Piano, dance on the chopping block at SCPA?
First the good news: A group of loyal supporters of the School for Creative and Performing Arts put on a benefit last month to raise money for endangered programs at the Cincinnati Public School for talented kids.
On Friday, Alvin Roehr, president of Schiff, Kreidler-Shall Insurance, will present a check for $54,000 to the school, earmarked for programs in dance, band and piano. Specifically, the funding will benefit artist in residence Meridith Benson (dance), artist in residence David Burchfield (band) and Simon Goykhman, who teaches piano.
Now the reality. A mom of one 12-year-old who studies piano is fearful that music lessons will be cut. Her son's teacher, Goykhman, studied with Regina Horowitz in Kharkiv and is listed in "Who's Who Among American Teachers."
She writes:
"You may not be aware that SCPA has lost over $2 million of funding in the last 4 years as CPS 'levelled the playing field' and eliminated all extra funds for magnet schools. So somehow, SCPA is offering these amazing arts classes with the same funds per student as every other CPS high school. This past spring, piano was on the chopping block, but they decided to halve the dance department instead. But with CPS facing a roughly $56 million shortfall if the March levy doesn't pass, you can see our fear that piano, with its small pupil:teacher ratio, will simply become unaffordable."
Will there be any renowned or distinguished programs or exceptional students left at SCPA to populate the fabulous new campus, now making huge progress at the corner of Central Parkway and Elm??
SCPA Ballet Photo Rene Micheo
posted by Janelle Gelfand at 6:26 PM
15 Comments:
at 1/23/2008 11:34:00 PM 
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at 1/24/2008 10:59:00 AM 
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at 1/24/2008 03:38:00 PM 
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at 1/26/2008 09:59:00 AM 
Janelle Gelfand said...
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at 1/26/2008 06:30:00 PM 
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at 1/27/2008 03:15:00 PM 
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at 1/28/2008 08:09:00 AM 
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at 1/29/2008 08:02:00 AM 
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at 1/29/2008 08:06:00 AM 
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Post a Comment*Yes the SCPA needs any assistance it can find, but in our lifetime our parents paid for our piano lessons, and one in the family had the trumpet urge, and we paid for that til he gave up. Usually those are individual expenses not the cost to School
Budgets. Also heard Simon Goykhman is a great pianist and does teach out of the school.
For a school district who has the most difficult time graduating students in any large numbers who can read on their respective grade levels and a dropout rate that is an intolerable double digit number the extra funding for piano lessons and the dance department starts to seem very superficial doesn't it? I have questioned the need for the mission of this egocentric driven school since day one. I think they better plan on operating on the budget allotment they have or start developiong "Plan B". The ability to read and think is something we want from all our citizens. Piano lessons are not an entitlement.
Right on! Exactly. No entitlements. First priorities first. Thanks for both of the above comments.
Part of the problem with that logic is that many kids who attend SCPA come from poor families. Laurie Wyant, choral director, once told me that for her youngsters to appear with Kunzel and the Pops, she had to buy them white shirts and other clothing, because they couldn't afford them. For talented but poor kids, specialized programs in the arts can mean the difference between making something of themselves -- and working at McDonald's.
It will be interesting to see how the new school is organized. It will have to launch a completely new model that depends upon other funding, if it is to succeed. I haven't seen the details, but I think that this is what is in the plans.
As an alumna, I find this to be an absolute tragedy, and I am saddened by the perspectives of the previous posters. SCPA is one of the highest performing schools--not only in the district, but in all of Ohio, with great graduation rates, and an impressive number of minority and low income students continuing onward to four year colleges. I myself grew up in Price Hill, but am now working on my PhD at Cornell University. While my field of study is not related to the subject that I majored in at SCPA, I believe that the superb (arts)education I received there has been foundational to my success.
Many studies have demonstrated the value of arts education, and SCPA is one of the crown jewels of CPS. I cannot believe that a district with so little to be proud of would mess with such a good thing.
How can this happen? When the community votes needed operating levies down and a district is forced to operate for 8 years on funds that were designed to last maximum 4. It's amazing that they've been able to do any of this on what they've had to work with in the past few years. Who among us hasn't gotten a raise in 8, going on 9 years? Ridiculous.
And as for the graduation rate, it jumped 28 points to 79% now. No, not perfect. But improving. The dropout rate is going down. AND they've eliminated the graduation gap between African American and white high schoolers. More CPS seniors score better on the Ohio Graduation Test than any other urban district in Ohio. More schools move up into higher achievement categories every year. You would have heard about these things if you were reading anything other than the Enquirer, which stubbornly refuses to report the positive successes in this district.
And for a district with such a signficant percentage of kids living in poverty there's no way that any school, including SCPA, is a bastion of white privilege. The arts have been shown time and time again to increase academic learning.
The blogger who fails to see the importance of piano lessons in terms of reading and writing must not be literate enough to evaluate the correlation between the arts and education. With a 95% percent graduation rate, SCPA is a school that exemplifies the strengths of the district, as well as the positive influence of the arts. The blogger connects the low graduation rate of the district (which lacks specificity with the "double-digit" statistic, which could be 10% considering the vague blog) with a sense of entitlement. Are not all humans entitled to the same phenomenal education? Don't you want a highly educated society so that we may progress and excel?
It is amusing to also read comments like, "in our lifetime". Is the blogger posting this from the afterlife? One supposes that the divine logic presented affirms this notion. One can infer that this is a blogger of a generation which reigns supreme over the rest of us. It is safe to say that in the blogger's lifetime women, blacks, and anyone not white, male, and wealthy were not "entitled" to a top-notch education.
