The following links will provide comprehensive information:AB2446: The bill as written, presented, and voted on.
Joe Landon, CAAE Policy Director, Direct Testimony to the CA State Ed. Hearing Committee
Richard Kessler, a member of the New York City Department of Education's Chancellors Advisory Council for Career and Technical Education (CTE) and a self described "big supporter of CTE" called AB 2446 "completely backwards to a 21st century career and technical education." Read his statement about how the bill would hurt CTE and arts education.
LA Times Art Critic Christopher Knight weighed in on AB 2446 in a blog last week describing it as a "foolish bill." Knight lauded efforts to provide Career and Technical Education, bu...
Letters that need be sent to appropriate committee members (copy, paste in Word and send to these addresses) : (There are TWO letters here. The first one was sent by several educators in April. The second one is a tweak of the first. You may use either one with date adjustments....)
April 15, 2010
Dear Honorable Committee Member, (Fill in name from list)
This letter is in regards to AB2446. The consequences of this bill will be devastating to art education in the public schools of California. While Career Tech classes are valuable options for students, this bill will eventually pit one curriculum against another. We support strong arts programs taught by certified teachers.
I must include an impassioned plea for the value and power of the arts in public education.
1. The arts teach 21st century skills, those skills most needed by students entering contemporary work environments. Those skills include resourcefulness, innovation, problem solving, collaboration, and independent thinking. Few classes in public school curriculum offer this education today.
2. The arts teach empathy and the consideration of multiple perspectives, an imperative skill in our global and sometimes contentious world. Learning empathy in regards to world cultures teaches citizenship in ours and supports the democratic values we embrace.
3. The arts improve academic achievement on many levels: test scores, attendance, attitudes toward learning, social skills, and critical thinking. They employ the higher thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
By adding Career Technical Educational courses as another option for graduation, arts education programs will suffer, courses will be cut, and jobs will be lost. Once an arts class is replaced, it is not likely to return. Consider the meaning of a well rounded education that teaches the whole child.
Please vote no on this AB2446.
Sincerely, (sign your Name, address, email, and phone number)
May 9, 2010
Dear Honorable Committee Member, (Fill in name from list)
Please consider:
- Arne Duncan, Education Secretary of the United States under President Obama says, “The arts can no longer be treated as a frill,” yet California continues to diminish access to and viability of the arts, particularly with AB2446.
- While career-tech curriculum continues to gain momentum, particularly with STEM emphases, the arts must not only remain be actually be enhanced. Twenty-first century skills for 21st century education and careers demand the building of higher thinking skills: analysis, synthesis and evaluation as well as skills in resourcefulness, innovation, problem solving,
collaboration, and independent thinking. The most powerful arena in which to teach and foster these skills is the Arts.
- Global citizenship and commerce is creating a new platform upon which our students must participate in order to craft successful personal and democratic futures. The arts teach this citizenship; they teach empathy and consideration of multiple perspectives.
For these and innumerable other reasons, I ask you to vote NO on AB2446. This bill sends not only the arts but a well rounded education for California school children reeling back to the industrial age of education. Let us NOT go backwards.
Sincerely,
Name, address, email and phone number.
