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NOTEBOOK
VOLUME 13, NO. 4
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District progress
was fueled by
funding increases
by Paul Socolar
Back in 2000, the School District of
Philadelphia was struggling with stagnating
test scores, a systemwide academic crisis, and
looming bankruptcy. Schools were scraping
by on an austerity budget that amounted to
less than $7,800 per student.
But five years later, the School District in
2005 found itself able to spend almost 40 percent
more – $10,800 per pupil, an increase of
$3,000 per student.
Over those five years between 2000 and
2005, the rate of growth in District spending
per student averaged a hefty 7 percent a year,
according to data from the state Department of
Education.
And those significant annual increases in
spending per student were soon accompanied
by significant annual increases in test scores,
at least on most tests in the K-8 grades.
Funding increases fueled a sweeping set
of reform measures undertaken by CEO Paul
Vallas and the School Reform Commission
Between 2000 and
2005, growth in
spending per student
averaged a hefty 7
percent a year.
starting in 2002, including a new standardized
curriculum and textbooks, afterschool
programs, a benchmark testing system, new
teacher coaches – even smaller class sizes.
By contrast, the earlier period of austerity
reflected that starting in the mid-1990s and
through the superintendency of David Hornbeck,
the growth in Philadelphia’s per pupil
spending had averaged only 3 percent a year,
hardly enough to cover inflation. In those
years, the District engaged in a war of words
with Harrisburg over the sluggish growth in
state support for schools.
The critical role that increased funding has
played in the recent accomplishments of the
School District is drawing attention now, as
the District faces its most difficult budget season
since the system emerged from near-bankruptcy
in 2002.
“It appears that we are dangerously close
to sliding backwards – yet again – to losing
the gains that slowly but decidedly have been
made,” said Shelly Yanoff, executive director
of the child advocacy group Philadelphia
Citizens for Children and Youth in testimony
on the District budget at an April School
Reform Commission meeting.
“We understand that some schools are making
plans to increase class size, to combine
grade levels, to reduce adult resources in
schools,” Yanoff said. “In short, we hear that
schools that are making progress are going to
have to jeopardize that progress by going
against what research and practice tells them
is working – because the budget is being cut.”
See “Budget Tightens” on p. 9
FOCUS ON
Arts and schools
Philadelphia Public School
■ Most schools cannot afford
both a music and an art
teacher; 66 schools have
neither.
by Dale Mezzacappa
Once, the Philadelphia School District was
a flagship for instruction in the arts, with certified
music and art teachers in virtually every
school. Today, it is struggling to rebuild that
reputation as it faces tighter revenues, a shortage
of qualified teachers, and pressure to spend
more time on reading and math.
Today, less than a third of the city’s public
schools have both art and music teachers. The
majority of the rest have one or the other, but
66 schools have neither, according to a Notebook
analysis of teacher staffing patterns.
Increasingly, students are getting art and
music instruction through extracurricular programs
and short-term visits from outside artists,
not as part of their everyday learning.
Still, CEO Paul Vallas maintains that the
District is not “shortchanging” the arts. Among
other things, he said, it is one of the few in the
country to write a core curriculum for the arts,
has expanded partnerships with local arts organizations,
plans to open at least two new creative
and performing arts high schools, started
programs in Asian and Puerto Rican music,
and recently invested $1.7 million to buy
instruments to restore high school bands and
orchestras.
“We’ve made progress in all areas except
for full-time art and music teachers,” Vallas
said. “Nobody can tell me there’s been slippage
here on my watch.”
As of May, 133 District schools – 50 percent
– have no full-time music teacher, and
121 have no full-time art teacher (see list, p.
14). These are higher numbers than four years
ago, when Philadelphia Citizens for Children
and Youth produced a report on declining numbers
of art and music teachers just before Vallas
took the reins of the District. That report
said 82 schools did not have full-time art teachers,
and 83 lacked full-time music teachers.
Since 2002-03, as District enrollment has
declined, the number of art teachers in the District
has declined by 16 percent, compared to
a reduction in the overall teacher workforce
■ La mayoría de las escuelas
no pueden pagarle a un
maestro de arte y también a
uno de música, y 66 escuelas
no tienen ni uno ni el otro.
por Dale Mezzacappa
Una vez, el Distrito Escolar de Filadelfia
fue un oasis de instrucción en las artes, y prácticamente
cada escuela tenía maestros certificados
de música y de arte. Hoy en día, está
luchando por reconstruir esa reputación mientras
enfrenta menos ingresos, una escasez de
maestros cualificados, y presión para que le
dedique más tiempo a la lectura y a las
matemáticas.
Teaching the
arts in
Philadelphia
14-15
of 5 percent. For music teachers, the decline
has been about 7 percent.
Racially isolated schools, those at which
more than 90 percent of the students are nonwhite,
are somewhat more likely than other
schools to lack music and art teachers. Seventy
percent of the 66 schools with neither art
nor music are racially isolated, compared to
62 percent of all District schools.
The median poverty rate of the schools with
no art or music teacher is 79 percent, which is
the same as the District’s rate. However, few
magnet schools or schools in the Northeast,
which have the highest percentages of middle-class
students, lack both art and music
teachers.
The decision whether to hire or retain art
and music teachers rests with principals, who
must juggle testing demands and wish-lists
with available funds. Most schools have seen
their budgets and teacher allotments shrink
over the past several years, even as they are
being held more accountable for student
progress.
Vallas said that much of the increase in
schools without music or art is due to deci-
Actualmente, menos de la tercera parte de
las escuelas públicas de la ciudad tienen
maestros de arte y de música. La mayoría de
las demás tienen uno o el otro pero 66 escuelas
no tienen ninguno, de acuerdo a un análisis
que hizo el Notebook de los patrones de
contratación de maestros.
Cada vez más, los estudiantes están recibiendo
la instrucción de arte y de música
mediante programas extracurriculares y visitas
a corto plazo de artistas, y no como parte
de su programa diario de aprendizaje.
Aún así, el CEO Paul Vallas sostiene que
el Distrito no está “siendo injusto” con las
artes. Entre otras cosas, dijo, el Distrito es uno
de los pocos en el país que prepara un currículo
básico en las artes, tiene colaboraciones
Principals
keep arts at
the
center
Focus on
Arts and schools
Sección en
español
Table of contents p. 2
www.thenotebook.or
SUMMER 2006
Full-time art, music teachers: a dwindling breed?
Photo: Harvey Finkle
Tenth grader John Vizzachero performs with the saxophone quartet from the High School for Creative
and Performing Arts at the May opening of the District’s annual student art show.
sions by education management organizations
(EMOs) to drop those subjects, not to choices
by District-run schools. Over 40 schools
were turned over by the SRC to EMOs in 2002
as part of a privatization reform strategy.
Another factor in the increase in the number
of schools without art or music, Vallas said,
has been the creation of more than a dozen
new small high schools, whose budgets cannot
support a wide diversity of offerings.
“The ideal is to have 17 or 18 kids in each
class and an art and music teacher and librarian
in every school,” said Vallas. “But funding
doesn’t permit that. We’re doing everything
we can within the resources we have.”
The federal No Child Left Behind law
requires schools to improve reading and math
test scores each year. While most city schools
haven’t reached NCLB’s targets, test scores
have been improving overall, especially in the
lower grades.
But for art and music teachers used to
developing children’s creativity on a daily basis
and finding and nurturing raw talent in some of
the city’s poorest neighborhoods, that is small
See “Art, Music” on p. 12
Maestros de arte y música a tiempo completo: cada vez hay menos
expandidas con organizaciones locales de arte,
está planificando abrir dos nuevas escuelas
superiores para artes creativas e interpretativas
en la ciudad, ha comenzado programas en
música asiática y puertorriqueña, y recientemente
invirtió $1.7 millones en la compra de
instrumentos para reestablecer las bandas y
orquestas de las escuelas superiores.
“Hemos progresado en todas las áreas,
excepto en lo que respecta a tener maestros a
tiempo completo de arte y de música,” dijo
Vallas. “Nadie puede decirme que el estándar
ha bajado mientras yo he estado aquí.”
Este mes, 133 escuelas del Distrito – 50 por
ciento – no tienen un maestro a tiempo completo
de música, y 121 no tienen un maestro
“Maestros” continúa en la p. 10
16
State of
the arts:
a roundtable

In Our Opinion
Aren’t the arts essential?
Are courses in the arts a frill – or an essential
part of our vision of schooling?
It is increasingly possible that students
will go through the Philadelphia school system
without ever taking an art or music class.
As this edition of the Notebook reports, only
half the schools now provide a full-time
music teacher, and the numbers for art aren’t
much better.
Schools must offer reading, math, and science
to be considered fit to operate. Do offerings
in art, music, drama, and dance belong as
part of the core package every school must
provide?
Few will come right out and say that arts
are a frill. But that is the message being sent
every time an arts program is quietly eliminated
because of insufficient resources or
because reading and math scores are too low.
Cutbacks affecting the arts have been
going on for decades. Allowing schools to
decide whether to offer art or music has accelerated
these cuts. In recent years, pressures
to achieve test score targets under No Child
Left Behind and tightening school budgets
have led dozens of schools to phase out art
and music teaching positions. An array of
central office initiatives to bolster the arts has
not reversed that underlying trend.
When we treat arts as expendable, we
accept a minimalist view of what an education
is – that it is just about providing the
basic skills people need to enter the workforce.
When we treat arts as expendable,
those likely to lose most are students at
schools with the fewest resources or the lowest
test scores – mostly low-income students
and students of color. We risk making our
schools less exciting and less appealing places
to the students whose opportunities are
already the most limited. We put a ceiling on
their aspirations and world.
The arts are an essential component of
schooling for all students. The arts provide
tools to reach students with a variety of personalities,
interests, and learning styles. For
many students, art or music class may be the
only time during school that they genuinely
look forward to, and the resulting sense of
engagement and belonging is often critical
to students’ overall academic achievement.
The arts also provide students with a powerful
means of self-expression and an important
sense of having a voice in the world.
Through art, music, writing, drama, or dance,
students may find a vehicle for defining who
they are and expressing their goals and aspirations.
Students can find community, make
connections, and discover new sides of themselves
through involvement with the arts.
Philadelphia Public School
NOTEBOOK
An independent quarterly newspaper – a voice
for parents, students, classroom teachers, and
others who are working for quality and equality
in Philadelphia public schools.
Leadership Board:
Christina Asquith, Helen Gym, Ajuah Helton,
Myrtle L. Naylor, Dee Phillips, Ros Purnell,
Len Rieser, Toni Bynum Simpkins,
Deborah Toney-Moore, Sharon Tucker,
Ron Whitehorne, Jeff Wicklund
Editor: Paul Socolar
Marketing coordinator: Sookyung Oh
Design: Salvatore Patrone
Cartoonist: Eric Joselyn
Editorial assistance: Eileen Abrams, Elayne
Bender, Joseph Blanc, Roseann Hugh, Ros Purnell,
Len Rieser, Sandy Socolar, Corinne Welsh
Distribution: Eugene Irby, Lonnia Curtis
Web maintenance: Atiya Driver
Interns: Samantha Adler, Carolyn Barschow
Realizing one’s creative abilities is a key
way that youth develop a sense of power and
possibility. With that sense of possibility
comes the ability to imagine change for oneself
or creating a better world.
There also is evidence that exposure to
the arts correlates with academic improvement,
particularly for low-income students.
Studies suggest that involvement in the arts
can support learning by creating a better
school climate, improving critical thinking
and social skills, and increasing student motivation.
But the decision to teach the arts should
not depend on whether or not arts classes
improve reading and math scores. Student
work in the expressive arts has meaning and
value in its own right. The benefits of developing
student creativity are huge, and our
schools need the spirit and sense of community
that the arts can foster.
The baseline for a meaningful arts program
is to provide a full-time art teacher and
music teacher in every school, just as betterfunded
school systems in our region do. Fulltime
arts teachers on staff are vital if we hope
to see any real schoolwide integration of arts
across the curriculum. At large schools, one
art or music teacher won’t be enough.
Arts programs also need well-equipped
physical spaces in our schools. Every student
should have access to art and music classes,
with additional elective opportunities for
interested students.
The School District has made progress in
building partnerships with established community-based
and citywide arts organizations,
which are a critical supplement to school programs.
Through artist residencies and other
partnerships, schools can provide exposure
to talented, practicing writers and artists who
can also connect schools to the rich cultural
diversity of our communities. But some fear
that in the absence of a strong commitment
to full-time arts and music staffing, these
short-term arts programs reaching small numbers
of students are now being passed off as
substitutes for a well-staffed, well-equipped
program.
The city of Philadelphia will not realize
its strategy for growth as a vibrant center for
arts and culture if its schools are not preparing
students to be part of that. A critical hurdle
in rebuilding a strong arts education program
in Philadelphia is securing adequate
school funding. Philadelphia’s educational,
political, civic, and cultural leaders must
develop a shared vision for delivering quality
arts education to all students as well as a
strategy for garnering the necessary resources.
“Turning the page for
change.”
Editorial Board:
Yulanda Essoka, Eli Goldblatt, Benjamin Herold,
Dale Mezzacappa, Paul Socolar, Eva Travers,
Debra Weiner, Ron Whitehorne, Shelly Yanoff
Special thanks to…
Our subscribers, advertisers, and volunteers who distribute
the Notebook. Funding in part from
Bread and Roses Community Fund, Campbell-
Oxholm Foundation, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Allen
Hilles Fund, Philadelphia Foundation, Washington
Mutual, and the Henrietta Tower Wurts Memorial –
and from hundreds of individual donors.
The Notebook is a member of the Independent Press
Association and the Sustainable Business Network.
Table of contents
Focus on arts and schools
1 Full-time art, music teachers: a dwindling breed?
14 133 schools lack music teacher; 121 lack art teacher
14 Teaching the arts in Philadelphia: five schools, five stories
14 Grads talk about the influence of their school years
16 Principals who strive to keep art education at the center
18 Funding seen as key to restoring arts programs in schools
19 Local artists: power of arts education could benefit whole city
20 Participants describe formative experiences with arts education
21 NCLB: taking a toll on arts and music education
22 Two hip-hop enthusiasts connect rapping and reading
24 Lessons from NYC: use city’s resources to restore arts education
26 Understanding the collisions between the arts and literacy
27 Imagining equity in arts education
Other News & Features
1 District progress was fueled by funding increases
4 Groups determined to see high school plans implemented
Departments
2 In Our Opinion 5 Who Ya Gonna Call?
3 Eye on Special Ed 6 News in Brief
3 Letters to the Editors 7 Activism Around the City
3 School Snapshot 1, 10-11 Español
More online:
On the web at www.thenotebook.org
About the Notebook
The mission of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook is to promote informed
public involvement in the Philadelphia public schools and to contribute to the
development of a strong, collaborative movement for positive educational
change in city schools and for schools that serve all children well.The Notebook
celebrated its tenth anniversary as a newspaper in 2004.
Philadelphia Public School Notebook is a project of the New Beginnings Nonprofit
Incubator of Resources for Human Development.
Send inquiries to Philadelphia Public School Notebook, 3721 Midvale
Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19129.
Phone: 215-951-0330, ext. 107 • Fax: 215-951-0342
Email: notebook@thenotebook.org • Web: www.thenotebook.org
2 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

