January | 2017 | WanderinPoet

The Arts & Sciences are profoundly important to a decent education however arts and science have been decimated in public schools.

Indeed, the US is no longer the number one place to receive an education according to one study, having slipped to 16 in the share of degree attainment of young adults according to the Washington Post.

President Trump plans to cut the budget for arts, planning to adopt the Heritage Foundation’s “skinny budget” according to report by Fortune Magazine.

This would be a travesty at a time when educational attainment and science and math scores are slipping.

Music and the arts teach critical thinking and are intrinsically linked to math and science due to the critical thinking skills that music & arts teaches and requires.

The education Fresno Unified School District provided to my friends and I was topnotch, 2 magnet schools, Holland Project TALENT (now Bullard) and Roosevelt High School.

In both schools arts and science were integrated.

Roosevelt is home of the School of Performing Arts of which my classmates, Audra McDonald and Sharon Leal are perhaps the best known.

I can only tell you that our school did very well in Academic Decathalon, finishing second in CA my Senior year (my friends from junior high and high school were core of team, coached by legendary Dave Sischo) and of course anyone probably knows Audra has won the most Tony’s ever.

To gut funding for the Arts & Sciences damages the funding for Roosevelt High School Performing Arts programs. Roosevelt is an inner city school (yup) which was actually bussed INTO my freshman year for desegregation.

I have been lucky to have talked to 2 Medal of Honor winners in my lifetime. Greg “Pappy” Boyington (who lived in Sunnyside behind a friends house) and General Chuck Yeager.

I only know General Yeager through twitter, however the joy I experience in talking to General Yeager is matched by the music in a symphony.

Too expensive

— Chuck Yeager (@GenChuckYeager) December 7, 2016

No music. No NASA. No Magic Carpet Rides. Simple as that.

I would remiss to point out that NASA is as unconstitutional as the National Endowment of the Arts, if we are going to get technical.

Quite frankly I think federal funding through Dept of Education should be used to balance out inequities between funding levels in school districts and to ensure that arts and sciences are taught at a high level as a priority.

That, and make sure kids aren’t hungry so they can learn.