To the Editor:

I thought when I retired as an artist and educator I would be able to ignore all the voices spouting insincere and pretentious talk surrounding the importance of the arts in education who then would inevitably support the weakening or dismantling of art programs in our schools. Alas, my blood boils anew.

The Old Rochester Regional School Committee recently approved next year’s budget with a $616,000 increase over the current budget. Naturally as seems to have become the norm, despite the increase, new and existing important positions were cut including a guidance counselor, a special education director and of course an art teacher.

I understand the difficulty in building a school budget. Having served for many years as a vice chair of a school committee elsewhere, and as a former board member of both the Department of Education’s Arts Advisory Council and the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts Education, I appreciate that providing for the general operation of a multi-million dollar publically funded enterprise with its maintenance costs, salary obligations, insurance increases, state mandates and all the rest is difficult. I too once had to vote to cut an art teacher and I lost my first teaching position in a reduction in force. I get it.

Still, I wonder where I would be had I not been able to study art at Old Rochester. According to the school principal the reduction of that art position will leave the school with one art teacher and will deprive 218 students…nearly a third of the school’s total population…who want to take art from doing so. I wonder how many of those students plan on pursuing art as a career as I did. With the help of my teachers I was able to prepare a quality portfolio that got me accepted into two prestigious art colleges.

For over 50 years I made my living from art. I know that studying art is a viable avenue to success in our complex world not just an expendable luxury. After all art is everywhere and has been long before the French scientist Blaise Pascal invented the first calculating machine in 1642. Not to suggest that a scientific or technology based career is not desirable but without artists much of what we see and use today would not exist. Talented artists who have chosen careers in a wide variety of creative disciplines serve our culture and society and contribute billions of dollars to our economy.

Consider that the eyeglasses through which you are reading this were likely designed by an artist who chose a career as an industrial designer. He or she may even have designed the machine that ground the lenses insuring that it not only functioned and was safe for the operator but looked attractive as well.

The design and layout of this paper was created by a layout artist. In fact the type style you are reading was created a long, long time ago by an artist to be easily read. The blouse, skirt or slacks you are wearing, your shoes and yes, even your undergarments were created by artists working as clothing designers. The rings on your fingers, your wallet or purse and even money in them plus the chair you sit on, your cell phone and everything on your desk including the desk and just about everything in your home, all had an artist’s hand in its design. Even your house was designed by an architect trained in art in order to understand design principles and express their ideas to their clients. And, I haven’t even mentioned all the art on TV and in the movies that entertain us or in museums that record our history and define our culture. All of these professionals studied art first, probably in high school.

The good news is that some people are trying to raise awareness of arts education funding issues, even in Washington. A newly created Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has the potential to improve the standing of art education in classrooms across the nation. In Massachusetts the Arts/Learning and MASSCreative organizations have begun initiatives to improve and foster arts education policy that support students who are under served.

While these efforts are commendable not until the local education communities change their perception of art as a pleasant diversion and recognize the potential in young students who show the desire to pursue art studies will students like those 218 at Old Rochester be served. The communities I know that cut their art programs have reconsidered and redoubled their commitment. All now have flourishing programs that service all of their students.

Dick Morgado
Mattapoisett