State requires schools
to look more closely at
‘least restrictive environment’
by Barbara Ransom
The changes that the Pennsylvania Department of Education
has put into place as a result of amendments to the federal Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) and the
recent settlement agreement in the historic Gaskin case are creating
quite a stir in school districts across the state.
The Gaskin lawsuit challenged the Department of Education
to provide more oversight of school districts’ obligation to provide
education in the “least restrictive environment” to children
with individualized education programs (IEPs). The Gaskin case
sought to ensure that school districts provide every school-age
student with a disability the special education and related services
in the least restrictive environment needed to enable the
child to succeed academically.
The settlement of this litigation was a collaboration between
the parties – the Gaskin plaintiffs and the state’s Bureau of Special
Education – intended to benefit all eligible school-aged children
in the Commonwealth.
Spurred on by the settlement and IDEA 2004, the state has
required districts to make significant changes in the development
of a student’s IEP and in placement decisions. Now the team that
develops the IEP must make all placement decisions by first determining
whether the goals they have developed for the student
can be implemented in regular classrooms with supplementary
aids and services.
Supplementary aids and services are any modifications to the
regular education program that a child needs to be fully included,
such as instructional or behavioral aides, facilitated communication
devices, modified curricula, or modified textbooks.
Before the IEP team can consider removing the child from the
regular education classroom, supplementary aids and services
must be provided to include the child to the maximum extent
appropriate.
School districts can still assert that education in the regular
classroom is not possible if:
EYE ON SPECIAL EDUCATION
• the child’s disabilities are so severe
that he or she will receive little or no benefit
from inclusion;
• he or she is so disruptive as to significantly
impair the education of other children
in the class; or
• the cost of providing an inclusive education will
significantly affect other children in the district.
This requirement obviously provides some new challenges
for Philadelphia, where almost 24,000 children
have IEPs, and many students have “high-incident” classifications
–58 percent with a learning disability, 10 percent with emotionally
disturbed (ED) labels, and 14 percent with mental retardation
(MR) labels. The District’s exclusion of children with MR
and ED labels from regular classrooms has become more the
norm than the exception.
A parent must be alert to the factors that challenge a child’s
ability to receive an appropriate education in the least restrictive
environment and not let the school turn molehills into mountains.
It helps for parents to get to know their child’s teachers and the
building staff; to be a presence in the school; to insist on recordkeeping
and receiving information about any incidents that occur;
and to review the child’s records periodically.
The state has produced an amended IEP form, including a
number of changes as part of the Gaskin agreement. For example,
in completing Section VII, which pertains to educational
placement, the IEP team must now explain any limits on participation
in the general education curriculum with non-disabled
peers. The team must also identify the modifications that the
child needs in order to be included and explain whether the child
will participate in extracurricular and non-academic activities.
In just the first six months of the five-year Gaskin agreement,
three other major provisions have been implemented. A panel
consisting mainly of parents now advises the Bureau of Special
Education on the implementation of the agreement. The state
has begun monitoring the districts with the worst performance
in meeting the IDEA’s “least restrictive environment” mandate,
including Philadelphia. The state has also begun awarding minigrants
of $3,500 to $30,000 to school districts this school year.
To date, only one public school in Philadelphia, Shaw Middle
School, has applied for and received a mini-grant.
The panel meets quarterly and already has provided valuable
input toward effective implementation of the agreement. The
next panel meeting – which includes a public portion – will be
held June 27-28 in State College.
Barbara Ransom, Esq. is an attorney at the Public Interest
Law Center of Philadelphia. She served as co-counsel in Gaskin
v. Commonwealth, which was filed on June 30, 1994 and settled
on September 19, 2005.
New admissions policy threatens
equal enrollment opportunities
To the editors:
The School Reform Commission’s new enrollment policy
giving Center City residents preference for Center City schools
is a setback for school choice in the District and should alarm
city families seeking access to Center City’s most sought-after
schools. This controversial policy risks isolating thousands of
Philadelphia K-8 students in struggling schools. These students
deserve equal access to the District’s most prospering schools.
Under the old admissions policy, children within a school’s
immediate boundaries always had a guaranteed seat. But everyone
else in the District, whether they lived in Center City or not,
had an equal opportunity to fill the remaining seats. Now everyone
outside the Center City Region is being pushed back. All of
the regions in the District will have this “regional preference”
enrollment policy by 2010.
The Center City Region is where most parents living near
failing schools are likely to turn. Many of the city’s most desirable
schools are located there, and these schools have more
developed academic and enrichment programs than the other
regions. That’s why parents send students to the region in droves.
Thirty-five percent of its students live outside of the region,
more than in any other region. Getting Philadelphia’s children
from worse-off regions into these desirable schools just got that
much harder.
What is left for those children who can’t get by the new
admission priorities? They risk being stuck at the bottom end
of Philadelphia’s unequally performing district. In spite of the
District’s welcome efforts to equalize educational opportunities,
the city’s schools are hardly on an equal playing field. Even
a Herculean effort by the District will not equalize the quality
of education offered across the District by the time the new policy
is in full effect. Given these realities, it’s clear that poorer
families with fewer resources now face fewer choices.
The rushed and secretive process with which this policy was
enacted did not adequately include the input of city parents and
education advocates. The commission should have taken the
time to address their questions and concerns before going forward
with a policy change of this magnitude.
In spite of the District’s attempts to downplay the impact of
this policy, parents should be concerned. It is their children’s
educations that will suffer if the District is wrong.
Blondell Reynolds-Brown
City Council
Philadelphia
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Photo: Amy Kapp
Letters to the editors
Students Rahkeisha Bingham,
Rudy Fields, and Kameelah
Alexander (l. to r.) joined 200
YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter
School students, staff, and community
members in cleaning
seven abandoned lots on South
Mole Street near Ellsworth St.
on April 21 in celebration of
National Youth Service Day.
YouthBuild is stabilizing vacant
lots on this block where it is in
the last stage of rehabilitating
four houses for low-income
families. YouthBuild offers a
10-month diploma program for
out-of-school-youth, blending
academics with community service
experience and on-the-job
training in construction,
technology or nursing.
Concerns over dumped milk and juice
To the editors:
I have witnessed milk, juice, and food in closed containers in the
dumpster outside a local school. These foods were not out of date.
The school was throwing away one or two big boxes of milk
or juice whenever I checked (two or three times a week). Each
box, I think, was about 5 gallons of milk or juice in little fourounce
containers.
If the food cannot be used in the school, can’t it be donated
to a food bank?
Rachel Frankel
Fishtown
Editors’ note: We posed the question to Wayne Grasela, head
of food services for the School District. He maintained that District
waste of food is low due to conservative ordering. But some
unopened items do get discarded – once food items are taken
by students, they must be consumed or discarded, he said.
Regulations require the School District to reduce waste.
Grasela said in a statement, “When students select their meals
they have the option of denying two items of a five-item lunch
and one item of a four-item breakfast. If students still have food
they do not want they are encouraged to share it with another
student by placing their unopened or unused food items on a
sharing table centrally located in the cafeteria.”
The case described seems to involve cartons of food that had
not ever been served to students. Grasela said that any school
suspected of wasting food should be reported to the District‘s
Inspector General’s Office at 215-400-4030.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 3

‘Sustainability circles’press for small school vision at West and Kensington high schools
Groups determined to see high school plans implemented
by Paul Socolar
Philadelphia has seen more than a few lofty
plans for high school reform go unfulfilled. But
in both West Philadelphia and Kensington,
where community members have worked for
months to develop a vision and plan for reforming
their neighborhood high schools, there is
an organized effort to make sure that these latest,
ambitious reform plans come to fruition.
Few Philadelphia high schools have as
much room for improvement as Kensington
and West Philadelphia
high schools, both
reporting that half or
less of their students
graduate and more
than one-fourth are
absent daily.
At a May 10
School Reform Commission
(SRC) meeting,
six speakers from
the West Philadelphia High School community
presented their shared vision of a high school
campus of four small schools, while expressing
their determination to bring a change to the
quality of education and student life at West
Philadelphia as quickly as possible.
Since 2003, West Philadelphia has been
promised a replacement high school building
Speakers from West
Philadelphia presented
their shared vision of a
high school campus of
four small schools.
as part of the School District’s capital plan.
“Every day I walk into West Philadelphia
High School, and I feel like I’m walking into
a prison,” junior David James told the SRC.
West Philadelphia senior Raymond
Williams described the profound impact of a
trip he took, organized by the Philadelphia Student
Union, to a successful small school in the
Bronx that maintains a safe environment without
metal detectors or student ID cards because
the school is such a tight-knit community.
Tenth-grader
Tiffany Fogle talked
about an academic
vision for a new West
Philadelphia High that
would be based upon
“the three R’s — rigor,
relevance and relationships,”
while using
hands-on learning and
tackling “real-world
community problems.”
These three students were among 180 community
stakeholders who took part in a recent
seven-month planning process for the proposed
new school, led by Concordia, an architectural
consulting firm.
School District CEO Paul Vallas called the
resulting plan for the construction of a campus
JOIN THE
CELEBRATION!
June 6th, 2006
(see the back page for details)
of small schools in West Philadelphia “splendid”
and added, “Hopefully we’re close to a
community consensus on where the site of the
school should be.” The School Reform Commission
needs to settle on a location for construction
to move forward, he added.
“The quickest way to get this school built
is to do it on the present athletic field,” Vallas
added. “That way we wouldn’t have to relocate
the kids until the school is built.” Vallas
said construction could be completed by 2009.
While in West Philadelphia it was a chapter
of the Philadelphia Student Union that provided
the impetus for a planning process, in
Kensington, it was the student group Youth
United for Change that led in pressing for a
new high school and demanding a community
voice in the plans. A similar planning
process, led by Concordia, was conducted for
both schools.
Kensington, with its 1400 students, was broken
into three small high schools last year, and
the District’s capital plan includes construction
of a new building for a fourth small high school
in that community. A “Sustainability Circle”
has been created at Kensington to encourage
ongoing community efforts to improve the
schools.
“The value of this community-based process
See “small school plans” on p. 5
4 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

Will small school plans be implemented?
continued from p. 4
has been bringing people together who learned
that they share similar ideas about strengthening
their neighborhood school and about build-
Philadelphia’s
small high schools: schools
with 500 or fewer students
(listed in order by high school enrollment - smallest to largest)
2005-06 grade configuration in parenthesis
Schools marked with * are adding to or
changing their grade configuration
Phila. Military Academy at Elverson (grade 9)*
Phila. HS for Business & Technology (9-12)
Douglas (9-12)
Motivation (9-12)
Carroll (9-12)
Girard Academic Music Program - GAMP (5-
12)
Leeds Military Academy (9-10)*
Parkway Northwest (9-12)
Rhodes (6-11)*
Lankenau (9-12)
Kensington - Culinary Arts (9-12)
Robeson - Human Services (9-12)
FitzSimons (6-11)*
Parkway - Center City (9-12)
Vaux (9-11)*
Kensington - Creative and Performing Arts (9-
12)
Randolph (9-12)
Parkway West (9-12)
Masterman (5-12)
Kensington Business, Finance
and Entrepreneurship (9-12)
Lamberton HS (9-12)
Communications Technology (9-12)
ing partnerships,” said Tia Keitt, small schools
project coordinator at the Philadelphia Education
Fund. The Ed Fund has been a facilitator
of the planning process at both Kensington and
West Philadelphia high schools.
Keitt explained that the community members
who continue to meet in Kensington “have
By fall, the District will
have added 22 schools
to its high school roster
since 2003
decided to continue to push for a new school
and to try to get the community’s recommendations
implemented.”
Elsewhere, five new high schools are slated
to open in Philadelphia this fall. For the past
three years, the District has been creating smaller
schools by dividing up existing large high
schools, making annexes or branches into separate
schools, and converting middle schools
to high schools as part of the District’s “Small
Schools Transition Project.”
By fall, the District will have added 22
schools to its high school roster since 2003,
nearly all of them with fewer than 500 students
(see list).
CEO Vallas said the District’s efforts to
downsize high schools would continue. Besides
the plans for a new high school in Kensington
and the small schools conversion in West
Philadelphia, other small schools in the works
for 2007 and beyond include a University of
Pennsylvania-sponsored school on international
affairs, a creative and performing arts
school in the former Rush Middle School, and
conversion of Pickett and Sulzberger middle
schools into high schools.
School District of Philadelphia
Paul Vallas (Chief Executive Officer): 215-400-4100
Gregory Thornton (Chief Academic Officer):
215-400-4200
Regional Superintendents
Janet Samuels (Center City): 215-351-3807
B. Lefra Young (Central): 215-684-8487
Lucy Rodríguez-Feria (Central East): 215-291-5680
Gregory Shannon (CEO Region): 215-684-5132
Marylouise DeNicola (East): 215-961-2066
Lissa Johnson (EMO Region): 215-299-3652
Wendy Shapiro (North): 215-456-0998
Harris Lewin (Northeast): 215-281-5903
Linda Grobman (Northwest): 215-248-6684
John Frangipani (South): 215-351-7445
Harry Gaffney (Southwest): 215-727-5920
Shirl Gilbert (West): 215-471-2271
School Reform Commission
James E. Nevels: 215-400-6272
Martin Bednarek: 215-400-6276
Sandra Dungee Glenn: 215-400-6275
James P. Gallagher: 215-400-6273
Daniel J. Whelan: 215-400-6274
City of Philadelphia
Mayor John Street (D): 215-686-2181
City Council Members-At-Large
(elected citywide)
W. Wilson Goode, Jr. (D): 215-686-3414
Jack Kelly (R): 215-686-3452
James F. Kenney (D): 215-686-3450
Juan Ramos (D): 215-686-3420
Blondell Reynolds Brown (D): 215-686-3438
Frank Rizzo (R): 215-686-3440
District City Council Members
Frank DiCicco (D): 215-686-3458
Anna Verna (D): 215-686-3412
Jannie L. Blackwell (D): 215-686-3418
Michael A. Nutter (D): 215-686-3416
Darrell L. Clarke (D): 215-686-3442
Joan L. Krajewski (D): 215-686-3444
Donna Reed Miller (D): 215-686-3424
Marian B. Tasco (D): 215-686-3454
Brian J. O’Neill (R): 215-686-3422
Who ya gonna call?
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Governor
Ed Rendell (D): 717-787-2500
State Senators
Vincent J. Fumo (D): 215-468-3866
Christine Tartaglione (D): 215-533-0440
Shirley M. Kitchen (D): 215-457-9033
Michael J. Stack (D): 215-281-2539
Vincent Hughes (D): 215-471-0490
LeAnna Washington (D): 215-242-0472
Anthony Hardy Williams (D): 215-492-2980
Susan Cornell (R): 215-674-3755
State Representatives
Louise Williams Bishop (D): 215-879-6625
Thomas Blackwell (D): 215-748-7808
Mark B. Cohen (D): 215-924-0895
Angel Cruz (D): 215-291-5643
Lawrence H. Curry (D): 215-572-5210
Robert C. Donatucci (D): 215-468-1515
Dwight Evans (D): 215-549-0220
Harold James (D): 215-462-3308
Babette Josephs (D): 215-893-1515
William F. Keller (D): 215-271-9190
George T. Kenney, Jr. (R): 215-934-5144
Marie A. Lederer (D): 215-426-6604
Kathy Manderino (D): 215-482-8726
Michael P. McGeehan (D): 215-333-9760
John Myers (D): 215-849-6592
Dennis M. O’Brien (R): 215-632-5150
Frank L. Oliver (D): 215-684-3738
Cherelle Parker (D): 717-783-2178
John M. Perzel (R): 215-331-2600
William W. Rieger (D): 215-223-1501
James R. Roebuck (D): 215-724-2227
John J. Taylor (R): 215-425-0901
W. Curtis Thomas (D): 215-232-1210
Ronald G. Waters (D): 215-748-6712
Jewell Williams (D): 215-763-2559
Rosita C. Youngblood (D): 215-849-6426
U.S. Congress
Senator Arlen Specter (R): 215-597-7200
Senator Rick Santorum (R): 215-864-6900
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D): 215-387-6404
Rep. Robert Brady (D): 215-389-4627
Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D): 215-335-3355
Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R): 215-752-7711
To find out which District City Council member, State Senator, State Representative, or Congressperson
represents you, call the League of Women Voters at 1-800-692-7281, ext. 10.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 5

