Arts Education in California Public Schools Have Term Paper

Arts Education in California public schools have become a permanent feature in advancing their extra curriculum. It seems to benefit majority of the students, as such a subject is helpful in exercising a kids' mind while concentrating on other area. Though the governor of California needs to allocate monies for such programs so that in the upcoming years more students can benefit by participating in these areas.

Education- Curriculum

Arts education is taking a wild turnover, introducing new methods, variety of opportunities in schools and colleges, hence elaborating it into a vast subject.

While we contemplate about its roots, we must extract its importance in our daily lives and the role it plays in a person's daily developments. Most schools offer their students arts, music and theatre as an extracurricular activity, in order to expand and exercise their mental capability. Achieving outstanding grades in subjects, such as Maths, Latin, English, French, History and so on, is what most students aim for in elementary and high school education. Having arts and music as a subject have exceeded the education program level in most public and private schools.

Until the 1900s students were in a dilemma, which school to attend, unless there were parents who were wealthy enough to pay for private schools. Yet some parents were in a disarray, to look for schools in accordance their residence, leaving little choice for children. The school choice movement made an attempt to end this confusion, by allowing the students to select schools of their own choice.

Public School Choice Vs Private School Vouchers: (http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2001/fb060801.htm)

Thus giving these students the freedom of movement, as more and more students choose their schools and their subjects accordingly.Such a step alerted many schools all over the state to upgrade their budgeting in most subject, specially arts, which requires a vast variety of materials and programs. California being one state where the arts council remains flat at a little over $1 million towards their general funds, in comparison to other states. Their Arts Advocates and many others are working with legislators to increase alternative proposals in public funding in their arts program. In September 2003,

AB 1512 was signed by the governor Schwarzenegger and chaptered by the secretary of the state, which establishes the Arts Work Visual and Performing

Arts Education Program. This program has been administered by the California

Department of Education, as separate from the local Arts Education Partnership

Program. (California Budget Action Alert: (http://www.artsed411.org/involved/budget.stm)"The reason to expand Arts

Work is to award grants to local educational agencies to develop their capacity in order to implement their high quality." Since its inception in 1999, the this program has funded over 32,000 schools, serving 6 million students and 90,000 teachers.

Governor Davis' May revision proposal for the 2002-2003 state budget suggests revenue offsets of 5% because of 'federal funding increases', while 70% of those increases comes through the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), the largest single education program being operated from Washington. Some difficulties with this proposal may occur due to reasons such as,

NCLB monies flow from Washington, whether or not California is in debt.

2.By targeting the use of these monies for the state "K-12 priorities" the governor is apparently eliminating the very impact of NCLB program for the most, at risk students.

3.Around $130 million is….....