In summary
Some school officials were confused about how they could and could not spend their arts education money. A new law provides more guidance.
Schools seeking to spend their windfall of Proposition 28 arts education money will have more clarity and guidelines under a law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed over the weekend.
The new law, Assembly Bill 2440 by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance, is intended to clear some confusion as schools tried to implement Prop. 28. The 2022 measure provides about $1 billion a year to California’s public K-12 schools for visual art, music, dance, theater and other arts.
Although schools welcomed the extra funding, some returned their money to the state because they weren’t sure how to spend it and feared getting sued. Austin Beutner, a former superintendent of Los Angeles Unified who authored Prop. 28, sued his former district last year over allegations it cut existing arts programs and backfilled the cuts with money generated by the proposition — something not permitted in the law. That case is pending in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Under Prop. 28, schools must use their money to supplement, not replace, existing arts funding. But some schools weren’t sure if that applied to existing arts grants from other sources, such as donations from band boosters. Smaller schools were also in a bind because their proposition allotment wasn’t enough to hire a full-time teacher, and they weren’t sure if they could pool funds with a neighboring school to share an arts teacher.
In some cases, schools were confused about what constitutes an arts class. For example, some wondered if a physical education class that includes dance could count as an arts class.
The new law clarifies these and several other points of confusion: It’s OK for schools to pool their resources; arts grant money from other sources does count toward a school’s baseline arts spending; and arts instruction must align with the state’s arts education framework (so no, P.E. is not an arts class).
Over the summer Beutner came out against the bill, saying it would give schools too much latitude and essentially gut the intention of the measure. After lawmakers made some minor changes he switched his position and the bill passed unanimously.
Advocates of Prop. 28 has a multitude of benefits. Students involved in the arts are more likely to attend school, less likely to be disciplined and more likely to graduate, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. High-quality arts education will also provide students with job skills in California’s creative economy — film, television, music, design and other industries, they say.
The arts play a significant role in California’s economy, according to Create for California, a nonprofit advocacy group, making up nearly 10% of the state’s economic output and employing over 1 million people.
“An arts class can give a child something to look forward to at school and a place where they feel they belong,” said Veronica Alvarez, executive director of Create CA, an arts advocacy group that supported the bill. “They learn critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity in practice, skills they’ll carry into their lives and the jobs of today and tomorrow.”
