Final Round: Federal Funding of Arts Education Research
Below, you will find my response to the email I received yesterday from John Q. Easton, the newly-appointed Director of the Department of Education's Institute for Education Research, which was in turn a response to my inquiry about the IES' policy of excluding arts education from research funding.
I am entirely satisfied by this response, which I'll hazard to summarize as "the policy priorities that you have questioned are under review, and a public-comment phase is part of the review process, so you can have your say then."
My cynical side can't help but notice that the process that led to the adoption of the current priorities also had a public-comment phase, and that -- according to the minutes of the meeting at which the current priorities were approved -- one of the most common public comments requested a "broadening of the focus on academic content beyond math, reading, and science." Why would public comment succeed in broadening the IES' focus this time around, when such public comment had no apparent effect last time?
To answer my own question, the answer may be that the current financial crisis -- with its potential for decimating of arts education programs nationwide -- may lead the arts education advocacy community to make an even stronger lobbying effort this time around. Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.
If, on the other hand, the arts education community cannot mount a sufficiently-strong lobbying effort to change this policy, then that failure will prove that the political cost of under-funding arts education research is small, and the current policy is likely to continue.
Gentlepersons, start your engines.
-----------------------
From: Jim Plamondon [mailto:jim@igetitmusic.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 8:53 AM
To: 'Easton, John'
Cc: 'Harvey, Edith'; 'Geddes, Claire'; 'Jonathan Levy'; 'Ruth Clark'; 'Tom Rudolph'; 'Wendy Free'; 'Michael McCaul'; 'Kay Bailey Hutchison'; 'John Cornyn'
Subject: RE: arts education research policy
Dear Dr. Easton,
I look forward to participating in the IES’ priority-review process. If you would be so kind as to have my email address added to the relevant list server, I would appreciate it. I will also explore further the IES’ “unsolicited proposals” program.
Your description of the IES’ upcoming priority-review process, and your invitation to participate in it via public comment, satisfies my policy inquiry. Other than adding my email address to the relevant list server, I will seek no further follow-up. I appreciate your pursuing this inquiry to a satisfactory response. :-)
Regarding Chicago’s Ambrose Plamondon School – it was built in 1905, and named after Ambrose Plamondon (1833-1896), a founder of Chicago’s manufacturing industry. His firms led the nation in developing the “high-tech” equipment that efficiently transmitted steam power to individual factory machines (before the industrial use of electricity), and in developing “high-tech” systems for efficiently pasteurizing beer (thus making beer more affordable and enabling its nation-wide distribution).
Ambrose’s brother was my grandfather’s grandfather, so I am Ambrose’s (very distant) nephew. My grandfather – also named Ambrose Plamondon – was a motorcycle cop in Chicago after World War I, until an accident shattered his leg, ruined his circulation, and led him to move to warmer California in the early 1930’s. His descendants are now scattered across the West.
My relationship with Ambrose is closer than blood, however. He and I share an intense focus on using contemporary “high tech” to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and broaden access – objectives which, I suspect, are right in line with those of the Obama Administration, given the financial constraints under which it finds itself.
Eager to help ensure that this focus on educational efficiency will figure prominently in the IES’ revised priorities, I remain
Yours Respectfully,
Jim Plamondon
Austin, Texas
I am entirely satisfied by this response, which I'll hazard to summarize as "the policy priorities that you have questioned are under review, and a public-comment phase is part of the review process, so you can have your say then."
My cynical side can't help but notice that the process that led to the adoption of the current priorities also had a public-comment phase, and that -- according to the minutes of the meeting at which the current priorities were approved -- one of the most common public comments requested a "broadening of the focus on academic content beyond math, reading, and science." Why would public comment succeed in broadening the IES' focus this time around, when such public comment had no apparent effect last time?
To answer my own question, the answer may be that the current financial crisis -- with its potential for decimating of arts education programs nationwide -- may lead the arts education advocacy community to make an even stronger lobbying effort this time around. Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging.
If, on the other hand, the arts education community cannot mount a sufficiently-strong lobbying effort to change this policy, then that failure will prove that the political cost of under-funding arts education research is small, and the current policy is likely to continue.
Gentlepersons, start your engines.
-----------------------
From: Jim Plamondon [mailto:jim@igetitmusic.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 8:53 AM
To: 'Easton, John'
Cc: 'Harvey, Edith'; 'Geddes, Claire'; 'Jonathan Levy'; 'Ruth Clark'; 'Tom Rudolph'; 'Wendy Free'; 'Michael McCaul'; 'Kay Bailey Hutchison'; 'John Cornyn'
Subject: RE: arts education research policy
Dear Dr. Easton,
I look forward to participating in the IES’ priority-review process. If you would be so kind as to have my email address added to the relevant list server, I would appreciate it. I will also explore further the IES’ “unsolicited proposals” program.
Your description of the IES’ upcoming priority-review process, and your invitation to participate in it via public comment, satisfies my policy inquiry. Other than adding my email address to the relevant list server, I will seek no further follow-up. I appreciate your pursuing this inquiry to a satisfactory response. :-)
Regarding Chicago’s Ambrose Plamondon School – it was built in 1905, and named after Ambrose Plamondon (1833-1896), a founder of Chicago’s manufacturing industry. His firms led the nation in developing the “high-tech” equipment that efficiently transmitted steam power to individual factory machines (before the industrial use of electricity), and in developing “high-tech” systems for efficiently pasteurizing beer (thus making beer more affordable and enabling its nation-wide distribution).
Ambrose’s brother was my grandfather’s grandfather, so I am Ambrose’s (very distant) nephew. My grandfather – also named Ambrose Plamondon – was a motorcycle cop in Chicago after World War I, until an accident shattered his leg, ruined his circulation, and led him to move to warmer California in the early 1930’s. His descendants are now scattered across the West.
My relationship with Ambrose is closer than blood, however. He and I share an intense focus on using contemporary “high tech” to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and broaden access – objectives which, I suspect, are right in line with those of the Obama Administration, given the financial constraints under which it finds itself.
Eager to help ensure that this focus on educational efficiency will figure prominently in the IES’ revised priorities, I remain
Yours Respectfully,
Jim Plamondon
Austin, Texas
Labels: arts education, politics, research funding
posted by JimPlamondon | 1:33 PM
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