Hayre Institute will aid in
teacher diversity campaign
A Philadelphia-based institute aimed at
training student teachers as urban classroom
specialists and then recruiting them to full-time
jobs in Philadelphia schools highlights the fivepoint
action plan of a new campaign for
improving the diversity of the District’s teacher
workforce.
The Dr. Ruth Wright Hayre Urban Teaching
Institute, which will recruit college students
nationally and then prepare up to 100 student
teacher “fellows” each year for urban teaching
positions, is slated to open in September 2006.
The announcement was made by School District
officials, U.S. Representative Chaka Fattah, and
other partners at a joint April news conference.
Temple University’s College of Education and
the American Association of Colleges for Teacher
Education are supporting the effort.
At least 50 percent of the institute’s fellows
will be teachers of color. Congressman Fattah
pledged to secure a grant to support the institute.
“Urban teaching is a specialty,” said School
Reform Commissioner Sandra Dungee Glenn,
who has pushed for the teacher diversity campaign.
She added, “And there
are myths about the urban
classroom that we want to
explode.”
The institute is named for
the first full-time African
American teacher in the Philadelphia public
school system, who was also the first African
American senior high school principal and the
first African American and woman president
of the Board of Education.
Dungee Glenn said that to improve the
effectiveness of the teacher workforce, action
was needed to narrow the substantial gap
between the total percentage of teachers of
color in Philadelphia – 38 percent – and the
combined percentage of Black, Latino, and
Asian students – more than 85 percent.
Other components of the teacher diversity
News
In Brief
campaign include:
• new marketing efforts aimed at recruiting
teachers from universities with large African
American and Latino enrollments in nearby
states and Puerto Rico.
• a test preparation initiative to improve
the pass rate among teachers of color on the
Praxis exam required for teacher certification.
• a “cultural proficiency” program to help
teachers connect their instruction with students’
diverse cultural experiences, with proposed
cultural proficiency standards to be applied in
evaluating school staff.
• a teacher diversity advisory council of
community-based partners that will advise the
District on its teacher diversity initiatives.
Former board president
Rotan E. Lee dies
Rotan E. Lee, who served as president of
Philadelphia’s Board of Education and a key
figure in Philadelphia school reform in the
1990s, died of heart failure April 24. He was 57.
Lee was appointed by former Mayor W.
Wilson Goode as a member of the Board of
Education in March 1989, and he served as
board president from December
1992 to December 1994. As a
board member and then president,
Lee was known to put in
long hours, including frequent
visits to schools. The 1993 ruling
of a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court
that students of color were receiving a substandard
education in the Philadelphia public
schools was one of the central issues of his
tenure, and racial equity was a topic that he
often addressed with passion.
More recently, Lee had direct involvement
in local school reform efforts during his tenure
as executive vice president and general counsel
for Universal Companies, managers of three
Philadelphia schools.
Lee wore many hats: at his death he was a
practicing attorney, a newspaper columnist for
the Philadelphia
Tribune and the
Philadelphia Daily
News, and a radio
host.
A District testimonial
in his
honor presented by
the School Reform
Rotan E. Lee
Commission May
10 noted that “when he guided the business of
the School District at public meetings, Rotan
E. Lee was apt to reveal his love of literature
by quoting Langston Hughes, and his infatuation
with language by sprinkling the dialogue
with a vocabulary worthy of the most rigorous
college entrance test.”
The testimonial described Lee as “committed
to ensuring that the District served all
students as he would want his own children –
who attended Philadelphia public schools – to
be served.”
Contract with K12 for
science curriculum lapses
The School Reform Commission allowed
its $3 million contract for elementary school
science materials with K12 Inc. to expire when
it declined to act to renew the contract by a
May 1 deadline.
Controversy about the K12 contract arose
last fall after parents and others protested
broadcast remarks by company co-founder and
shareholder William Bennett about aborting
Black babies that were widely seen as racist. A
proposal to terminate the contract immediately
at that time was defeated by a 3-2 vote of
the SRC despite vociferous community
protests.
District officials say they retain rights to
the curriculum materials. K12, based in Virginia,
has another contract, which expires June
30, to play a management role at the Hunter
School.
6 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

Adequate public schools:
how much do they cost?
Pennsylvania’s lowest spending school districts
spend as little as $8,000 per student, while
per pupil expenditures in several of the more
affluent districts in the state exceed $16,000.
In a state with such wide gaps in spending
per pupil, do students in the
low-spending districts get
what they need educationally?
Just how much should
Pennsylvania school systems
spend to ensure that their students
can achieve the standards for proficiency
that have been set by the state?
A number of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
advocacy organizations are raising these
questions and suggesting that it is time for the
state to answer them by conducting what they
call a "costing-out” or “adequacy” study. Such
a study would first aim to determine what supports
need to be in place in order for schools
to enable their students to meet the state’s learning
standards, and then would calculate the
school funding level needed to provide those
necessary supports and resources to schools.
The idea of costing out is not a new one,
according to its proponents, which include
Good Schools Pennsylvania, the Education
Law Center, and the Education Policy and
ACTIVISM
Around
THE CITY
Leadership Center (EPLC). They report that
costing out studies have been conducted or are
underway in 38 states to help align funding levels
with the education standards and goals in
the state.
While Pennsylvania is not yet one of those
states, the State Board of Education here has
appointed a panel to explore the idea. In addition,
a resolution has been proposed
in the legislature that
would direct a statewide study
looking at what resources are
demanded by the state’s academic
standards, including needs
resulting from factors such as poverty, limited
English proficiency, and disabilities.
According to EPLC president Ron Cowell,
a costing-out study is a “logical next step” for
state policymakers who have established academic
standards and proficiency expectations
for students.
For more information about work towards
a costing-out study, contact Good Schools
Pennsylvania at info@goodschoolspa.org or
866-720-4086.
Youth United for Change
presents plan for Olney
Youth United for Change (YUC), a student
Photo: Youth United for Change
At a Youth United for Change press conference and school tour with State Sen. Shirley Kitchen
(left) on February 28 outside Olney High School, 11th grader Rasheeda Enoch (center) delivers
speech calling for the conversion of Olney to small schools.
organization with a history of education reform
activism, presented their plan for dividing troubled
Olney High School into six small schools
at a community meeting in April. Last fall, the
school was divided into two separate schools
by constructing a wall; each opened the school
year with about 1000 students.
YUC’s plan, presented by students from
the group’s Olney chapter, is based on published
research that suggests that to realize
major academic and behavioral gains, small
schools should be no larger than 400 students.
The proposal calls for the partition of the
existing building into four autonomous schools
with a second building holding two additional
schools. The schools would share some facilities
and have joint extracurricular activities.
Along with a three-year history of pressing
for small schools at Olney, YUC has led a community-based
effort to implement a small
school model at Kensington High School.
Students have visited successful small
schools in New York and Oakland and have
interviewed educators with expertise in this
area.
A “design team” of community members
See “Activism” on p. 8
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 7

Activism
continued from p. 7
and parents is being formed to further develop
and promote the plan for Olney. School District
officials have indicated that they are open
to proposals for improving the school, which
continues to suffer from high absenteeism, a
high dropout rate, and low test scores.
But District CEO Paul Vallas said in a May
interview that there are no plans to create more
than two schools at Olney. He said student
enrollment at the two existing schools will be
reduced significantly due to a new charter high
school opening in the neighborhood next year.
Vallas also said the District lacks the funds to
construct a new Olney High School – a project
that had been included in the District’s
two most recent annual capital budget plans.
YUC member Anthony Warrick, an 11th
grader at Olney, said YUC’s plan can be
achieved with “a commitment from the community
to create small schools at Olney and
money from the School District.”
For more information on YUC’s work at
Olney High School, call 215-423-9588.
Fighting deportations
of immigrant parents
“Danny” (name changed for privacy), a
first-grader at a Philadelphia charter school,
was home the night immigration agents came
to pick up his father for deportation to Indonesia.
According to Danny’s mother, the immigration
agents told his father to say goodbye
to his son because he would never see him
again. His mother said the incident has traumatized
Danny, who is coping not only with
the loss of his father but also with the fear of
an uncertain future.
As Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) ramps up deportations locally, a
number of schools, community organizations,
and coalitions are strategizing to fight against
what activists call “cruel” and “inhumane”
practices.
Independence Charter School and the Folk
Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School have
sponsored letter-writing campaigns on behalf
of school families threatened with deportation.
Immigrant rights advocacy groups formed
the Day Without An Immigrant Coalition,
which lists family unity as a central platform
of immigration reform. The group has sponsored
local rallies and educational forums,
which have drawn tens of thousands of supporters.
According to the Urban Institute, as many
as one in 10 American families have at least
one parent as an undocumented immigrant.
Mary Yee, director of the School District’s
Office of Family Engagement and Language
Equity Services, said the District doesn’t have
firm figures on the number of local children
potentially affected by deportation, but estimates
that 1,000 to 4,000 students could be
impacted.
Ellen Somekawa, executive director of
Asian Americans United, said that organization
is supporting the “Justice for Jiang Zhen
Xing Campaign.” Jiang Zhen Xing, the mother
of two elementary-aged children, miscarried
her second-trimester twins following a
deportation attempt where she said she was
denied adequate food, water and requested
medical attention for hours.
Somekawa noted, “Many of us are not prepared
to handle the brutality of this system,
but clearly it’s something we need to figure
out, especially as immigration rules become
harsher,”
At the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter
School, principal Deborah Wei said the letter-writing
campaign helped children engage
in a discussion about human rights at a basic
level – the right of a family to remain together.
“The children’s questions are quite simple,”
Wei said. “But no one can answer them."
8 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

After period of steady funding growth, budget tightens
continued from p. 1
Despite the recent growth spurt in funding,
the School District’s per pupil funding level
still consistently ranks near the bottom among
the 63 school districts in the five-county region.
That spurt was based in part on an increment
in both state and city funding resulting from
the negotiated state takeover in 2001-02, as
well as a $300 million deficit financing move
by the city, which provided a financial cushion
that has now been largely depleted.
A relatively poor school system, the District
still has difficulty trimming its budget
without jeopardizing vital personnel and programs,
as protests by parents and others this
spring have highlighted. The District’s $2.04
billion budget plan for 2006-07 requires cuts
to balance out rising costs in areas such as
employee benefits, debt service, and charter
schools that together far exceed any antici-
pated increases in revenues.
District officials say their projections are
realistic but acknowledge uncertainty about
how next year’s budget will end up. Even
assuming that the state legislature fully endorses
the significant funding increases provided
in Governor Rendell’s state budget proposal,
Philadelphia must make reductions in a variety
of programs, including a 5 percent acrossthe-board
cut to school-based budgets.
SRC Chairman James Nevels noted that
cuts have affected every school. “We are in a
budgetary crunch,” he said.
“This budget – and really our last two budgets
have stretched me,” said CEO Paul Vallas,
who acknowledged his inability to add art
and music teachers and added that “it has
impacted my ability to do class size reduction.”
Ann Listerud, a parent at the Powel School
in West Philadelphia, characterized the situa-
tion as “a school district in crisis.” Powel parents
have been demanding a commitment from
the District to restore budget cuts at the school
that they say amount to $190,000.
“We know something is seriously wrong
when the District has to make drastic cuts to
an excellent performing school with a 40-year
history,” said Listerud, who serves on Powel’s
school council. “What further disturbs us are
the stories we are hearing from our parentgrandparent
population who work in schools
around the District – stories about SSAs,
ESOL, Special Ed, music, drama and classroom
teachers, all being let go.”
Both School District officials and education
advocates have turned their attention to
the state budget process, which often drags out
till the end of June.
One issue is a $25 million annual line item
in the state budget earmarked to support privately
managed schools in Philadelphia that
was deleted by the state House. District and
local officials say they still hope the funds will
be restored.
“If we lose that $25 million, I’m not going
to cut afterschool and summer school programs
in order to finance the EMOs [education management
organizations],” Vallas said.
Meanwhile, a newly formed coalition of 10
Pennsylvania organizations is calling on candidates
for state office to pledge to increase
the state share of public education costs to 60
percent from the current 36 percent.
The “Statewide Coalition to Close the
Gap,” which is highlighting what it calls “gross
disparities” in spending among districts in the
state, compared spending per pupil in Philadelphia
to the average spent by the top one-fifth
of school districts in the state. They found that
Philadelphia’s spending lags this group of highperforming
school districts by more than
$2,700 per pupil, according to Michael
Churchill of the Public Interest Law Center of
Philadelphia.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 9

Maestros de arte y música a tiempo completo
continúa de la p. 1
a tiempo completo de arte (vea la lista, página
14). Estos números son mayores que los de
hace cuatro años, cuando la organización
Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth
(Ciudadanos de Filadelfia para los Niños y la
Juventud) produjo un informe sobre la reducción
en el número de maestros de arte y de
música justo antes de que Vallas tomara las
riendas del Distrito. Entonces, 82 escuelas no
tenían maestros a tiempo completo de arte, y
83 no tenían maestros a tiempo completo de
música.
Desde el 2002-03, el número de maestros
de arte en el Distrito se ha reducido en un 16
por ciento, en comparación a la reducción de
toda la fuerza laboral de maestros del 5 por
ciento. Para los maestros de música, la reducción
ha sido aproximadamente del 7 por ciento.
Las escuelas con mayor tendencia a no
tener maestros de música y de arte son las
escuelas racialmente aisladas, en las que más
del 90 por ciento de los estudiantes no son
blancos. Setenta por ciento de las 66 escuelas
que no tienen maestros ni de arte ni de música
son racialmente aisladas, en comparación
con el 62 por ciento de las escuelas del
Distrito.
La decisión de
contratar o retener
los maestros recae
sobre los principales.
La tasa de pobreza promedio en las escuelas
que no tienen maestros de arte ni de música
es 79 por ciento, igual a la tasa del Distrito.
Sin embargo, unas pocas escuelas magnet
o escuelas en el Noreste que tienen los porcentaje
más elevados de estudiantes de clase
media, tampoco tienen maestros de arte ni de
música.
La decisión de contratar o retener los
maestros recae sobre los principales, quienes
tienen que manejar las exigencias de los
exámenes de aptitud y todo tipo de peticiones
en base a los fondos disponibles. La mayoría
de las escuelas han visto una reducción en sus
presupuestos y en los maestros asignados
durante los últimos años, a la vez que se les
responsabiliza cada vez más por el progreso
de los estudiantes.
Vallas dijo que el aumento en escuelas sin
música y sin arte se debe en gran parte a que
las organizaciones de administración educativa
(EMO por sus siglas en inglés) decidieron
no seguir ofreciendo esas materias, y no por
opción de las escuelas administradas por el
Distrito. En 2002 la SRC le transfirió más de
40 escuelas a las EMO como parte de una
estrategia de reforma mediante privatización.
Otro factor en el aumento en el número de
escuelas sin arte ni música, dijo Vallas, ha sido
la creación de más de una docena de nuevas
escuelas superiores pequeñas, cuyos presupuestos
no pueden afrontar una amplia diversidad
de ofrecimientos.
“Lo ideal sería que cada escuela tuviese 17
o 18 estudiantes por salón, un maestro de arte,
uno de música y una bibliotecaria,” dijo
Vallas. “Pero los fondos no lo permiten. Estamos
haciendo todo lo que podemos con los
recursos que tenemos.”
La Ley Que Ningún Niño Quede Atrás
(NCLB, por sus siglas en inglés) requiere que
las escuelas mejoren las puntuaciones en los
exámenes de lectura y matemáticas todos los
años. Aunque la mayoría de las escuelas de
la ciudad no han cumplido con las metas de la
NCLB, las puntuaciones de los exámenes han
estado mejorando en términos generales,
especialmente en los grados más bajos.
Esto no es de mucho consuelo para los
maestros de arte y de música, que están acostumbrados
a desarrollar la creatividad de los
niños a diario y a encontrar y cultivar talento
en algunos de los vecindarios más pobres
de la ciudad. A los niños más necesitados se
les podría estar negando la instrucción de arte
y de música aún cuando está disponible
porque tienen que dedicarle más tiempo a la
lectura y a la matemática, dicen ellos.
“Una de las omisiones más graves en la
educación de los jóvenes de Filadelfia es el
hecho vergonzoso de que la mayoría de
nuestros niños de bajos ingresos no tienen el
beneficio de contar con arte o música en el
programa diario escolar, en vez de sólo
‘después de la escuela’ o como un ‘enriquecimiento
ocasional’, dijo Jo-Anna Moore,
coordinadora de educación en arte en la
Escuela de Arte Tyler de la Temple University.
“En realidad es un problema que se
reduce a ingresos o clase, porque los niños
que pudieran beneficiarse drásticamente de
las oportunidades educativas más ricas y más
diversas son los que menos las tienen. Definitivamente
sabemos que esto está mal.”
Lynne Horoschak, su colega en el Moore
College of Art que dedicó 36 años en el
Distrito, dijo que el enfoque en las destrezas
de lectura y matemáticas solamente ha logrado
desplazar el aprendizaje inventivo y basado
en proyectos.
“Ya no existe la habilidad de integrar,”
dijo Horoschak. “Todo el tiempo se necesita
para las artes de lectura/lenguage y las
matemáticas.” Proyectos como “pedirle a los
estudiantes que escriban una obra teatral sobre
el Renacimiento” ya no se usan porque el
enfoque está en la preparación para el
examen. Ella dijo que cuando los maestros
veteranos de arte se retiran, a menudo no se
reemplazan y los programas que fomentaron
por años simplemente se desvanecen.
Dennis Creedon, el administrador para las
artes creativas e interpretativas del Distrito,
reconoció que la ley Que Ningún Niño Quede
Atrás ha alterado las prioridades de muchos
principales, quienes podrían optar por contratar
a un maestro adicional de lectura en
lugar de reemplazar a un maestro de arte o
de música que se retire.
“El arte, al igual que los estudios sociales,
no es un tema de examen, y por eso lo que se
enseña es lo del examen,” dijo. Añadió que
los principales y los padres a menudo no
entienden los beneficios académicos que la
enseñanza de arte y de música puede tener.
Escuela invierte $2 millones
en nueva área de artes
Resistiendo la tendencia nacional de reducir la educación de arte en las escuelas, la
Escuela Superior Chárter Nueva Esperanza – respaldada financieramente por Nueva
Esperanza Inc., la organización comunitaria que la fundó – está invirtiendo $2 millones para
añadir 20,000 pies cuadrados al área de la escuela en Hunting Park que actualmente se
dedica al estudio del arte. El proyecto añadirá a la escuela de 600 estudiantes un taller para
cerámicas, un cuarto oscuro, un salón de artes visuales, un auditorio, un salón de cinematografía
y una galería de arte.
Con espacio dedicado a la educación de arte, la escuela superior chárter planifica inaugurar
una academia de arte que ofrecerá clases de cine, música coral, música instrumental,
teatro, artes visuales y baile a partir del otoño de 2007. El presupuesto de operaciones de la
escuela también financiará el salario de maestros nuevos para enseñar en el programa de
arte expandido.
“Se trata de crear oportunidades para los estudiantes de esta comunidad,” dijo David
Rossi, el principal de Nueva Esperanza.
Eunice Cho, estudiante de noveno grado en la Escuela Superior para las Artes Creativas e Interpretativas,
muestra la obra de arte que presentó para el show anual de arte estudiantil del Distrito Escolar, que
abrió en mayo en las oficinas centrales del Distrito en el norte de la calle Broad.
Creedon también dijo que es difícil encontrar
maestros cualificados, especialmente en
música. Señaló que muchas universidades
están produciendo maestros de canto que no
saben tocar bien el piano, y esta es una
destreza que se requiere para poder acompañar
a los estudiantes. “Si no pasas el examen práctico,
no te podemos contratar,” dijo él.
Hay tres tipos de maestros de música en
Es difícil encontrar
maestros cualificados,
especialmente en
música.
el Distrito, los que enseñan teoría y canto a
tiempo completo, los directores de banda y
orquesta en las escuelas superiores, y los
maestros itinerantes que van de escuela en
escuela enseñándole a tocar instrumentos a
estudiantes selectos. Este año, dijo, el
Distrito ha tenido 73 maestros de música itinerantes
enseñando música instrumental en
187 escuelas, cinco más que el año pasado.
Algunos principales dicen que quieren
maestros de arte y de música, pero que no los
pueden encontrar. Pat Mazzuca, principal de
la Escuela Intermedia Roberto Clemente, dijo
que el año pasado puso un anuncio para un
maestro de música y “no encontró candidatos
adecuados.” Por eso, cubrió la plaza con un
maestro de computadoras.
Kerri McGinley, en su primer año como
principal de la Elemental Dobson, una escuela
de Kinder a octavo grado en Manayunk, no
tiene esa opción. Con solamente 310 estudiantes,
Dobson tiene un salón para cada
grado y McGinley heredó dos maestros de
preparación a tiempo completo, que enseñan
computadoras y educación física.
Afortunadamente, dijo ella, tiene un
maestro de lectura y escritura que ha estable-
Photo: Harvey Finkle
cido un programa extracurricular de teatro y
música. Los estudiantes montaron una producción
de “Cenicienta” este año y tienen
planes de montar “Anita”, la huerfanita el año
próximo. Ahora están recaudando los fondos
para adquirir los derechos de autor.
Sin embargo, a ella le preocupa que no
todos pueden participar. La mitad de los estudiantes
de la Dobson son transportados en
autobús, y muchos de ellos no se pueden
quedar en la escuela porque no hay una ruta
más tarde. Otro problema es que los estudiantes
que tienen que tomar cursos remediativos
en las tardes no pueden participar en
las actividades de arte.
Ralph Burnley, principal de la Escuela
Intermedia Central East, no tiene maestro de
música y dice que no tiene los fondos para
contratar uno. Sin embargo, su escuela tiene
dos maestros de música instrumental a tiempo
parcial, y una maestra con maestría en
teatro que tiene un programa de actuación en
el que participa la mayoría de los estudiantes
de sexto a octavo grado.
“Nadie en la ciudad nos ha presionado
para que reemplacemos a los maestros de arte
o de música con maestros para preparación
o con programas específicos de lectura o
matemáticas,” dijo Burnley. Notó que un edificio
nuevo que se está construyendo para la
Central East incluirá un salón de teatro y
música.
“Aquí el arte y la música han sido algo
continuo, y los hacemos con pasión,” dijo.
“He asistido a las producciones teatrales en
la primavera, y visto cómo los niños cambian
como resultado.”
Dale Mezzacappa fue redactor sobre temas
de educación para el Philadelphia Inquirer y
ha cubrido las escuelas de la región por 20
años.
Traducción por Mildred S. Martínez.
10 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

