Articles

Arts programs battle budget cuts and perceptions that they’re “extra” classes. But they’re the main reason many struggling students stay focused on school.

The first time I met Donnie (not his real name), he was wearing a green dress with gold trim, had shoulder-length hair, and wore glasses frames with no lenses. His hair was matted and he was covered in dirt. His eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears. He would not speak to me for the first 20 minutes. And then, in a flood of emotion, he began to tell me his plight.

Thursday and Friday mornings, I have cafeteria duty at my elementary school. I always smile when our younger students come through the breakfast line. Their heads are at the level of the serving racks, so they have to hold their hands up to get their trays of food. I have to help them or we will have pancakes and syrup everywhere.

The opening scene of the 2004 film Yesterday shows a mother (named Yesterday) and her daughter Beauty, walking down a deserted South African road. The daughter, maybe 5 years old, is describing her desire to transform into a bird. Why? She wants to float over to their destination, relieving her little legs of the agony of this miles-long trek.The finish line is a health clinic in a ramshackle hut. You see, Yesterday has developed this wretched, knock-you-over cough. But the line is lengthy, so they wait and wait until it’s announced that everyone else must return next Tuesday. Next Tuesday? A once-a-week doctor? Yes.

Summer is the most violent time of year in urban areas. Some cite hotter temperatures, while others point the finger at out-of-school teenagers. No one factor is to blame, but it makes sense to provide opportunities for young people while keeping them off the streets. Summer service programs can help.

Last week, I had a chance to preview documentary films that showed how a strong arts program—and that could range from mariachi to Shakespeare to poetry slams—could turn struggling schools into powerhouses of energy and promise. Last night, millions of viewers got a chance to see what students from a school that values the arts look like—on the Academy Awards, no less.

In early 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders continued plans for a Poor People’s Campaign. It would take place in the spring in Washington, D.C. The poor and those in solidarity with them would take up temporary residence and march peacefully on the Capitol and advocate for substantial anti-poverty legislation from Congress. They would demand jobs, healthcare and decent housing.

If you’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird, you might remember the scene in which Scout beats up Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard. It’s the first day of school and Scout’s teacher, Miss Caroline, is not from Maycomb. She doesn’t understand just how hard the Great Depression has hit the farmers of southern Alabama. So she innocently offers Walter a quarter to buy lunch in town. He refuses. As Scout explains he’s a Cunningham, and Cunninghams never take anything they can’t pay back. Every student at my school is eligible for free lunch this year, so they understand Walter’s situation. But what they don’t understand is “why other students get to go off campus for lunch and we don’t.”

Something about Belinda’s brave smile looks familiar to me. The briefest shadow darkens her face while other students banter about the gifts they’ve asked for and the ones they’ve already received. Because she’s outgoing, the other kids don’t recognize the proud face she wears while they talk of skiing, sumptuous meals and overseas travel. Belinda never says a word. She just smiles and listens.

For 20 nights, Kate has collapsed onto a different air mattress in a new space, a strange place—none of them home. The 15-year-old, her parents and two younger brothers cart themselves and their meager possessions from shelter to shelter.