For the positive contribution: SCPA is full of extraordinary and prodigious students who never act entitled, but, grateful. They fulfill the duties of student, pre-professional, and child. This is true problem-solving that allows the students to develop life skills necessary for the post-graduate world. The excellence in SCPA, Walnut Hills, and Clark should not be scaled back; they should be used to model what this district could be for our society. These schools develop students who will succeed in any post-graduate endeavor.
What can you contribute to education to support and progress our culture? Don't you want the same opportunities for your neighbors' children that you and yours received?
As a teacher, I constantly read views criticizing education. When was the last time these people actually stepped foot in a classroom? Walk a mile down SCPA's halls before you judge so harshly.
I've been doing some research about the efficacy of SCPA over the past day, after becoming so upset over the reaction of the first few posters to this news. According to the 2006-2007 school report card published by the Ohio Department of Education, SCPA scored above the statewide average in all categories of assessment. Moreover, SCPA seems to be one of the few schools that has closed the achievement gap between poor, minority and white students; More that 50% of SCPA's students were minorities, and 27% lived below the poverty line in the 2006-2007 school year. Despite this, any difference between the academic success of white, minority and poor students was statistically insignificant. Anyone who would like to look over the numbers themselves can find the info here-
http://www.ode.state.oh.us/reportcardfiles/2006-2007/BUILD/068619.PDF
In the meantime, I would love to know of anything that could be done to help raise public awareness about these horribly ill-conceived cuts.
Per capita expenditures in the CPS system exceed the national average by more than 20%. These expenditures are in the range (within a couple hundred dollars) of Indian Hill and Wyoming and on the whole I think it is safe to say performance and student retention rates are not comparable even in the most wide ranging interpretation of the data. So much for the aruguement about lack of increases for the last 8 to 9 years. Increased money does not guarantee success.
One cannot argue about the success of the SCPA, but to what degree is it draining efforts for the rest of the school system? If the advocates who support it as vocally as has been demonstrated in this blog and feel so strongly about budget cuts, then maybe the thing to do is to start a charter school whose mission is that of the SCPA. That way the school, the students, and the parents can control their own destiny without interference of those penny pinchers down at the CPS main office and they can build a school that meets the needs of their vision.
That's a canard about the per capita expenditure. The CPS budget includes many things that do not affect CPS students or instruction in CPS schools. A few:
Busing for parochial and charter school students;
Tuition for students at charter and private EdChoice schools (which exceeds what the state gives CPS and is made up for in local taxes);
Special ed, speech therapy, physical therapy, and other special programs at parochial schools;
Academic year breakfast and Summer breakfast and lunch federal programs;
In addition CPS serves as a "pass through" for federal monies going to other, smaller surrounding districts.
As well, there are large numbers of children with special ed needs in CPS, children for whom the cost of education is significantly greater than average students.
Sometimes because parents realize that services will be better for their special ed child in the public rather than the parochial schools and sometimes the parochial schools refuse to admit kids who are too expensive to educate—I've heard from families who have been "dumped" by their parish school when it was discovered their children had learning disabilities.
If you are concerned about these cuts, work to pass the levy. That way all children will benefit. There is an informational meeting tonight at the Peaslee Community Center of the Parents for Public Schools: 751-5437. Contact CASE, Cincinnatians Active in Support of Education, to find out how you can help: 541-6240. Come be part of the solution for all our children.
Don't the parents of parochial, charter, and special needs students and those that need transportation pay taxes also? Aren't they entitled to those services also? Frankly, you put forth a very compelling argument for vouchers which I have believed in for a long time. It is the ultimate empowerement tool for a parent. If you want your child to go to a school where dance and piano are adequately funded you have your choice and the funding.
To answer your question about being concerned about the cuts-I am not. In my view there is plenty of money there to accomplish the mission we have for the school system and that is to produce an educated, productive, citizen at the end of the day. I will be working against the tax levy. The money is there-it needs to be spent efficiently. I still stand by the fact that the per capita expenditures exceed the national average by 20%.
Well, given that the problem of academic under-achievement is not unique to CPS, but reflective of national trends, and that SCPA has flourished with additional per-pupil spending, wouldn't the logical thing to infer be that an excellent education simply cannot be provided on the cheap? As a tax payer, I would much rather pay slightly more money for something that works then pay less for something that doesn't.
The idea that charter schools are the answer is absurd, given that the charter schools within Cincinnati have underperformed the failing public schools that they were designed to replace. SCPA works well, so it would be illogical to divert funding from it in order to fund an untested program that would merely replicate its curriculum. Additionally, charter schools, and vouchers are funded through money that would have gone to CPS; Per-pupil spending then, is not any higher at charter schools, and thus would still not be able to cover things like piano lessons.
Finally, if CPS does spend 20% higher than the national average per pupil, I would imagine that it does so due to the large number of children living below the poverty line that it serves. It is more expensive to educate children who live in poverty because they rely more on special services-like the free lunch program, which are costly.
I suspect the problems with CPS in general are the parents and home environments. Not the money or the teachers. In SCPA and schools of that type you've got parents who take an interest in what their kids are doing--so the kids thrive. If you want the rest of CPS to improve start with the parents (and better yet, start with 2 parents).
Amen.
Charter schools? Vouchers? I take my chances on the free market anytime over funding a state run monopoly which as manifested in public school system.
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