Durante una discusión de mesa redonda, se expresó preocupación sobre el estado de las artes en las escuelas
Expertos locales dicen que la educación en arte
tiene el poder de beneficiar a toda la ciudad
por Paul Socolar
¿Cómo está la situación de la educación
de arte en las escuelas de Filadelfia? En una
animada discusión en mesa redonda organizada
por la revista Notebook el pasado abril,
un panel de nueve artistas, maestros de arte
y defensores de las artes expresaron apasionadamente
sus opiniones sobre el poder
transformativo del arte. También dijeron que
les preocupa el que la educación de arte está
en peligro en las
escuelas urbanas, y
ofrecieron estrategias
para realzar las oportunidades
limitadas de
arte que la mayoría de
los estudiantes de
Filadelfia tienen
disponible.
La enseñanza de
arte a menudo se ha
tratado como un beneficio
adicional por las
escuelas, pero los panelistas
estuvieron de
acuerdo en que la
mentalidad de
“enseñar lo que se
necesita para el exam-
en” y los presupuestos limitados han afectado
la programación de arte en años recientes.
Como resultado de estas presiones, es cada
vez menos probable que los estudiantes
puedan confiar en que tendrán clases de arte
y música de manera regular.
Eric Joselyn, maestro veterano de arte por
14 años, dijo que la clase de arte se considera
como algo adicional o no esencial; como
algo para matar el tiempo. Notó que la clase
de arte es la clase “de la que dan de baja a
los estudiantes para darles doble matemática,
doble lectura, o prepararlos para el examen.”
Jerushia Graham, que trabaja como director
de programas escolares para el Spiral Q
Puppet Theater de Filadelfia añadió, “Cuando
estamos en la escuela … los maestros están
bien entusiasmados por tener una oportunidad
de exponer a los estudiantes [al arte]. Pero
entonces llega la época de los exámenes, y
entonces es, ‘Oh, ahora no se pueden reunir
con los estudiantes por dos semanas, tres semanas.’”
Lynne
Horoschak, quien
fue maestra de arte
del Distrito y ahora
dirige la educación
de arte en el Moore
College of Art,
mencionó las presiones
que imponen
los presupuestos.
En una
escuela intermedia
local, una excelente
maestra de arte que
se va a retirar no va
a tener reemplazo –
“no porque el principal no quiere, sino
porque tiene un presupuesto de ‘X’ cantidad
y tiene que escoger opciones.”
“Los principales entienden”, añadió Germaine
Ingram, bailarina de tap profesional
que fue Jefe de Personal del Distrito. “No es
que no aprecien [las artes]. Es que tienen que
seleccionar entre un maestro de arte y una
bibliotecaria, o entre un maestro de arte y
[Curso Avanzado], o entre un maestro de arte
y libros.”
La situación actual contrasta bastante con
la programación que algunos panelistas
experimentaron como estudiantes en
Filadelfia hace muchos años.
Pero estos artistas, educadores y defensores
dijeron que no tenemos que regresar a
Magda Martínez
Las artes a menudo se
han considerado como
un beneficio adicional,
pero la mentalidad de
‘enseñar lo que se
necesita para el
examen’ y los
presupuestos limitados
han tenido su efecto.
hace cuatro décadas para encontrar modelos
de lo que un programa de arte debe ser. Un
modelo que tenemos cerca son las escuelas
de los suburbios, que cuentan con los fondos.
En las escuelas elementales de los suburbios
de Filadelfia, “cada una tiene un
maestro de música, y un maestro de arte,”
comentó Beth Feldman Brandt, miembro de
la Fundación Stockton Bartol Rush, y cuya
hija asiste a escuelas públicas suburbanas.
“Lo que debe ser no
es un misterio”, dijo
ella. En los suburbios,
“ofrecemos lecciones de
música instrumental en
la escuela durante el día
escolar. Al llegar a la
intermedia, todavía hay
música, pero también
hay un laboratorio de
comunicaciones, hay
video, hay dibujo por
computadoras. Al llegar
a la escuela superior,
entonces se pueden
seleccionar electivas.”
Todos los panelistas
estuvieron generalmente
de acuerdo en que una
fórmula apropiada para lograr una educación
de arte de calidad incluye clases regulares de
arte y música para todos los estudiantes, así
como electivas para los estudiantes interesados
en optar por instrucción adicional y
que quizás estén buscando una comunidad
de otras personas con los mismos intereses.
Pero las escuelas no se pueden conformar
con sólo eso, observaron otros. “Me gustaría
ver que los niños tengan una exposición
intensiva y continua a artistas,” añadió
Ingram.
Aunque nadie ofreció remedios rápidos
para la erosión de la educación de arte en las
escuelas, los participantes debatieron diferentes
estrategias para invertir la tendencia.
Los panelistas acordaron que las artes
tienen que permanecer como parte integral
del día escolar a la vez que también se consideran
alternativas tales como una mayor
coordinación entre el día escolar y los programas
extracurriculares.
Valerie Harris, directora de la Teen Writers
Academy, observó
que expandir el acceso
a las artes en las escuelas
no será fácil y dijo
que ella ve el fomento
y fortalecimiento de los
programas de arte basados
en la comunidad
como algo crítico para
sostener la educación de
arte. Ella y otros panelistas
trabajan en programas
basados en la
comunidad que cada
vez más reciben peticiones
para venir a las
escuelas a enseñar arte,
a menudo como artistas en ‘residencia’.
Brandt explicó, “Mi esperanza es que si
uno hace un buen trabajo, …[entonces] los
padres comenzarán a decir, ‘¿Cómo es que
no tienen esto todo el año?’”
Pero Horoschak advirtió que la meta principal
todavía debe ser tener maestros certificados
de arte, música, baile y teatro en las
escuelas que le enseñen a los niños todos los
días. “Me preocupa cuando los principales
dicen, ‘Vamos a traer este artista y a tener
una unidad de grabados con los estudiantes
de tercer grado por seis semanas. Esa es mi
clase de arte – y por lo tanto no necesito un
maestro certificado en arte.’”
La defensora de las artes Julie Hawkins,
directora de política y relaciones de gobier-
no para la Greater
Philadelphia Cultural
Alliance, señaló que el
estado de Nueva Jersey
“está realizando un estudio
obligatorio de todas
sus escuelas públicas para
ver a qué grado están
enseñando arte, qué tipo
de arte, cuántas horas, y
quién la está enseñando.”
Dijo que ese tipo de estudio
le comunica a las
escuelas que “hay alguien
internamente que definitivamente
considera esto
como una prioridad.”
Se percibía un sentido
de urgencia en este panel
en cuanto a usar el poder
de una buena educación
de arte para resolver los
problemas que enfrenta la juventud de
Filadelfia y el futuro de la ciudad completa.
“El arte te permite explorarte, darte cuenta
de quién eres y tener una voz,” dijo
Jacqueline Barnett, la secretaria de educación
de la ciudad, que antes fue bailarina de
ballet. “Nuestros estudiantes están pidiendo
a gritos que se les vea y se les escuche y que
se les permita expresarse, y se están haciendo
daño a sí mismos y a los demás porque
se sienten acorralados.”
“La idea de que uno es una figura creativa
en el mundo da mucho poder,” añadió
Magda Martínez, directora de colaboraciones
con la comunidad en el Fleisher Art Memorial.
Eric Joselyn y Jerushia Graham
“Yo creo que los artistas son verdaderos
expertos en ver esa posibilidad,” observó
Martínez. “Uno puede ver - uno puede imaginarse
la posibilidad antes de que ocurra.
Nada es más importante para una comunidad
cívica [que] un grupo de personas que ven
posibilidades – que se imaginan a sí mismas
en otra situación diferente a la actual.”
Benjamin Herold, miembro de la junta
editorial del Notebook, facilitó la discusión
y contribuyó a este artículo.
Traducción por Mildred S. Martínez.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 11

Art, music teachers dwindling
continued from p. 1
consolation. The neediest children may be
denied art and music instruction even where
it’s available because they must spend more
time on reading and math skills, they say.
“One of the most serious omissions in the
education of young people in Philadelphia is
the shameful fact that most of our lowestincome
children have no benefit of art or music
in the daily program at their schools, not just
‘afterschool’ or ‘occasional enrichment,’ said
Jo-Anna Moore, coordinator of art education
at Tyler School of Art at Temple. “It is actually
an income or class issue that the kids who
could benefit dramatically from the richest and
most diverse education opportunities have the
least. Surely we know that this is wrong.”
Lynne Horoschak, her counterpart at Moore
College of Art who spent 36 years in the District,
said that the focus on reading and math
skills has all but crowded out inventive, project-based
learning.
“The ability to integrate is gone,” Horoschak
said. “All the time is needed for reading/language
arts and math.” Such projects as “having
students write a play about the Renaissance”
lose out because of the focus on test preparation.
She said that when veteran art teachers
retire, they’re often not replaced, and programs
they’ve spent years building die out.
Dennis Creedon, the District’s administrator
for creative and performing arts, acknowledged
that No Child Left Behind has altered
the priorities of many principals, who may opt
to hire an extra reading teacher rather than
replace an art or music teacher who retires.
So many principals decided to drop art that
the District would have had to lay off teachers.
But officials intervened to make sure all current
teachers were placed, sometimes picking
up the cost centrally, Creedon said.
“Art as well as social studies is not tested,
so what is taught is what is tested,” he said. He
said that principals and parents often don’t
understand the academic benefits that art and
music instruction can have.
Creedon also said that finding qualified
teachers is a problem, especially in music. He
said many colleges are turning out vocal music
teachers who are not proficient pianists, which
they must be to accompany their students. “We
don’t hire you if you can’t pass a practical
exam,” he said.
There are three kinds of music teachers in
the District: those who teach theory and vocal
music full-time, band and orchestra directors
in high schools, and itinerant teachers who travel
among schools teaching instruments to
selected students. This year, he said, the District
has 73 itinerant instrumental music teachers
spread among 187 schools, five more than
last year.
Some principals say they want art and music
teachers, but can’t find them. Pat Mazzuca,
principal of Roberto Clemente Middle School,
said she advertised for a music teacher last year
and got “no suitable candidates.” So she filled
the position with a computer teacher instead.
Kerri McGinley, in her first year as principal
of Dobson Elementary, a K-8 school in
Manayunk, doesn’t have that option. With just
310 students, Dobson has just one class in each
grade, and McGinley inherited two full-time
prep teachers, who are in computers and gym.
Fortunately, she said, she has a literacy
teacher who has set up an extracurricular drama
and music program. The students put on “Cinderella”
this year and plan to do “Annie” next
year, raising the money for rights.
Yet, she worries about who gets to participate.
Half of Dobson’s students are bused in,
and many of them can’t stay after school
because there is no late bus. Another issue is
that students who need afterschool remediation
are shut out of participating in arts activities.
Recent School District arts initiatives
• Artists-in-residence. Some 200 artists are working in 40 elementary schools that don’t
have full-time art teachers in a program with the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership.
The artists work with classroom teachers on special projects. They spend 10 days in the school,
generally one day a week over a two-and-a-half month period.
• Rebuilding high school bands and orchestras. The District has put new marching bands
in Germantown, Kensington, Overbrook, Strawberry Mansion, West Philadelphia, and the
High School of the Future (opening in September). Fels, Frankford, Gratz, Lincoln, Northeast,
and Olney got new band instruments. Central, Fels, GAMP, Girls, Masterman, Northeast, and
Washington received new orchestra instruments.
• Performance and Outreach Model (POM). Students in underserved neighborhoods who
master the recorder have the option of taking instrumental lessons starting in fourth grade.
They get group lessons at their schools and can participate in new chamber orchestras or bands.
The District has spent $700,000 on new instruments for this program.
• Expanded summer activities. Students can participate in mural arts, pottery and other
activities during the summer. There are also marching band, string orchestra, and vocal music
summer camps.
• Partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This program brings fourth-graders
to the museum for lessons on the place of art in world cultures and the history of art in Philadelphia.
• Partnership with Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. Up to 20 new murals a year will
be created in and around schools over four years.
• Theater curriculum. The District has written a high school theater curriculum in conjunction
with Philadelphia Young Playwrights.
• Ethnic music programs. Two schools, Key and Kirkbride, will have Asian orchestras in
a partnership with the music group Eastern Melody; two others, Fairhill and McKinley, will
have cuatro (a Puerto Rican string instrument) programs in a partnership with the Asociación
de Músicos Latino Americanos. Taller Puertorriqueño is working with the District to expand
knowledge of Latin culture through music and art.
Ralph Burnley, principal of Central East
Middle School, has no music teacher and says
he can’t afford to hire one. But his school has
two part-time instrumental teachers, and a
teacher with a master’s degree in theater education
runs a drama program that touches most
students in the sixth-through-eighth grade
school.
“We haven’t seen any external pressure from
anybody downtown to replace arts or music
teachers with test prep or with programs that
fit directly into reading and or math,” Burnley
said. He noted that a new building being constructed
for Central East will include a drama
and music room.
“Art and music has been an ongoing, passionate
thing here,” he said. “I’ve been to drama
productions in the spring, and I’ve seen kids
turn around as a result of it.”
Dale Mezzacappa is a former senior education
writer with the Philadelphia Inquirer
who has covered schools in the region for 20
years.
12 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

