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MUSIC MEDLEY Duncan Speaks On 'The Well-Rounded Curriculum' The following is an abridged version of Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks at the Arts Education Partnership National Forum in April 2010. I f there is a message that I hope you will take away from today's conference it is this: The arts can no longer be treated as a frill. As First Lady Michelle Obama has said, "the arts are not just a nice thing to have or do if there is free time or if one can afford it... Paintings and poetry, music and design... they all define who we are as a people." All of you know the history all too well. For decades, arts education has been treated as though it was the novice teacher at school, the last hired and first fired when times get tough. But President Obama, the First Lady, and I reject the notion that the arts, history, foreign languages, geography, and civics are ornamental offerings that can or should be cut from schools during a fiscal crunch. The truth is that, in the information age, a well-rounded curriculum is not a luxury but a necessity. I am not going to sugarcoat the tough choices that many districts are facing this year. State and local school budgets are absolutely strained across the country. Many of you are fighting lonely battles to preserve funding for arts education. There is no getting around that fact — and I applaud your commitment to fully educating America's children by engaging them in the arts. At the same time, in challenge lies opportunity. As Rahm Emanuel has said, "you never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Now — as we move forward with reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — is the time to rethink and strengthen arts education. ... In America, education has long served a special role: It has been the great equalizer. From Thomas Jefferson on, America's leaders have recognized that public education and the study of the liberal arts were essential to creating an informed citizenry that could vote and participate in civil society. In 1784, years before the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia and only weeks after the war with the British had ended, George Washington sat down to write a letter to a bookseller. But Washington did not recount the recent triumph over the British. He asked for books instead, because, he wrote, "to encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country." In America, we do not reserve arts education for privileged students or the elite. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds, students who are English language learners, and students with disabilities often do not get the enrichment experiences of affluent students anywhere except at school. President Obama recalls that when he was a child "you always had an art teacher and a music teacher. Even in the poorest school districts, everyone had access to music and other arts." Today, sadly, that is no longer the case. And that is one reason why I believe education is the civil Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. rights issue of our generation — and why arts education remains so diversity of the world itself. critical to leveling the playing field of I must confess that my father — at least in opportunity. Robert Maynard Hutchins, the my case — failed to pass on his musical talents. former president of the University of Chicago, Even so, I did flail away for several years on the put it well when he said that "the best education drums in the middle school band. I learned some for the best is the best education for all." good lessons in the process — despite my I learned that lesson firsthand from my forgettable performance. father, who was a psychology professor at the The fact is that most students who take the University of Chicago and a banjo player. He arts are not going to be professional musicians, cared deeply about promoting student growth. painters, dancers, or actors. Yet every student But he was even more committed to a dual who plays in a band, acts in a play, dances in a mission for teachers — to not just educate company, or sings in the chorus can benefit from students but to help prepare them for a lifetime the experience in amazing ways. of learning. You might say he was an amateur Through the arts, students can learn arts educator of sorts because he worked for teamwork and practice collaborative learning many years as the faculty representative for the with their peers. They develop skills and university's annual folk music festival. judgment they didn't know they had— whether it Attending the folk festival every year is drumming in time or acquiring the knowledge growing up, my brother, sister, and I listened to to differentiate between Pavarotti and the tenor the blues and bluegrass, African drummers and in the choir loft at the Sunday service. mariachi music, Chilean, Russian, and Ukrainian No matter what the color of our skin or bands, Celtic music and gospel. We were exposed beliefs, "all of us can draw lessons from the works not just to music from across the globe, but, of history" says President Obama. "All of us can through music, the vastness and extraordinary CURRICULUM continued on page 6 sai-national.orgfall 2010 PAN PIPES 5

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