Brooklyn Group Fills Void in Arts Education

By Chaeun Park

A typical morning at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange is filled with the shrieks and cries of the youngest pupils -- the toddlers. The afternoons are just as boisterous, making way for kids enrolled in after-school programs.

The Brooklyn Arts Exchange, or BAX. is a community-based organization open to the public. Located on Park Slope's 5th Avenue and open since 1991, BAX offers classes for everyone from babies to grown-ups. A humble entrance right alongside a closeout store wryly named Save on 5th belies the power of the arts education resource inside.

It is in this setting that Julie Betts, educational coordinator and office manager, as well as former BAX artist, claims to witness "the value of extra curricular activities for children," adding that it is wonderful to see young, budding performers self-identify themselves as artists.

According to Betts, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange functions "very much like a school."

With classes starting for 12-month-old babies and up, BAX offers 20 classes for the elementary school-age student; two more classes that incorporate family participation, called "Youth and Family Workshops," a workshop for young playwrights, actors, dancers and choreographers, a conference and festival for exploring performance art and future career paths in art and summer programs for children ages four to 14.

Not only does BAX offer classes and free rehearsal space, it holds performances on a regular basis, with frequently discounted pricing for lower income individuals.

The Brooklyn Arts Exchange also gives a gentle nudge in the right direction to artists starting out in their field, or those who desire a career change.

Every November, the BAXten awards (named so because the tradition began with BAX's 10th anniversary) are given to those artists who have shown "longevity, as well as inspired younger artists" among other criteria, according to Betts.

Those artists chosen for the BAXten can then choose a recipient for the Passing it On Award, a financial boost for fresh new artists in the same field.

The impact of an institution like BAX on art and artists makes expansion inevitable.

With a major renovation (a complete gutting and revamping of the second floor) just finished, Betts, who has been working at BAX for nearly seven years, says the change represents both "a blessing and a hurdle."

While the number of classes has increased, and BAX is generally expanding, it will be hard to keep up with the dramatic change.

Though the expansion may be difficult to adjust to at first, to fill in the gap in New York City's arts education for elementary school students, it seems necessary.

Early this past March, Mayor Michael Bloomberg conducted a survey in which he found that only four percent of elementary school students are meeting the state requirement for arts education.

Though he claims that the city is making progress in increasing that percentage, many advocates for arts education are unconvinced. Many of them have bemoaned the use of the $150,000 spent to conduct the survey, which could have gone to arts programs instead.

Despite the failure of New York City to comply with New York State standards, the state has not demanded any sort of reports from the City, allowing the problem to continue for a long time.

Also, though there was a multi-million dollar program specifically for arts education, Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein relegated control of the money to school principals rather than following the guidelines for how the money should be used, leading to further outcry from arts advocates.

On March 6, Bloomberg and Klein released the first Annual Arts in School Report, with the most comprehensive information and analysis of arts education in New York City ever.

According to Klein, the report has "collected unprecedented information about the arts programs our schools are offering and participation levels in the arts across our City's more than 1,400 schools."

The report tracks the comeback (as the Web site optimistically calls the recent trend in arts education) since the '70s when there was a huge slump in arts education.

One use of the report will be to track the success of ArtsCount, a program that started in the summer of 2006 to address the problem with arts education.

The ArtsCount Web site claims that ArtsCount is already making progress, with a three percent increase ($9.5 million) in school budgets for arts spending, including a two percent increase in qualified arts teachers.

Though Bloomberg and Klein want to convince us that the pace is quickening for arts education, there seems to be slow progress.

Klein claims that with "the Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in the Arts, we can gauge what students should know and be able to do in dance, music, theater, and visual arts," but knowing what their achievement level should be seems a far cry from helping them reach that level.

With the percentage of youngsters meeting the New York State standard for arts education looking bleak, it seems there is a lot left to do in the way of improvement.

Betts does not see an upward trend in arts education for New York City children in the near future. Though she thinks the amount of attention paid to arts education has always oscillated following the mood of the times, her closing remark about the matter was that nowadays with so many "mandatory, standardized tests, it doesn't leave [children] a lot of time" for the arts.