almost impossibly small, and that there are no safe bets in this realm, even among established celebrity artists. When funding thus appears to be wasted even in the eyes of the arts community (i.e. by virtue of the near total neglect of the commissioned work after its premiere), it can't possibly be seen in a much better light by the rest of society.
In a democracy, the government cannot possibly support the "right" artists, whether that be all of them, none of them, or any possible subset. This is what gets detractors of government funding so upset. By the same token, every artist is the "right" artist to support in the eyes of at least one person (themselves), and probably in the eyes of at least a few of their audience members. This is what gets arts advocates so upset.
What is conspicuously absent here is any acknowledgment of the vast diversity encompassed by a term such as "The Arts." Indeed, the political necessity of referring only to "The Arts" generically rather than to specific art and artists is by far the most glaring weakness in the current dialogue, not only because it allows detractors to ridicule government support by cherry-picking examples of frivolous-sounding projects, but because it is quite disingenuous to behave as if one believes all art is created equal in the first place.
This is where the supposed extrinsic values of various arts come into play, as in, "If we cannot agree on which of two Mozart symphonies is the better piece of music, at least we can agree that listening to either of them will make your baby smarter." Such extrinsic values (we'll save discussion of their validity for later) are seductive because they are the only sources of consensus that one can appeal to in art, for no single person truly believes that all art is good aesthetically, even if they'll say so in public to keep from offending others.
The essence of democracy is variously said to lie in rational thought, in compromise, or simply in what's good for the 51%. This is anathema to art. Where artists and audiences compromise, where aesthetic judgments become rational, and where a simple majority opinion is good enough to claim the establishment of a broad consensus, art is no longer itself and has become something else. Whatever conclusion we arrive at through these means with regard to whether or not the government should fund The Arts, we can only hope that art remains in such a condition that either position is problematic. This may be a headache, but it's also a sign of life.
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