New high school arts
programs launched
by Dale Mezzacappa
Photo: Harvey Finkle
Melody Clark, CAPA 11th grader
Creative and performing arts is one of the
most popular special programs within city public
high schools. And despite signs that it may
be difficult to recruit enough qualified teachers,
there are plans for expansion.
Lumped together in the School District’s
guide to high schools as “creative and performing
arts programs” are three distinct levels:
competitive admission schools that require
auditions, self-contained arts academies within
neighborhood schools, and schools that offer
a series of electives beyond introductory courses.
In the self-contained academies, students
are likely to take many of their academic courses
together and have a better chance of getting
arts into their rosters.
Program offerings do vary widely. For
instance, at Germantown High School, which
is designated as having an arts program, there
is no vocal music teacher.
Dennis Creedon, the District’s administrator
of creative and performing arts, said that
there are no written standards for these arts
programs, but added that schools must offer a
range of visual arts – drawing, painting, sculpture,
ceramics, printmaking, and crafts – as
well as music, drama, and different kinds of
dance. This year, he said, University City and
William Penn lost their designations because
their courses had deteriorated. There is also a
growing media arts program for web design
and filmmaking in the District, he said.
The gold standard is the audition schools,
which now include the High School for Creative
and Performing Arts (CAPA) and Girard
Academic Music Program. GAMP starts in fifth
grade, is for students who want to perform or
teach music, and does not have visual arts.
CAPA admits students in six fields or “majors”:
creative writing, dance, drama, instrumental
music, vocal music, and visual arts.
The District is planning two new CAPA
high schools in different parts of the city. One,
carved out of Kensington High School, opened
last fall and is awaiting a new building. The
other will open in September 2007 as an audition
school in the renovated Rush Middle
School in the Northeast. There is also discussion
of creating a CAPA high school in South
or West Philadelphia.
For middle and high school students whose
neighborhoods don’t have arts programs – and
for students attending new small high schools
that can’t offer art or music – Creedon said the
District will open regional Saturday arts programs
next year. It is also looking at ways small
high schools can share art and music teachers.
The District has also written a high school
theater curriculum for the first time, but may
have trouble hiring teachers because the state
now requires theater teachers to be certified in
communications as well as English. And dance
teachers must now be certified in vocational
education; until now, dance was offered
through the physical education department.
Several dance teacher prospects dropped out
after hearing the requirements, he said.
The other city high schools that have arts
programs are Fels, Frankford, Franklin Learning
Center, Girls, Germantown, Gratz, Lincoln,
Northeast, Olney, Overbrook, Strawberry
Mansion, Washington and West
Philadelphia.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 13

133 schools lack music teacher,
121 lack art teacher
As of May 2006, 133 Philadelphia schools (roughly half) do not have
a full-time music teacher and 121 do not have a full-time art teacher. Of
those schools, 66 have neither a full-time music teacher nor a full-time art
teacher. All those schools are listed below.
Many of the schools below expose their students to the arts through
other partnerships or activities. A classroom teacher in another subject area
may play a major role in supporting arts programming (see profiles on this
page). Many schools share one or more of the 73 “itinerant” instrumental
music teachers who come once or twice a week to teach a group of students.
Schools without full-time music teachers but with a part-time instrumental
teacher are marked with an asterisk.
Schools cite several reasons for not offering art and/or music. Some
schools have been unable to fill vacancies (any vacant music or art positions
are indicated on the lists), and may end up eliminating these positions.
Small schools have difficulty supporting both a music and an art teacher
out of their discretionary budgets. Budgetary constraints and a focus on
reading and math instruction are cited by District officials as reasons schools
lack full-time art and music instructors.
Schools with neither a full-time music teacher
nor a full-time art teacher:
AMY - NW *
Birney
Blankenburg *
Bluford * +
Bridesburg *
Carnell *
Carroll
Carver *
Cleveland *
Comegys
Communications Tech.
Cook-Wissahickon *
Crossan *
Day *
Dick
Dobson *
F.S. Edmonds *
Elverson
Emlen *
Finletter *
Fulton *
Gideon *
Harrington
Harrison
Hill *
Houston **
Howe
Kensington Business
Kensington Culinary
Arts
Kinsey
LaBrum *
Lankenau
Lea *
Leidy *
Levering * +
Logan
J. Marshall
T. Marshall *
McCloskey *
McClure
Meade
Mitchell
Motivation
Olney Elementary *
Overbrook Elementary
Schools lacking a full-time art teacher:
Anderson
Arthur
Bartram
JH Brown
Catharine
Cayuga
Comly
Daroff +
Disston
Dobbins
S. Douglas
Ellwood
Feltonville
Fitler
Forrest
Fox Chase
GAMP
Girard
Greenfield
Hackett
Hamilton *
Heston
Holme
A.S. Jenks
J.B. Kelly
Kenderton
Leeds Military
Academy
Longstreth
Mann
Mayfair
McDaniel
Meehan
Mifflin
Moffett
Morris
Nebinger
Pastorius
Parkway Gamma
Parkway NW
Pennell +
W.S. Peirce *
Phila HS for Business
and Technology
Potter-Thomas *
Randolph
Rhoads *
Robeson Human
Services
Saul
Sharswood *
Sheridan *
Sheridan West
Smedley
Smith *
Spring Garden *
E.M. Stanton
Stoddart-Fleisher
Turner *
Vaux *
Waring
Patterson
T.M. Peirce
Penrose
Powel
Pratt
Rhawnhurst
Rhodes
Rowen
Shoemaker
South Philadelphia
Steel
Sullivan
Washington Elem
Grover Washington
M.Washington
Wright
Youth Study Center
Ziegler
Schools lacking a full-time music teacher:
Adaire *
AMY at James Martin*
Baldi *
Barry
Barton *
Bethune *
Blaine *
Bodine *
Bok
Bregy *
H.A. Brown *
Cassidy
Central East
Clemente * +
Clymer
Cooke
Creighton *
F. Douglass
Drew
Duckrey
Dunbar
H.R. Edmunds * +
Elkin
K
E
Y
Ferguson *
Franklin HS
Furness
Gillespie
Gompers *
Hancock
Harding *
Hartranft
Huey *
Jackson
Jones
W.D. Kelley *
Key *
Kirkbride *
Lamberton
Lamberton HS
Leeds
Lewis
Lingelbach *
Lowell *
McKinley *
McMichael
Olney East/705
Source: School District of Philadelphia
Parkway-CC
Pennypack
Pennypacker *
Pickett
Prince Hall *
Reynolds
Roosevelt
Roxborough
Rush *
Sheppard
Stetson *
Sulzberger
Swenson *
Taggart
Taylor
E. Vare
Webster *
Whittier *
Willard
Wilson El
Wister
* part-time teacher (in most cases, this is an itinerant
instrumental music teacher)
+ vacancy (unfilled art or music teaching position)
Teaching the arts in Ph
Teaching the arts in Ph
Philadelphia’s 268 schools include selective high
schools requiring auditions that regularly turn out
professional artists and also schools without even a
part-time art or music teacher – with no formal
course offerings in the arts. No matter where a
DIANE DANNENFELSER
Title/position: Vocal Department Chair, Girard
Academic Music Program (GAMP); music theory
teacher; choir conductor.
Experience: 30 years, 25 at GAMP.
Availability of the arts at GAMP: GAMP is a college-preparatory,
selective admission magnet school
with a required music theory and choral curriculum.All
students take music theory and perform in the school
choir. They may also take instrumental music lessons.
Every other year, GAMP produces a musical. GAMP
serves grades 5-12 with 550 students from all parts of
the city.There is no art teacher at GAMP.
“We have great leadership… We don’t really do without
here.” Jack Carr started GAMP 30 years ago with
55 fifth- and sixth-grade students. His vision is reflected
in the GAMP mission statement: “We cannot tolerate
another generation that knows so much about destroying
life, but so little about enhancing it.We cannot permit
our children to come into their maturity as masters
of the atom and gene, yet ignorant of the ways of the
human mind and heart.”
Vision of arts education: “Ideal arts education
would have one period each day for some form of art.
One class per week is not enough to enhance someone’s
life….Art is an outlet for our emotions—for joys
and sorrows. In art, no one is segregated. Art teaches
the inner connectedness of all people.”
Successes: The music staff team-teaches, and the academic
staff works to integrate music into their subjects.
GAMP annually produces a winter and a spring concert.
They produce a musical every other year.They also perform
20-30 gigs every year—from Temple’s Music
Festival to mayoral, District, and community functions.
Over 90 percent of GAMP seniors attend college.
Challenges: “The same kids are in everything.The one
who’s good at baseball is the same kid who sings and
who plays in the orchestra. So that’s hard.Also, there are
lots of students who are forced to work, and it’s hard
to get them here after school.They juggle a lot, but we
always say here,‘We'll find a way.’”
Grads talk about
the influence of
their school years
■ The Notebook tracked down a number of
Philadelphia public school graduates who are
accomplished in the arts and invited them to
respond to the question: How did your arts
experience in Philadelphia public schools affect
your development as an artist? Here are the
responses we received.
school falls on that spectrum, there are likely to be
teachers committed to offering quality arts instruction
and arts experiences to their students. Here are
WILLIAM CASEY
Title/position: Full-time art teacher, Jay Cooke
Elementary School, grades K-8. Teaches visual arts
including drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, and
crafts.
Experience: Eight years teaching, seven at Cooke.
Availability of the arts at Cooke: Full-time ar
teacher with dedicated art room and kiln.Artist-in-res
idence program, featuring professional artist Diane
Pieri, supported through an Art Partners grant from the
Delphi Foundation through the Philadelphia Museum o
Art.There is no music teacher at Cooke.
“The main thing is that Mr. Branch, the principal, is an
artist himself. He used to teach art here at Cooke, and
he is a big advocate for the arts. He provides any sup
plies I need, and he will write grants to bring in extra
resources.”
Vision of arts education: “I was a lead writer for
the District’s middle school core curriculum. I empha
size group projects. I’ve always focused on group public
art projects with my eighth grade students. It helps to
improve the appearance of the school, connect students
with art in the community, and give the students more
ownership of what they make. I want the kids’ arts
experiences here to be both positive and memorable.”
Recent successes: After Pieri’s initial residency, she
was invited to stay and create the Cooke Museum o
Art, which gives students the chance to exhibit their
work in a professional-style display in the school’s mar
ble hallway.Two major television networks covered the
museum’s opening last year.
Through the Art Partners grant, Casey and Pieri have
developed a Locker Art Mural Project, with rows of hall
way lockers painted in the style of noted Japanese artis
Honami Koetsu (see photo).
Challenges: “The biggest challenge is scheduling
Block scheduling helps, because I get the same students
every day for an entire marking period, and you can ge
better projects done this way. If you had a different class
every period, every day, it would be impossible to do
the type of projects we do. But 90-minute blocks have
been whittled down to 45 minutes, and I’m seeing more
kids for less time.”
Teller
Magician, Penn & Teller
My artistic mentor was David G. Rosenbau
tral High School English teacher and drama
was also a magician. He was a man who had
faith in the power of classic dramatic literature
ly staged “Oedipus Rex” in modern dress in t
school assembly. He gave his young actors th
and “depth acting” training to carry off his con
of “Macbeth” in which magic tricks were ada
in the poetry.
Rosey (as we called him) and I spent innu
about theater and stage magic in the drama club
The ideas we developed there inform everythin
formal acting training I ever had, and it has sto
Rosey himself was a superb actor, deep an
tor to magicians’ journals, and a magician of g
immense style, verve, and presence. Rosey di
I’m working on a new bit or walking onto a st
(c)2006 Buggs & Rudy Discount Co
14 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK •

