YATW Blog 1: Lack of Art In Philly Schools

Hi! My name is Pedro Castillo and I am currently a student at Science Leadership Academy (SLA). For this project, we were asked to research a local, state, national or world issue and write about it. I think this is a good way for students to put themselves out in the world. It’ll be a way for students to express their way of thinking. Also, a good way to see how they would want to approach their issue.

   I chose to research Philadelphia’s budget cuts and how they caused Philadelphia schools to lose their art education. I believe this is an issue because some students in Philadelphia school love to draw, sing, paint etc. We have to go throughout this entire school year without these things at school and i could not imagine another school year without them. I am interested in this issue because I am a big art fan. I spent much of my leisure time drawing and painting. I use to go to middle school waiting for art class to come and then one year i showed up the first day of school and heard we had no art classes that year. I came to SLA knowing that we had art classes and i got very excited. At the same time I also that the lack of art is still an issue. Other schools are not as lucky as we are and don’t have art classes to participate in. This is a problem because some students like showing their work to world; they want other people to see their spectacular artwork (Like this) or hear their beautiful voices or just hear their amazing thoughts in the form of a poem.

    The loss of art classes has affected some students for example, a young boy at Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School, Ravi Giberson. Ravi states how the losses of music classes are bad for him because they give time time for practice. He also says how music was a way for him express himself and that it would be difficult for him to return to school with no music. Before the school year began, Philadelphia had to borrow $50 million dollars to open schools on time and even with those millions Philly still had to lay off more than 100 staff members! They could have gotten more money with the hidden artwork that was in a Philadelphia school. Here in Philly, a school had millions in artwork in a school and kept debating on if they should sell them or if they should keep them as the “city’s history.” Those paintings could have saved the jobs of many art teachers and some schools could have had the art education they deserve. Will they sell these paintings for next year or will they let the students down...again? Will they get enough money to refund art classes and still be able to keep the paintings? Only time will tell but hoping everything goes good throughout now and next year, the city can begin funding art classes at schools and make the kids happy with their elective classes again.

Picture of million dollar artwork from philly.com

Bibliography