Advocacy 101 for Arts Education
marker on paper, 8″ x 10″, Jan. 7, 2016
In a panel moderated by Heidi Carlsen, four of the Bay Area’s most effective advocates for art and education discussed lessons they’ve learned and how to apply those lessons to future arts education advocacy. The event was organized by Arts Providers Alliance of San Francisco (APASF, which is becoming Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area, AEABA).
Each panelist talked about lessons they have learned from the advocacy campaigns they each took part in - these ideas are included in the sketch-notes above.
Here are some links and resources to learn more about:
- Improving and passing the renewed PEEF
- The 2010 school board debate cosponsored by Performing Artists Workshop and KQED.
- Battling Prop 13 with Evolve
- Arts for a Better Bay Area’s fully transparent, member-driven process
- The “Arts is the Root” video you should share with everyone
One idea that came up is to be ready to talk about how arts can meet the current needs of our schools. Many of our schools get “Title 1″ funding and Title1arts.org/ is full of resources to make you argument. For deeper diggers, Artsedsearch.org/ is a directory of peer-reviewed studies.
After the panel spoke and answered questions, we broke up into two groups to sit around tables and discuss what actions steps we could each commit to and wrote ideas down on large pieces of paper (see below).
Panel of Speakers from left to right in the sketchnotes:
Jessica Mele of the Hewlett Foundation (formerly of Performing Arts Workshop), one of the organizers for the successful passage of Proposition C in 2014 in San Francisco, the Children and Families First Initiative which reauthorized millions of dollars of city money to support children, youth and families.
Ben Grieff of Evolve, a community organization focused on reforming Proposition 13. Proposed constitutional amendment SCA-5 would reform the commercial aspect of Proposition 13 by regularly reassessing commercial and industrial property at their fair market value, and would restore $9 billion annually to public schools and services by making some of the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.
Katherin Canton of Arts for a Better Bay Area - ABBA successfully lobbied the mayor’s office for a significant increase in funding in 2014 for the arts agencies in the city’s budget.
Michelle Holdt, Founding Executive Director of Arts Ed Matters, will share some school site advocacy strategies to engage teachers, administration, and families in supporting a strong presence of the visual and performing arts in schools.