,
t
-
f
-
-
f
-
-
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.
t
iladelphia: five schools, five stories
iladelphia: five schools, five stories
five examples of teachers who pursue arts education
in a variety of ways at a variety of schools across the
city.
LAUREN BEAL
Title/position: Seventh grade science and Spanish
teacher, student government advisor, Academy of the
Middle Years (AMY - NW)
Experience: 5 years, 3 at AMY - NW
Availability of the arts at AMY - NW: There is no
art teacher on staff at AMY - NW. The students’ only
formal exposure to the arts is one music class per week
with an itinerant music teacher. However, as a school in
the District’s Emerging Scholars program, AMY has created
enrichment clusters. “They’re every Friday. The
teachers select what they want to teach, and students
sign up for a course they’re interested in. We have
Chinese brush-painting, history of rock and roll, designing
spaces….They all have a culminating project that will
be showcased at a school arts festival.” The end-of-year
festival was a student’s idea and is being organized by
AMY’s student government with Beal’s support.
Beal was a recipient of a Picasso Project grant for AMY
to bring professional performers, to buy art supplies,
and to “raise the level of the arts” at the school. The
Picasso Project awards grants from $500 to $5,000 for
projects that enhance the integration of the arts into
the curriculum and classroom. It is a nonprofit fund run
by Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth.
Vision of arts education: “I would love for there to
be a formal arts program… but in its absence, students
need the chance to explore as many experiences as
possible. While we don’t have an art teacher, teachers
try to incorporate art as much as possible into their
classrooms. It’s necessary.”
Recent successes: An eighth grade AMY student won
the Northwest Region art contest, and four students
were admitted to the Youth Artist Workshop at Moore
College. “Our principal is excellent about finding
opportunities for students, and the teachers are good
about following up on them .… The kids being able to
explore and getting to do art is a success.”
Challenges: “Small schools have fewer resources. The
rigorous core curriculum can make it difficult to do
art… but it’s important because we have some very talented
students who have no way to showcase it. This
year, we just started the enrichment clusters after the
PSSA. But next year, we’ll have them all year.”
m, my Cencoach,
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style of a
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ceptions. He devised a performance
pted to enact the terrifying images
merable afterschool hours talking
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od me in mighty good stead.
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charm. He carried himself with
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age, he’s right there inside me.
rp. Not to be used or reprinted without permission.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons
Filmmaker, www.NOtheRapeDocumentary.org
Interviews: Clarisse Mesa and Benjamin Herold
Photos: Harvey Finkle, Benjamin Herold, & Ron
Whitehorne
FRANK BURD
(shown with band teacher Elisabeth D’Alessandro)
Title/position: Math, theater, and photography
teacher, Germantown High School.
Experience: 23 years. Taught at Germantown from
1973-76, taught at Parkway, and took time away from
teaching before returning to Germantown in 2000. Also
directs theater professionally.
Availability of the arts at Germantown: Fulltime
teacher for fine arts and for instrumental music; a
jazz band, concert band, and drumline; courses in dance,
theater, and photography.“This year, I taught three math
courses, a yearlong theater course, and a yearlong
photo course. Next year, I will have four math courses
and the theater and photo courses will be half-year
because of the budget cuts.”
Produced and staged five plays in the past four years,
including “The Colored Museum,” “Good Black Don’t
Crack,” “A Raisin in the Sun,” and, this year,“The Wiz.”
Vision of arts education: “I hated block rostering
for math, but I loved it for theater and photography.
Now that we’re back to a regular roster, I wonder what
is the future of the arts? For the brighter academic students
[who have the roster flexibility to choose electives],
it will always be available. But what about the students
who may be struggling academically who might
thrive in the arts?”
Recent successes: “This year, we were able to put on
a musical, ‘The Wiz,’ because the band teacher
(D’Alessandro) helped out a lot and because lots of
groups contributed.We had to rent lights and a sound
system … a school should have that, but we don’t. I
went to Halloween Adventure the day after Halloween
and bought all the costumes at 60 percent off.”
D’Alessandro noted,“The administration … finds a way
to get us what we need, to provide us with the flexible
scheduling to take on these types of projects.”
Challenges: “I directed the fall play at Cheltenham
High School. They have a real budget, three people to
work on it, and it’s all after school. At comprehensive
high schools in the city, most of the kids have jobs,
babies, or brothers and sisters they have to take care of
after school, which means you can’t do after school, and
it can make it really hard to rehearse.”
I attended AMY Center City (Alternative Middle Years) from 1980
to 1983. My experience at AMY played a transformational role in my
educational career. Classes were small, students had a lot of access to
the teachers, and there were a lot of extracurricular activities. The arts
were an integral part of the educational process. I was supported and
nurtured by almost all the staff. Three teachers – Gloria Mitchell,
Sonjia Stanton, and Ricardo Martin – not only demanded my acade- Photo: Scheherazade Tillet
mic excellence but also encouraged my creativity, supporting my academic
and creative journeys long after I graduated.
After AMY, I attended Philadelphia High School for Girls. At Girls’ High, academic
excellence was supported, but my creativity wasn’t. But there was one teacher, Irene Farley,
who created a special class, “Contemporary Women‘s Studies,” that planted some of the
seeds for my recently completed feature-length documentary NO!, which is about rape, sexual
violence, and healing in African American communities. One of the greatest gifts that I
received from Girls’ High is the lifelong friendships, sisterhood, and camaraderie with some
of the most creative and prolific cultural workers, scholars, and activists that I have maintained
for almost 20 years. Through these connections, I have been inspired and challenged
to create work that makes visible the invisible.
SAM REED
Title/position: Sixth grade language arts and social
studies teacher, Beeber Middle School.
Experience: Eight years, all at Beeber.
Availability of the arts at Beeber: Young
Playwrights program, various resident artists, annual
Poetry Café. Beeber has a visual art teacher: all students
take art one marking period per year. A small number
work with an artist-in-residence on mural arts. The
school has a vocal music teacher, three student choirs,
one for each grade, and a share of two instrumental
music teachers.
Reed praised his principal, Deborah Jumpp, for supporting
staff in creating arts programs and for starting an
arts magnet program at Beeber. “I’m really proactive
about finding grant funding so we can have these programs.”
Beeber also has a grant committee that works
to secure funding for arts programs.
Vision of arts education: “Effective arts have to
have hands-on components, be engaging, and lead to a
space for kids to showcase their work . . . . Students have
a reason to want to read, to research, and to cooperate
with the arts, so it’s a productive exchange. Art helps
kids mediate the problems they’re having . . . .You have
to look closely at the world to write a story about the
world, so the arts support students to read, think, and
write critically.”
Recent successes: One of Reed’s students won the
Young Playwrights competition last year. The Poetry
Café began in Reed’s classroom and has grown every
year.This year, it is a schoolwide competition with corporate
sponsors donating prizes. “When you build
strong partnerships, you get credibility and can leverage
that to get more grants and more support.
Organizations want to work with you when they know
you’re doing something of value.”
Challenges: Being able to balance arts and the standards-based
curriculum is one challenge, but Reed
explains that the arts must be integrated into other
classes. Class size is a challenge when working with
partner organizations because many prefer or require
smaller groups than the 33 that teachers often have.
Involving all students is a challenge. “Two-thirds of the
class may be engaged, but one-third … their enthusiasm
dies off when they realize it’s still work.You really have
to push them.” Though he works to involve other classes,
Young Playwrights primarily reaches his own students.
Jeffry Kirschen
Musician, member of the
Philadelphia Orchestra
My musical career started at
Farrell Elementary, where I was
given an aptitude test and then a
cornet and orchestra rehearsals.
Kirschen with Yo Yo Ma
This continued until, at age 13, I
heard the French horn – or simply “horn,” as it should be called
– at Wilson Jr. High School. I quickly switched to the horn. I was
so excited to be a member of the Band and Orchestra that I would
meet the conductor, Joseph Simon, at 7 a.m. to set up the chairs
and stands.
While at Northeast High School, I was part of a group of enthusiastic
musicians, many of whom are now professional musicians.
We took over the music department, then directed by Henry Perlberg,
and created our own “club.” I spent more time there than
any other place in the school. It was then that I knew that I wanted
to be a performer. Thanks to the Philadelphia schools, I was
able to take the first steps toward a fantastic career and a great life.
WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG • SUMMER 2006 15

Principals who strive to keep arts education at the center
■ While maintaining strong
programs, they say emphasis
on testing has made it more
challenging to spend time on
the arts.
by Beandrea Davis
In a school system where shrinking budgets
and test preparation pressures are pushing
arts education to the margins, is it reasonable
for principals to think about building
strong arts programs in their schools?
According to principals at six Philadelphia
schools with a proven track record in
ARTS
and
SCHOOLS
engaging students in
the arts, the answer
is a resounding
“yes.”
Principals at six
schools – Beeber
Middle, Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter
(FACTS), Meredith, Powel, E.M. Stanton,
and Nueva Esperanza Academy Charter
High School – sat down with the Notebook
to talk about how they maintain a school curriculum
that sees the arts as an integral part
of a well-rounded education.
Citing Harvard researcher Howard Gardner’s
theory of “multiple intelligences,” principals
consistently said art education at their
schools is about educating “the whole child.”
“People learn differently,” said Principal
Deborah Jumpp of Beeber. “When we work
with the whole child, kids are better able to
learn.”
Principals said the District’s increased
emphasis on preparing students for federally
mandated standardized tests in reading and
math has made it more challenging to spend
time on the arts – a field where achievement
isn’t measured by traditional testing.
A number of studies suggest that students
who take art and music in school on average
perform better academically than students
who don’t, a notion which principals said
motivated them to keep making arts a priority
in their schools.
If students are exposed to a solid academic
program that meaningfully includes arts,
“the tests will take care of themselves,” says
FACTS Principal Debbie Wei.
Meredith Principal Stuart Cooperstein was
quick to point out that his students score well
above the state average on the PSSA, Pennsylvania’s
standardized test, and he attributed
this to the school’s strong arts focus.
“The self-esteem students gain from the
arts – they take that back into the classroom,”
said Cooperstein.
Envisioning arts in schools
Developing a clear vision for art education
in schools is critical in building a strong
arts program, advised these principals.
Wei said she encourages school leaders to
ask, “What is the purpose of your arts program?
What do you hope arts will do in your
school?” and then let these goals determine
the design of the program.
At FACTS Charter School, values such as
compassion and community responsibility
are central to this new school’s vision, which
Wei said is to “recreate community within a
fractured society.” She added that both staff
and students learn about folk arts “as a vehicle
to carry types of knowledge that are being
lost within the community.”
Meredith’s art program was founded to
help desegregate city schools during the
1970s and it continues to draw half its 420student
enrollment from outside its Queen
Village neighborhood.
Meredith has one teacher each in music,
“This experience
caused me to get another
organization more involved in helping
an under achieving school.
I look forward to your next
conference.”
Mable Ellis Welborn, Chairman
Zion Non-Profit Charitable Trust
art, dance, and drama, and there are three student
performances a year. Students in grades
K-3 have art and music twice a week, and
classes are split into halves to allow for small
group instruction and extra academic support.
Starting in grade six, students select an art
“major,” which they have two periods a week
in addition to their other subjects.
“We're trying to develop an interest in the
arts in children who may not even know they
These principals
consistently said art
education at their schools
is about educating
‘the whole child.’
have an interest yet,” said Cooperstein, who
said he asks teacher applicants what they can
bring to the arts program, regardless of their
specialty area.
Throughout their yearlong “Cultural Arts”
classes, students at E. M. Stanton School in
South Philadelphia repeat the saying: “Everything
is art. Art tells the story. Everyone’s an
artist.” By studying thematic units about cultures
from each continent, the Cultural Arts
program at Stanton weaves visual arts, music,
dance, and drama together with language arts,
math, and social studies.
“Our mission is to change the narrow
See “Arts” on p. 17
School invests $2
million in new arts
facilities
Bucking a national trend to scale
back arts education in schools, Nueva
Esperanza Charter High School –
backed financially by its founding community
organization Nueva Esperanza
Inc. – is investing $2 million to expand
current arts facilities at the school in
Hunting Park by 20,000 square feet.
The project will add on a ceramics
room, a darkroom, a visual arts room,
an auditorium, a film media room, and
an art gallery to the 600-student school.
With dedicated space for arts education,
the charter high school plans to
launch an arts academy that will offer
courses in film, choral music, instrumental
music, theater, visual arts, and
dance starting in Fall 2007. The
school’s operating budget will also be
funding new teachers to staff its art
expansion.
“It’s about creating opportunities for
the students of this community,” said
16 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

Principals
continued from p. 16
thinking about what art is,” says Stanton
teacher Susan Kettell.
Ultimately, arts become marginalized
unless they are infused throughout the entire
curriculum through strong staff collaboration,
said Wei. “It won’t work if your arts are off
in the corners.”
Accessing resources
Principals say that taking advantage of the
centrally allocated music and arts resources
is important. Beeber, Meredith, Powel and
Stanton all maintain a set of musical instruments,
and students study with “itinerant” or
traveling music instructors once a week. There
are now 73 itinerant music teachers serving
186 schools in the District.
Principals also emphasized the importance
of volunteer parent support in running a highquality
arts program. Cooperstein noted that
Meredith’s Home and School Association
raises money every year to support the arts
program, and parents have testified before
City Council to fight budget cuts.
With competing demands and shrinking
school budgets causing cuts in art and music
staffing, many principals have turned to community
partnerships and outside grants to keep
their arts programs strong.
• Powel – a small school serving grades
K- 4 that cannot afford to hire a full-time art
teacher – has received thousands of dollars
from various grantmakers, including Honda,
Young Audiences, and the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts.
• Through E.M. Stanton’s relationships
with twelve external partners, students are
regularly exposed to master teachers in ceramics,
choral music, orchestral violin, theater,
drumming, and other arts. In addition, Bain-
bridge House – a local community organization
– has raised money to support the program
for the past eight years, which has given
the school’s “Cultural Arts” program stability
over the long-term.
• Meredith was recently adopted by the
Walnut Street Theater through a competitive
grant and has received thousands of dollars
in outside funding in Cooperstein’s thirteen
years at the school.
• At FACTS, grants secured by the
Philadelphia Folklore Project – one of the
school’s founding organizations – have
brought six master artist residencies to the
school that have exposed children to a variety
of folk arts, including storytelling, South
African musical traditions, Cambodian costume-making,
Chinese opera, martial arts, and
African dance.
• Modest grants from the Pennsylvania
Council on the Arts have funded several mural
projects at Beeber, where artists-in-residence
work with students and teachers to link arts
with language arts and history.
“Whatever we have been able to do [in arts
education] has been from taking advantage
of grant opportunities,” said Powel principal
Marjorie Neff.
But even without grants, principals might
still access outside resources that boost arts
instruction, said Wei. For example, she suggested
schools could offer rehearsal space to
community arts groups in exchange for arts
instruction.
“Dance troupes need places to practice,”
she said.
Read more about the budget challenges
facing these principals: see the May Newsflash
online at www.thenotebook.org/newsflash/2006/may/
Contact Beandrea Davis at
beandrea@alumni.upenn.edu.
Photo: Harvey Finkle
At Beeber Middle School in Wynnefield, modest grants have funded several mural projects
like this one, led by artists-in-residence
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 17

School and city leaders point to the need for resources, a balanced curriculum, and a compelling vision
Funding seen as key to restoring arts programs in schools
by Paul Socolar
Local and state education officials and civic
leaders expressed concern and in some cases
surprise at the Notebook’s report on declining
numbers of full-time art and music teachers in
Philadelphia schools (see story, p. 1). Full-time
music teachers are lacking at 133 of the District’s
268 schools, and 121 schools lack an art
teacher.
While a variety of factors may have contributed
to the decisions of schools not to maintain
art and music teaching positions, most of
the local and state leaders interviewed said the
key to fixing the
ARTS
and
SCHOOLS
problem is securing
adequate financial
resources to support
arts programming.
For many, the limit-
ed staffing of arts programs in Philadelphia
pointed directly to the thorny issue of school
funding reform.
But there was no disagreement among those
interviewed about the value of strong arts programs
in schools.
“Nobody can demean the value of having
arts flourish in public schools,” said School
Reform Commission member James Gallagher,
who is president of Philadelphia University.
“We know what that’s like – we’ve
seen it in our lifetimes.”
District officials point to a time as recently
as the early 1970s when every school had art
and music teachers, middle and high schools
had a band or orchestra, and more than 20 central
office supervisors coordinated regional and
citywide music and arts activities.
“I think we have to aspire to get back to
that,” Gallagher stated.
School Reform Commissioner Dan Whelan
said art and music ought to be offered in
schools “without exception.”
Whelan said he was “surprised” at the
reported decline in numbers of art and music
teachers and commented, “I don’t think we
should be dropping or curtailing art.”
Another commissioner, Sandra Dungee
Glenn, added, “I look at art and music as fundamental
parts of education. It is very troubling
that we still don’t have the resources to
provide full-time art and music teachers in all
of our schools.”
Whelan acknowledged that financial realities
may force schools and the District to make
“hard choices,” but he expressed optimism that
money could be found to support arts education.
But Dungee Glenn said, “We still have to
face the fact that as a district in the state of
Pennsylvania we do not have adequate structural
funding support to provide quality education
as any of us would define it. That’s still
the fundamental problem.”
Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s policy
director, Donna Cooper, noted that those
issues are up for debate in Harrisburg right
now. “We need the legislature to support the
kind of increases in school funding that are
called for in the Governor’s budget,” Cooper
said. “With those kinds of increases,” she
added, “we should be able to either forestall
other cuts or hopefully even enable some of
the past cuts to be restored.”
Gallagher noted that funding for arts education
is one of a number of areas of need and
said the SRC has discussed “putting a fiveyear
budget together and putting all of our aspirations
in that budget.”
“It would be quite sobering when we see
how much money we need to do it,” he added.
“But at least it would cause us to attack the
problem or attack the opportunity.”
CEO Paul Vallas acknowledged, “Until the
federal government starts really prioritizing
education and until the state and the city invest
more in their schools, we’re going to continue
to struggle.” But he stressed the progress
his administration has made in expanding arts
opportunities through outside partnerships,
new curriculum guides, and investments in art
supplies, musical instruments, and textbooks.
Vallas observed that besides financial constraints
on schools, a key factor in the loss of
music and arts teachers is “the focus on language
arts and math – because there are a lot
of schools that are focusing on the core subject
areas.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of Education Gerald
Zahorchak spoke to the widespread concern
that the pressures to improve test performance
in reading and math may be crowding
out the arts: “There are ways to raise reading
and math scores without narrowing the curriculum
to only reading and math.”
“It ought not be viewed as an either-or
proposition,” added former Governor Mark
Schweiker, head of the Greater Philadelphia
Chamber of Commerce. “Exposure to art is as
important as mastering two-digit addition.”
Zahorchak said he sees the arts playing a
leading role in successful schools across the
state. Touting the integration of arts across
the curriculum, Zahorchak said, “It is project-based
education that students learn best
from.”
He added that leadership is a critical variable
in ensuring a curriculum that goes
beyond basic skills to “support the development
of critical, creative, problem-solving,
and interpersonal skills.”
Schweiker expressed confidence in CEO
Paul Vallas’ “having the will … so ultimately
a way will be found…. I think he understands
this connection between the economic
well-being of the city and the region and
nurturing the love of creativity and art.”
Schweiker went on, “We’re not going to
have the fruits of innovation if we don’t plant
the seeds of creativity in the classrooms. . . .
The region and society are going to pay a price
if we don’t succeed at re-establishing the balance.”
Others shared Schweiker’s sense of
urgency. “If we keep on the current path, we’re
going to disenfranchise the next-generation
leaders who haven’t had the opportunity to
experience the arts on a consistent, daily basis,”
said Julie Hawkins, Director of Policy and
Government Relations at the Greater Philadelphia
Cultural Alliance.
Hawkins added, “Our local educational
leadership needs to articulate the connection
between strong arts education and strong public
schools, and lead the effort to make that
vision a reality.”
Contact Notebook editor Paul Socolar at
215-951-0330 x107 or pauls@thenotebook.org.
18 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

