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When the economy takes a downward path, government funded programs across the board experience budget cuts. While education tends to be among the last to experience cuts, many can’t escape drops in funding from both state and local budgets. Simultaneously, operation costs are rising which leaves even less money for schools to operate on. When faced with daunting bills and dwindling funds, music and arts programs tend to find their way to the chopping block.
What makes these sort of programs disposable? With short resources, cutting programs that aren’t graduation requirements can be a way to avoid teacher lay-offs and keep kids meeting their other educational needs. Many schools still offer some sort of arts programs but in the poorest districts that do experience these cuts, the pick-up has been slow.
Arts programs, whether it’s visual arts, drama or music, have a valuable role in childhood development. Research has shown that these activities have a big role in a child’s mental development. A study published in Journal of Instructional Psychology stated that exposing children to music can increase their spatial reasoning intelligence by 46% – this type of brain function is key for other skills like mathematics. The same study also said that music and art can help improve dyslexia. Furthermore, it gives children who don’t have other healthy outlets a means of self-discovery to explore themselves and find out who they are. Other studies have cited a link between fine arts education to decreased dropout rates, higher scores SAT/ACT and higher academic skills overall.
The budget cuts don’t stop with the arts. Unfortunately, some of the poorest school districts are even cutting gym classes and other physical activity outlets. While 1 in 5 children under the age of 18 is overweight, according to the organization Leadership for Hispanic Communities, the numbers are much higher for Latino children with just over 38% of children obese. For some children, especially in lower income families, gym classes are the only place for children to experience exercise. Their families can’t afford extra-curriculars – which also find themselves on the budget chopping block and are either completely eliminated or become pay-to-play in which the families must pick up the participation costs. Furthermore, outside activity after school for many low income families is also an impossibility as their neighborhoods may not be safe enough for play.
Childhood obesity is more dangerous than adult obesity. Overweight children are much more likely to become obese adults. Health issues like high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes are much harder to treat in children, and the physical and side effects are much more intense.
While schools need to make budget cuts somewhere, it seems that students are the ones who suffer the most when programs like art and gym are cut. With government programs like No Child Left Behind placing such a high importance on test scores however, it leaves many schools no choice for fear of losing further funding. With mountains of research backing the further success inside – and out – of the classroom of children exposed to the arts, children in low income households have the most to overcome to reach an even developmental playing field.
By Alexandra Morbitzer @FitLatina
About Being Latino Contributors
War funding never takes a cut…Never.
Gabriel…war funding does take a cut..a huge cut. Our soldiers often have to purchase their own weapons,gear,tools,etc. They also pay with their lives. School budgets cannot kepp up with the overwhelming number of students entering our schools…why??? Because, a vast majority of those students are illegals,,,who parents do not pay into the tax system which funds these budgets. We also have the largest wealthfare popuation, who suckle from free lunsches and programs as well….so those hurting our children are really those childrens parents not paying into the system.
The vast majority are not undocumented and children receiving free breakfast and lunch is not the reason for school budgets being slashed.
So I totally disagree, Tambra. And to further build on Eileen’s points, undocumented immigrants DO pay taxes. A huge reason for programs getting cut is higher costs of school operation and less funding from both state and local governments. Schools are expected to run on less money while meeting certain testing standards put in place by initiatives like No Child Left Behind. Something has to give and many times, that’s extracurriculars and arts programs.
I agree with Eileen. My township saw a huge decrease in funding when Christie took office. I am talking over $2 million. The only way we could keep the quality of education was to increase property taxes (which has a cap on the percentage you can increase 2%). The other way was to cut teachers, programs and services. First teachers to go were music and physical education. It is a catch 22 for us because we have to vote for our school budget and this past year it did not pass (Senior Citizens do not like voting to increase funding for education). What they do not understand is that if you do not maintain the level of education that say West Windsor, NJ or Princeton, NJ have, people are not going to buy your home when you decide to sell to move for retirement.
We had over 3 million deficit which led to 260 staff being laid off 190 of them teachers. 5 schools being shut down and special ed classes taking the biggest toll. We are considered the poorest city in the united states. There’s barely any “specials” anymore. Why? Because our governed decided he couldn’t do anything about the education budget but could give multi billion dollar tax break to shell’s oil company.
And state testing is a joke all our schools failed…. why? Because they expect every kids aether disabled or not English or another language to take the actual test… the education system is a joke. I