The economy is going down hill. Airplanes are being grounded. Mortgages are being foreclosed. China is up-ing their prices on exports. The price of oil is skyrocketing. The government isn’t doing their job in preventing large corporations from being naughty… All this means that most likely our country and consequently the world is headed straight for recession.
We live in times when money is tight and is just getting tighter. Schools are being forced to put their money into programs that will teach kids how to do better on tests. (This of course is a huge generalization, but with NCLB it seems like this is the trend) With the seemingly eminent recession, my thoughts go to the future of art education. Will the recession have an effect on the way people view the importance of art? Will art programs have their funding pulled more readily? Will our new president do something that changes the state of art in schools as it stands today? Will any of this really matter? What will happen to the arts in our schools?
Maybe the economy will bounce back quickly and the world will be a better place. Maybe whoever our new president winds up being, he/she will be able to convince the department of education to totally revamp our education system and all of our education woes will be solved. And maybe pigs will fly.
Perhaps this is a pessimistic view on the state of the union in general and the future of art education in particular. Perhaps I am just tired and can’t see any easy solutions to the huge problems our nation suddenly seems to be skipping into. I can’t help but wonder if the falling economy will directly affect how our schools are funded. If public schools lose funding, guess which department will be the first to lose their budget… You guessed it.
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