At roundtable discussion, concerns expressed about state of arts in schools
Local artists say power of arts education could benefit whole city
by Paul Socolar
What is the state of arts education in
Philadelphia schools? In a lively April roundtable
discussion organized by the Notebook,
a panel of nine
ARTS
and
SCHOOLS
artists, art educators,
and arts advocates
provided passionate
insights on the
transformative
power of art, expressed concerns that art education
is imperiled in urban schools, and
offered strategies for enhancing the limited
arts opportunities available to most Philadelphia
students.
Arts instruction has often been treated as
an extra by schools, but “teaching to the test”
and tight school budgets have also taken a toll
on arts programming in recent years, the panelists
agreed. These pressures make it less
likely that students can rely on having art and
music on a regular basis.
“You’re a class over there, you’re added
on, you’re the leftover, you’re the prep,” said
14-year veteran art teacher Eric Joselyn. He
noted that art is the class “that they pull the
kids from to get their double math, to get their
double reading, to get their test prep.”
Jerushia Graham, who works as director
of school programs for Philadelphia’s Spiral
Q Puppet Theater, added, “When we’re in
school … teachers are really excited about
having an opportunity to expose the kids [to
artmaking]. Then it gets closer to testing time,
and it’s, ‘Oh, you guys can’t meet with the
kids for two weeks,
three weeks.’”
Lynne
Horoschak, a former
District art teacher
who now directs art
education for Moore
College of Art,
brought up budget
pressures. At a local
middle school, a
strong art teacher who is retiring is not being
replaced –“not because the principal doesn’t
want to, but because she has a budget of ‘X’
amount, and she has to make choices.”
“Principals understand,” added Germaine
Arts have often been
treated as an extra, but
‘teaching to the test’
and tight budgets have
taken a toll.
Ingram, a professional tap dancer who is former
District chief of staff. “It’s not that they
don’t appreciate [the arts]. It’s because they
have to choose between an art teacher and a
librarian, or an art teacher and [Advanced
Placement], or an art teacher and books.”
The current situation stands in stark contrast
to programming that some panelists experienced
as students in Philadelphia years ago
(see box).
But these artists,
educators, and advocates
said we don’t
have to go back four
decades to look for
models of what art
programming should
look like. Well-funded
suburban schools are
one nearby model.
At elementary
schools in the Philadelphia suburbs, “we each
have a music teacher, we each have an art
teacher,” commented arts funder Beth Feldman
Brandt of the Stockton Bartol Rush Foundation,
whose daughter has attended subur-
ban public schools.
“It’s not a mystery what it should be,” she
said. In the suburbs, “we give instrumental
music lessons in
school during the
school day. When
you get to middle
school, there’s
still music, but
there’s also a
media lab, there’s
video, there is
computer draw-
Jacqueline Barnett
ing. When you
get to high
school, you can pick electives.”
There was general agreement among the
panelists that an appropriate formula for quality
arts education included regular art and
music classes for all students as well as electives
for students interested in opting for additional
instruction and perhaps looking for a
community of like-minded individuals.
But schools shouldn’t stop there, others
observed. “I would like to see kids exposed
in an intensive and ongoing way to practicing
artists,”
Ingram added.
While nobody
offered quick fixes
for the erosion of
arts education in
schools, participants
debated different
approaches
to reversing the
trend.
Panelists
Lynne Horoschak
agreed that arts must remain an integral part of
the school day while also considering such
possibilities as stronger coordination between
the school day and afterschool programming.
Valerie Harris, director of the Teen Writers
Academy, observed that expanding access
to arts in the schools will not be easy and said
she sees building and strengthening community-based
arts programs as critical to sustaining
arts education. She and other panelists
work with community-based programs that
are increasingly being tapped to come into
schools to teach arts, often in formal artist
“residencies.”
Brandt explained, “My hope is that if you
do that well,
…[then] parents
start saying,
‘How come they
don’t have this all
year?”
But
Horoschak cautioned
that having
certified art,
Valerie Harris
music, dance, and
drama teachers in
schools, serving children every day, should
still be a key goal. “I get worried that principals
say, ‘We’re going to have this artist come
in and have a print-making unit with the third
graders for six weeks. That’s my art – and
therefore I don’t need a certified art teacher.’”
Arts advocate Julie Hawkins, director of
See “Local Artists” on p. 20
In memoriam
Public School Notebook sadly mourns
the passing of longtime friend Rosemary
Cubas, director of the Community Leadership
Institute, who was a courageous and
determined fighter for civil and human
rights in Philadelphia’s most neglected
neighborhoods. Her tireless commitment
to empowering Philadelphia communities,
to building alliances, and to addressing the
connections between issues of jobs, housing,
education, and racial justice serves as an
inspiration to carry on that work.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 19

Participants describe ‘formative experiences’ Artists, educators discuss state of arts
Roundtable participants were asked to
describe formative arts experiences that
had an impact on how they view arts education.
Lynne Horoschak: “I taught K-5 and
special needs children. The absolute best
times [were] in collaboration with the classroom
teachers. Having the arts infused into
the classroom, where [students] are learning
social studies and history and geography,
really tweaked the children’s excitement
and energy. It also took art out of the
art classroom. Like, “You don’t do art in
this room – you do art with your life.”
“[There] is a book, Traveling to Ancient
Greece, written by Philadelphia public
school kids who were seven years old. It
was written and illustrated in class. It came
about because everything about ancient
Greece was up at this level [indicating over
children’s heads]. Instead of bellyaching
about it, we said, ‘Okay, we’ll make our
own textbook.’And this is the textbook now
that [this] school uses when they’re teaching
ancient Greece to the second graders.
Their whole life, [those students] will never
forget doing that book.”
Valerie Harris: “I went to John Bartram
High School in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, and
I was an art major. That meant that I went
to art class in eleventh grade for a full period
every day. As a senior, I went for a double
period every day. It was an elective, so
I was with like-minded students. Art now
is no longer that kind of selective kind of
situation. For those of us who have worked
in the schools, it’s not easy. I’ve worked
with students who were not really interested,
and I found [them] to have an inhibiting
effect on those students who were.”
Eric Joselyn: “For me, it was a space
we could go and hang – I chose to go to the
art room after class. When I had a choice,
I chose to hang with those [art] teachers.
My thing was the alternative space: a funky,
counterculture art teacher who was supportive
of kids who weren’t the achievers
in sports or academics; emotional support
for the people who weren’t fitting in the
other ones; and an implied different set of
criteria for success within the school.”
Jacqueline Barnett: “I went to the High
School of Creative and Performing Arts and
was a dance major. The teachers were creative
in their methodology and their pedagogy.
Having Carolyn Pritchett as my English
teacher, we would dissect Death of a
Salesman and then talk about it, narrate it,
or re-enact it. [We would] figure out what
would that sort of pain look like in dance,
or how would that be expressed in music
or in a theater production. To me, I think
that arts allows for critical thinking that is
absent from strictly adhering to test questions.”
Germaine Ingram: “At Girl’s High in
the early ’60s, I had individual violin
instruction from teachers who were
employed by the public school system.
Every year the orchestras from the various
high schools would have a competition. We
played the Ruy Blas Overture. And I just
have this very distinct recollection of being
in the middle of something that was so
much larger than myself. And that had a
profound impact on my sense of what community
means, of what it means to be a part
of something that is engaged and engaging
and committed and constructive.”
continued from p. 19
policy and government relations for the
Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, pointed
out that the state of New Jersey “is mandating
a survey for all of its public schools
about to what extent they are teaching arts,
what type of art, how many hours it entails,
and who’s teaching it.” She said that such a
survey sends a message to schools that “someone
on the inside is clearly making this a priority.”
There was a sense of urgency on this panel
about using the power of good arts education
to address the problems facing Philadelphia's
youth and the city's future as a whole.
“Art allows you to self-explore, figure out
who you are and be able to have a voice,” said
Jacqueline Barnett, the city's secretary of education
and a former ballet dancer. “Our kids
are screaming to be seen and to be heard and
to have expression, and are hurting themselves
and others because they are boxed in.”
“The idea that you are a creative figure in
the world is empowering,” added Magda Martinez,
director of community partnerships at
the Fleisher Art Memorial.
“I think what artists really are good at is
seeing possibility,” Martinez observed. “You
see – you imagine possibility before something
happens. Nothing is more important for a civic
community [than] a group of people who see
possibility – who can imagine themselves in
other than the present state they’re in.”
Notebook editorial board member Benjamin
Herold facilitated the roundtable discussion
and contributed to this article.
20 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

NCLB: taking a toll on arts and music education
■ Shift in instruction noted in
nearly all districts serving lowincome
students.
by Ron Whitehorne
As school districts across the nation respond
to the challenges of the No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) law, children are spending more classroom
time on reading and math and as a result
some are spending less time on music and art.
A study by the Center on Education Policy
in Washington, D.C., released in March of
this year, found that 71 percent of school districts
surveyed
ARTS
and
SCHOOLS
reported that they had
reduced instructional
time in elementary
schools for one or
more subjects in
order to increase time spent on reading and
math. In 22 percent of the districts, elementary
music and art instruction had been
reduced, according to administrator reports.
Impoverished districts were the most affected
by the shift in instruction. Nearly all the districts
serving large numbers of low-income
children, 97 percent, said they mandated additional
time on language arts instruction, compared
to 55 percent of districts with few poor
families.
NCLB: theory and practice
NCLB includes the arts in its definition of
core subjects, which would appear to be a
boost for such instruction. Former Secretary
of Education Rod Paige declared in a 2004
open letter to superintendents that “the arts,
perhaps more than any other subject, help students
to understand themselves and others,
whether they lived in the past or are living in
the present.” He said that states and districts
have enough flexibility under the law to
include arts in their curriculum and enumerated
places where they could ask for discretionary
federal money for arts programming.
In practice, however, a narrowing of the
curriculum due to the law’s emphasis on testing
results in reading and math is increasingly
evident.
“I don’t think the arts have been singled out
for cuts because of NCLB,” explained Larry
Peeno, deputy director of the National Arts
Education Association, which monitors trends
in staffing and support for arts. “Now you have
social studies people complaining just how arts
people always have. . . . Now when we talk
about the ‘core subjects,’ it’s really been narrowed
down to just two [reading and math],
despite what the law says.”
A story that appeared in the San Francisco
Chronicle is representative of the nationwide
trend. Havenscourt Middle School in
Oakland, in an attempt to boost test scores,
requires students to take double periods of
math and English every day. Electives have
been eliminated, and children who want arts
education have to get it after school from volunteer
teachers. But schools with more
resources, often in more affluent neighborhoods,
have been able to retain electives by
extending the school day.
In Philadelphia, where offering art or music
is a school-based budget decision, the picture
varies greatly from school to school. Such budgetary
decisions are based on many factors,
including the pressures for remedial reading
and math instruction, cutbacks in overall allotments
to schools, and availability of qualified
teachers. A Notebook analysis of District
teacher data found that only about a quarter of
elementary schools have both a vocal music
teacher and an art teacher, and one out of five
have neither.
The Notebook analysis found no correlation
in Philadelphia between whether a school
has art or music instruction and whether a
school makes adequate yearly progress (AYP)
under NCLB, a benchmark based almost
exclusively on reading and math scores.
The Center for Education Policy report has
“set off a firestorm in policy circles, editorial
boardrooms, and in Washington DC,”
reported the blog of the Music for All Foundation.
One of the most outspoken critics of the
reported trend has been Arkansas Governor
Mike Huckabee, chairman of the National
Governor’s Association as well as of the Education
Commission of the States.
In a recent letter to the New York Times,
Huckabee wrote, “Across the nation, schools
are trimming back financing for music and
the arts in the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘core
subjects.’ This is beyond short-sighted. It’s
stupid…. Numerous studies affirm that a student
schooled in music improves his or her
SAT and ACT scores in math, foreign language,
or creative writing. Creative students
are better problem-solvers; that is a trait the
business world begs for in its work force.”
Another kind of criticism came from 12year-old
Ulukaulupe, an Oakland middle
school student, who, after his second math period
of the day, told the San Francisco Chronicle:
“No offense, but it’s kind of boring.”
Ron Whitehorne is a retired teacher and
member of the Notebook editorial board.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 21

Marc Lamont Hill, Akiba Solomon discuss the vitality of the art form
Two hip-hop enthusiasts connect rapping and reading
by Yulanda Essoka
Given the value and popularity of hip-hop,
Marc Lamont Hill and Akiba Solomon think
the idea of incorporating rap into the school
curriculum has merit.
And when these hip-hop pundits talk, people
listen.
Hill is an assistant professor of urban education
at Temple University, authors a popular
column titled “The Barbershop Notebooks,”
and was recently named by EBONY Magazine
as one of America’s top 30 Black leaders under
thirty years old. Solomon is currently the senior
editor of Vibe Vixen, cut her teeth at the pioneering
hip-hop magazine The Source, and co-
ARTS
and
SCHOOLS
edited the recently
released book
Naked: Black
Women Bare All
About Their Skin,
Hair, Hips, Lips and Other Parts.
And oh, by the way, they graduated from
Philadelphia public high schools – Hill from
Carver and Solomon from Central.
Both young and not far-removed from the
classroom, they agreed to share with the Note-
book their memories and their perspectives on
the role of art – and specifically hip-hop – in
schools.
Hill said he views art as an essential means
of expression. “Art allows us to be better and
reimagine. It provides a roadmap to possibilities,”
he said. And since
many kids are tuning out
school, he believes the
District needs something
groundbreaking and
transformative like rap
music to reach students.
Hill, dubbed a “hiphop
intellectual,” added
that hip-hop provides an
authentic context to
attract and engage students in instruction in a
meaningful way. Educational research indicates
that when this occurs, student attendance
and motivation are increased, which impacts
academic performance.
Hill suggested that hip-hop as an art form
can be used to connect students to their cultural
history of resistance and struggle, to
examine female identity, and to develop critical
media literacy.
“Rap can be used as a bridge to learn other
things like literary interpretations, history, science,
or math,” stated Hill. “Rap is a mnemonic
device that John Dewey talked about” and
can be used to facil-
itate learning.
Solomon shared,
“A large percentage
of creative kids are
bored, with no
means [to express
themselves], and
might find unproductive
ways to use
their talent. Expressions
of genius need a place to live because
they’re going to come out.”
Solomon said she views hip-hop as a constructive
medium for self-expression. She
observed that “hip-hop can be a catalyst for
conversation” about the issues that are critical
to young people and that confront them daily
– politics, misogyny, poverty, drugs, and education.
Incorporating hip-hop culture and rap music
into the curriculum may provide a context to
engage students in instruction but also may
have a positive impact beyond the classroom,
according to Hill and Solomon.
“Hip-hop is a visceral, urgent art form that
gives voice to the disenfranchised and marginalized,”
Solomon said. She added, “It’s a
platform to speak about what’s happening in
the community. It provides humanizing narratives,
not a narrative painted by the media.”
Given the power of hip-hop, Hill suggested
that the District stay in close conversation
with young people. “It’s often the ‘suits’ that
decide what is culturally relevant, and [as a
result], schools have a narrow concept,” he
said.
Skepticism about the staying power and
cultural impact of hip-hop music has not been
limited to education administrators. Both Hill
and Solomon recalled that rap music was not
recognized by the National Academy of
Recording Arts and Sciences, Inc. with a
Grammy Award until 1988 because it was
viewed as “Black” music and faddish.
Despite this, both Hill and Solomon view
hip-hop as a vital art form. They consider challenges
to the genre’s significance as immaterial,
claiming that even though hip-hop has
existed for almost thirty years, staying power
should not be the measure of what is relevant.
“Hip-hop is an essential part of Black youth
culture and American culture,” according to
Hill.
Solomon added, “Rap is extremely valid.
It’s just another part of the continuum that started
with African people. It’s not an isolated art
form.”
In the past decade, there has been a shift
in the rap music audience, as White and Latino
youths have gravitated to hip-hop media.
Hip-hop’s appeal to a broad, racially diverse
audience can be attributed in large part to its
use as a means of expression for the voiceless.
Hill remarked that this common ground shared
by rap’s distinctive audience is fertile for educators
to nurture and incorporate into instruction.
In addition, he stated that the District could
Hill believes the
District needs something
groundbreaking and
transformative to reach
students.
take advantage of the uplifting messages that
See “Hip-hop” on p. 23
Attention parents!
Your voice matters! In mid-June, the Notebook
will hold two discussions to gather
feedback from parents/guardians about how
to enhance the design and content of the Notebook.
These two parent focus groups will take
place on a weekday evening. A stipend will
be offered to participants. If you are a
interested in taking part in a discussion, please
call the Notebook at 215-951-0330 x107 or
email notebook@thenotebook.org.
22 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

Hip-hop
continued from p. 22
resonate from hip-hop. “The discourse of hiphop
is skeptical, wary, and inimical regarding
education, but not anti-education,” Hill
explained. “Hip-hop is about knowledge of
self and navigating the system, never about
being anti-intellectual or rejecting knowledge.”
When asked if art had a significant positive
impact on his own secondary education,
Hill recalled, “My [Northwest Philadelphia]
neighborhood didn’t have resources so I was
bused to the Northeast, but even there they
were lacking. There was a music and art
teacher, but I wasn’t involved in the arts. I was
killing time and not exposed to possibilities
and how art is a window into the human experience.”
His experience with hip-hop, however, was
quite different. Hill reminisced about the indelible
imprint KRS-One’s music left on him.
“BDP’s Criminal Minded clicked for me
Photo: Harvey Finkle
Lamar Wakefield, 12th-grader at Franklin Learning Center, poses with his work at the
opening of the School District’s annual student art show in May.
because the information provided by the song
was recognizable, but new. It gave a new take,
a new spin. I saw my neighborhood articulated
on wax,” he explained.
Ironically, Solomon shared that attending
a “good” school did not guarantee her arts
instruction. “I went to Central, where we had
art, but you needed to be on a certain track to
get it. So if magnets don’t have it for everyone,
other schools are really hurting.”
Perhaps the vivid lyrical imagery and
matchless beats that qualify many rappers and
emcees as bona fide artists will one day be
integrated into the District’s curriculum.
However, Hill questioned whether the District
has the requisite tools to successfully do
so – intellectual currency, cultural capital, and
desire. He commented, “I can imagine it, but
not without a bunch of transformation.”
Yulanda Essoka is a member of the Notebook
editorial board and a special projects
assistant for the School District.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 23

Art lessons from NYC: use city’s rich resources to restore arts education
by Jolley Bruce Christman
Not long ago, draconian budget cuts decimated
arts education in New York City’s public
schools. Music and art teachers disappeared from
school rosters as principals confronted harsh
choices about what was essential and what was
“luxury” in an era of austerity. The Board of Education
drastically streamlined its support role.
But today, an abundance of arts-focused
partnerships and a re-commitment by the New
York City Board of Education to the arts make
it a model for arts education.
How did New York’s arts education bound
back from the bleak days of the 1980s and 90s?
Strong intermediary organizations advocating
for the arts and brokering vibrant partnerships
and a responsive NYC Board of Education are
big parts of the answer.
A huge catalyst was Walter Annenberg’s $20
million challenge grant. The Center for Arts
Education (CAE), an intermediary organization
established in 1997 with Annenberg funding,
aimed its efforts at “restoring” the arts in
the city’s curriculum and budget while building
a model for collaboration among schools,
artists, cultural institutions, community groups,
and colleges.
CAE reached out to form an alliance with
the Department of Education, the city’s Department
of Cultural Affairs, and the United Federation
of Teachers. Together, they mounted a
public awareness campaign about the value of
the arts. They put signs on buses and created
high visibility for student art work by mounting
exhibitions in public spaces. CAE also provided
up to $60,000 for worthy partnerships
between schools and arts organizations.
Meredith McNeal, a longtime communitybased
arts educator, commented that the CAE
“shamed the Department of Education into paying
some attention to the arts. Of course it also
generated lots of partnerships through its grants
programs.” A survey by the Arts in Education
Roundtable shows that during 2004-05 local
arts organizations contributed $25 million of
their own funding to public school arts programming.
The New York State Department of Education
has also played an important role in the
city’s arts education renaissance by creating
Empire State Partnerships (ESP). Less interested
in efforts around the edges, ESP is dedicated
to transforming schools through the arts.
ESP offers a summer seminar for school planning
teams and has established leadership networks
so that existing expertise can be tapped
by schools beginning to envision how the arts
might change their schools. At this summer’s
seminar, school teams will create a vision for a
new school culture where the arts play a central
role. They will then use “backward design” as
a planning tool for making that vision a reality.
What do ESP partnerships look like in
action? At IS 49 in Brooklyn, the recent exhibit
Body Works displayed students’ artistic interpretations
– painting and sculptures – of internal
organs. Together, the Rotunda Gallery and
IS 49 established a permanent gallery space in
the school. Contemporary artists from the
neighborhood worked with IS 49 teachers and
students to integrate art-making into the science
curriculum. Body Works was one of three
exhibits mounted at the school last year.
Andrew Christman, an arts educator formerly
with Rotunda Gallery, explained why efforts
such as Body Works hit the mark. “Collaborations
don’t need to be huge, but the goals must
be clear, centered on the kids, and assessable.”
Christman was also clear about the reciprocity
of the partnership: “Yes, IS 49 got a fantastic
gallery space that has become a hub of artistic
expression. But Rotunda staff and neighborhood
artists got to learn at the feet of a master,
Mike Kaye, the school’s art teacher, about what
art skills are developmentally appropriate.”
For its part, the Department of Education
recommitted to arts education in three big ways.
First it developed the Blueprint for Teaching
and Learning in the Arts, laying out a sequential
approach to teaching and learning in the
visual arts and music for students K-12. While
it’s early to definitively assess the effectiveness
of the Blueprint, McNeal and Christman are
grateful for the systemwide spotlight it has
shone on the arts.
Second, the Department of Education instituted
the position of arts supervisor in each of
the city’s regions. Responsibilities include
accessing cultural resources, developing partnerships,
establishing a professional development
program and curriculum projects, and
planning region-wide events. Christman noted,
“The quality of the arts in a region is largely
dependent on the vision, energy, and enthusiasm
of its supervisor.”
Third, it established Project Arts, a fund for
arts education which can be tapped to match
private funding and pay for professional development
and arts materials.
The small schools movement has also been
a force, generating numerous arts-themed
schools, including the New York City Museum
School, founded in 1994. The school’s approach,
says its website, is to use museum resources to
provide “not just an appreciation of fine art but
also a firm foundation in fundamentals like science,
history, and English.” Students use museum
collections to learn about the pyramids of
Egypt and the excesses of French monarchs.
They visit museums twice a week to engage in
interdisciplinary projects co-planned by their
teachers and museum educators.
The lesson from the Big Apple: in arts education,
it clearly takes a city.
Jolley Bruce Christman is a principal
researcher at Research for Action.
Teachers: SIGN UP NOW for a FREE
Interactive Reading in Summer School,
Extended School Year & Fall term-Sept. 07
24 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

Photo: Frank Burd
Tahree Clemons, Anteya Jones, Antonio Satchell, and Jabari Bell starred in this spring’s performance
of The Wiz at Germantown High School.
SUMMER 2006 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG 25

Understanding the collisions between the arts and literacy
■ Literacy has been redefined
to meet the needs of the knowledge
economy
The Community Arts and Literacy Network
(CALN) held a conference at the
Church of the Advocate in North Philadelphia
on March 17, where over 50 participants
talked all day about how arts based
in neighborhood centers, schools, and
afterschool programs could promote and
widen the power of literacy for ordinary
Philadelphians.
Independent organizations that bring
artists and musicians together with children
and their parents are essential for the cultural
life of the city, particularly at a time
when many schools are pulling back from
the commitment to teach all students the
visual and performing arts.
The partners in CALN include two arts
organizations – Art Sanctuary and Asian
Arts Initiative – and two units of Temple University
– Tyler Art School’s Community Arts
Program and the Writing Program’s New
City Writing. CALN was funded by the John
S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Deborah Brandt, professor of English at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was
one of three speakers invited to comment
on the proceedings at the end of the March
17 conference. What follows is an edited
version of her commentary on the arts and
competing definitions of literacy.
by Deborah Brandt
I study literacy and the ways that people in
the everyday gain access to literacy and how
they are rewarded for their literacy. The rise
of the so-called “knowledge economy” and
the social changes that it brings put tremendous
pressure on the teachers and learners of
literacy these days.
Community arts also are being affected and
pressured by the current attempt to redefine
literacy. We are seeing the ascendancy of a
definition of literacy for work, for productivity,
that lies behind so many of the literacy policies,
standards, and tests that we see in schools
now. Because of our current system, the economy
needs more and more workers who spend
more of their days manipulating symbols –
usually print symbols
and other kinds of
graphics. Our schools
are getting caught up in meeting the inexhaustible
demand for this form of literacy.
One of the obvious pressures this has
brought is that the arts have been pushed out
of the schools. I've heard this complaint over
and over: that there’s no curriculum for the
visual arts, no time for the arts, that arts are on
the defensive. That’s one direct result we’ve
seen in this relationship between the redefinition
of literacy for certain narrow ends and its
effect on the arts.
But I also saw today an articulation of a different
definition for literacy. Lorene Cary of
Art Sanctuary was talking about the arts, communication,
and literacy as a breakthrough of
the divine, as a method for healing, as a way
for political expression to occur when other
avenues are not available. Many people today
have linked literacy with free expression, selfexpression,
human development, the right to
be. This has been a definition of literacy that
has brought great things to the society at various
times, and it’s getting pushed away.
I see the organizations represented here and
the teachers in attendance trying to keep this
definition alive and present in society and in
the lives of children. It’s such important work
to do, even though everybody here recognizes
it’s being done under great difficulty.
There were also many people here talking
about where there were collisions between
C O M M E N T A R Y
bureaucracies in schools and community organizations,
power differentials between large
and small institutions. These are important
ways to analyze problems when they occur.
But keeping in mind that there are competing
definitions of literacy can also be a way to
approach certain head-on institutional collisions.
I think people in the arts are in a tough position.
I was in a group
talking about an afterschool
art program
that found the school curriculum was pressuring
their after school activities, and the program
had to keep proving that it was carrying
out the literacy needs of the school. The person
I talked to was fine with that because she
recognized that the arts do do some of the very
things that the knowledge economy actually
needs. The economy needs creativity, it needs
great communicators, and it needs people who
can cross over lines and divisions. It needs
community building and work in groups.
So it’s tricky to find what might be shared
by what I think of as literacy for production
and also by literacy for self-expression. We
need to find where the two definitions indeed
share common ground and perhaps where they
don’t.
There is a battle going on against a singular
dominant definition of literacy for productivity
that is encroaching, encroaching,
encroaching. People who want to resist that
definition need to find ways to be aware of it,
address it, and have a language for struggling
with it.
26 PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC SCHOOL NOTEBOOK • WWW.THENOTEBOOK.ORG SUMMER 2006

What would we gain by valuing community-based traditions?
Imagining equity in arts education
by Debora Kodish and Deborah Wei
ferent credentials than might be presented by making, varied definitions of aesthetics and see themselves in that picture. And students
In a nondescript building in the midst of specialists in European elite traditions. beauty.
would see that there are passions and commit-
Chinatown, the old wooden stairs rise steeply But things could be different. We dream of But for many reasons – including the visements in life that mean more than money or
to a 3rd floor studio where men, women, boys a more deeply inclusive, democratic and plugrip of commercial media, meager public fund- material consumption.
and girls practice intricate moves, speaking in ralist notion of art: of arts education that truly ing for arts, and public misconceptions that folk At our new Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures
hushed tones as if in a library. Colorful paint- reflects the diverse histories and cultures of arts are trivial or exotic – these vital forms of Charter School, our music teacher, Dawn Pratings,
Chinese calligraphy, and photos of teach- Philadelphia public school students.
community expression are rarely present in son, recently responded to people’s common
ers long past hang from the walls of Sifu We dream that
meaningful ways in our remark, “I can’t sing” or “I can't dance.” She
Cheung’s kung fu studio. Children here prac-
O P I N I O N
tice movements over and over, occasionally
artists with expertise
in world cultural traditions
are in our
classrooms, teaching
a wide range of arts
We dream of arts
education that truly
reflects the diverse
classrooms.
Folk arts, music and
dance tend to be most
visible in our schools
on ethnic holidays or in
asked that we stop repeating these phrases,
reminding us that we are trying to build a
school where everyone can dance, everyone
can sing, everyone can make art.
These capacities to freely express ourselves
being corrected, and always knowing that the
expectation is that the student is patient and
diligent. The first lesson they learn is that nothing
comes easy. Art is hard work; it requires
in their historical and
cultural contexts. We
imagine these artists
teaching free classes
histories and cultures of
Philadelphia students.
school festivals. The
occasional class, festival
performance, or
assembly program only
are deeply human: they are fundamental
impulses. We live in a time and a place where
these natural forms of expression have become
commodities. Many of us have come to believe
practice and perseverance. These are critical after school and on
reinforces the absence, that only those who have won a record contract
life lessons rarely available in our schools. weekends, offering real chances for young peo- on an everyday basis, of these significant forms can sing, and the rest of us should feel shame in
While all arts face cutbacks and feel the pain ple to master some of the city’s diverse, cul- of expression. When folk arts appear through lifting our voices. When we silence ourselves
of redirected priorities, folk arts and the masturally significant folk traditions–from Philadel- a “holidays” approach, they are ripped out of in this way, we lose important ways of being
ters who practice them have been kept on the phia-style rhythm tap dance to Afro-Cuban bata any meaningful context. The complexity, dif- human, important means of freedom and
margins in K-12 education. The music and art drumming, jazz to klezmer, Trinidadian steel ficulty, and danger of folk arts disappear in this expression.
forms taught in our schools tend to derive from drums to Irish bodhran, Hmong paj ndaub to artificial setting. Students lose the chance to In this context, folk and traditional artists
elite European traditions: European “classical” Chinese lion dance, and more. We dream of understand where these arts come from, how in our city are models not only because of their
music and “contemporary” visual arts as taught fair pay for artists from the city’s neighbor- they are used, and why they are important. They mastery of technique and their ability to create
in art schools and music conservatories (as if hoods–including locally-born artists who have lose the chance to witness and learn patience, meaningful, beautiful, and challenging expres-
the cultures of the world don’t boast their own been in the forefront of cultural heritage move- discipline, and different ways of seeing, hearsions, but also because of the way they have
classical and contemporary forms).
ments here and immigrant artists formerly in ing, and moving in the world.
lived their lives. They can remind us that there
There is a common false assumption that the national performance companies of their Think what it would be like if we opened are many ways to sing, dance, and make art.
folk and traditional arts are “easy” and that any- homelands.
up our schools to value all of the city’s folk arts. These days, we need all the lessons in freedom
one can teach ethnic music, dance and culture. In a city as diverse as ours, this dream Students would learn that every community of expression that we can get – for our children
One reason people assume this is simply that shouldn’t be so difficult to achieve.
makes art and has an artistic and cultural her- and for ourselves.
we lack opportunities to see great artists in these Music, dance, crafts and oral traditions – itage. Students would know that there may be
traditions. Another reason is that legitimate the folk arts of diverse communities and cul- great artists living right around the corner from Debora Kodish is the director of the
masters of specific cultural traditions, artists tures – have long been present in Philadelphia them.
Philadelphia Folklore Project. Deborah Wei is
who have spent lifetimes learning these arts, neighborhoods. Folk arts sustain peoples’ alter- Democratizing our teaching of arts to fully the principal of the Folk Arts-Cultural Trea-
are often prevented from working in schools native cultures and histories and provide a include folk traditions means that students sures Charter School, which was founded this
because tests and entrance criteria inevitably record of what culture and history feels like. would gain a fuller, more complex picture of past year by Asian Americans United and the
exclude those who have equally valid but dif- And folk arts represent diverse forms of art- what arts can allow, and they would be able to Philadelphia Folklore Project.
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