In making the announcement, he acknowledged SPS has not been providing equitable arts access to their students. In fact, it’s rare for any public school in Washington State to offer an arts curriculum on an equal footing as other curricula.

That’s why between 2007 and 2009 I proposed to the State legislature a state-wide arts education program to be funded by both an expiring baseball stadium admissions tax and a food and beverage tax. However, the legislature decided to re-directed those expiring taxes for other purposes.

SPS was encouraged to prioritize arts education by both the City’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs (OACA) and the Wallace Foundation, which provided the school district a $1 million grant in 2011. The grant allowed the school district to complete a comprehensive plan to institute a city-wide arts education program with the goal of bringing high-quality arts education to every student, every year, in every school.

Check out my earlier blogs on arts education: one on the Wallace planning grant and this one on why arts education matters.

Strengthening SPS’s application to the 2011 Wallace planning grant was the 2008 OACA/ SPS partnership initiative focused on bringing quality dance, music, theater and visual arts education to every student, with special emphasis on lower income communities and communities of color. OACA will continue to work with SPS to advance high quality arts education in our public schools.

The school district begins its district-wide art education program with a pilot in the Central area for K-12 students. They will evaluate and adjust the pilot project, if needed, before scaling it for implementation in every Seattle school.

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I was struck by data presented during the workshop illustrating the significant imbalance   between arts education resources available for Seattle’s north end schools and those available for its south end schools. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the major influencing factor is income status.

Olympic View Elementary students at Seattle City Hall, 2003.

Arts education has been documented to increase student academic performance across the board. The lack of arts education resources for students who most need it has been a concern of mine for some time. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, the state legislature considered a bill I proposed that would have established a state-wide arts education funding program.

The idea was to transform the Washington State sports lottery, which was to expire upon paying off Safeco Field bonds in 2011, into an arts education lottery that would fund arts education programs equitably throughout the state, on a grant application basis. In 2007, it was estimated to generate annually beginning this year about $2.5 million for King County and $3 million for the rest of the state. Although the bill gained over 20 sponsors during each of those 3 legislative sessions, it never reached the floor for a vote.

Today, hope in addressing the persistent inequity in arts education access can be found in the work our Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and Seattle Public Schools are undertaking. Their K-12 Arts Learning Collaborativebrings together the Seattle School District, the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs and community arts organizations in crafting a comprehensive arts plan intended to increase access to quality arts education for all K-12 students in Seattle.

In the summer of last year, The Wallace Foundation awarded the Collaborative a $1 million planning grant to figure out how to deliver meaningful arts education to all students in the Seattle school district, emphasizing those with the least access to arts.  Presently, the Collaborative is applying for an implementation grant to finish this work.

My fingers are crossed.

In the mean time, check out these reports on the Collaborative’s work to date.

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“A Spring Play” at the Greenlake Field House, 1925, now known as the Bathhouse Theatre.

TPS has since built on that modest program to establish Arts Crush, a month-long event featuring family-friendly performances and happenings centered on creativity and community. They’re even giving away free stuff.

One of their featured events is Cornish College of the Arts’ new annual program called “Our Creative Society.” Cornish is one of the reasons Seattle has its reputation as an arts city. Cornish is recognized around the world as a premiere educator of artists and thinkers who have gone on to influence society. Northwest School artists Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Guy Anderson and William Cumming taught at Cornish. Martha Graham did, too. Merce Cunningham and Chet Huntley were Cornish students.  Composer John Cage worked at Cornish. He invented something called the prepared piano there in 1938. Heart’s Ann Wilson, actor Brendan Fraser and award-winning composer Wendell Yuponce all studied at Cornish.

Nellie Cornish, 1922, founder of Cornish College of the Arts.

This year’s inaugural Our Creative Society event opens on the theme of Beyond Art – Creative Thinking in Contemporary Culture. It kicks off with three events: a Happy Hour, Smoosh and a Day of Ideas.

The Happy Hour Open House takes place this Friday, October 5^th, from 5:30 to 7 pm in their Main Campus Center, 1000 Lenora St., 1st Floor. It’s free and open to the public.

Smoosh, their opening night reception, follows right after, from 7 to 10 pm in their New Visual Arts Complex, 1000 Virginia St. It will include a performance installation by Kate Wallich, live music by Pollens, a rising band comprised of Cornish Music Department alumni, some DJ spinning, a catered food truck and complimentary cocktails. It’s a 21+ event and tickets will set you back $25 ($20 for students and Cornish alumni).

Finally, Cornish’s Day of Ideas happens on Saturday, October 6, from 9 am to 4 pm and is free and open to the public. It also takes place in their Main Campus Center, 1000 Lenora St. Consisting of a full day of moderated discussions revolving around art, education and society, it will feature a keynote conversation with New York Times bestselling essayist and author David Shields (Reality Hunger: A Manifesto) and Brangien Davis (Arts & Culture Editor at Seattle Magazine).

Check out Arts Crush’s schedule here and Our Creative Society’s full line up here.

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Photo: Robert Wade Photography

Those larger organizations comprise less than 2% of all arts and cultural nonprofits, receive more than half of the sector’s total revenue, focus primarily on Western European art forms and their programs serve audiences that are predominantly white and upper income.

Meanwhile, artists and cultural groups are increasingly employing the arts in diverse ways to engage and build communities, address persistent economic, educational and environmental societal problems as well as inequities in human and civil rights.

Addressing this and other social justice issues related to arts and culture is the Arts & Social Change Symposium: An Open Dialogue scheduled for October 12th & 13th at Seattle Center.

Geared toward arts administrators, artists, social service professionals, government representatives, and social justice leaders from around the Pacific Northwest, the gathering will address the role diverse arts play in creating awareness, inspiring understanding and developing policies that address cultural equity and social change.

The Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, The Seattle Office for Civil Rights, Seattle Center, 4Culture, The Washington State Arts Commission and The Association of American Cultures have come together in hopes of engaging arts and social change communities from throughout the Pacific Northwest to learn how to become transformative change agents using the arts.

Symposium Goals

• Inspiration – to inspire action and activism; to motivate for change;
• Participation – have dialogue; make recommendations for systemic and social change;
• Learning – to gain new awareness; to listen, participate, communicate, share, and engage;
• Community Building – to meet, connect, and build relationships with other networks beyond the symposium.

Session Objectives

• Offer insight in how to engage and work with diverse communities, promote “cultural listening;”
• Provide an opportunity for local arts agencies from urban and suburban cities to share tools for working with new populations in cultural programming;
• Provide a forum for arts organizations to meet with social justice leaders and for community groups to meet with arts leaders;
• Develop policies for change as part of the national advocacy agenda for The Association of American Cultures.

The Symposium currently has an open call to artists for 2-D visual artwork to be exhibited during the symposium. The deadline for applying is this Friday, August 24, 2012, by 5 p.m. Art addressing social change is especially encouraged. Click here for information on how to apply.

The Arts & Social Change Symposium

Click here to register for the symposium. It costs $75 until 8/31; $100 before 10/5; and $125 at the door, if space allows.

Friday, October 12

9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Evening Program 6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Saturday, October 13 

9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

At Seattle Center, Seattle, Washington, in the Northwest Rooms and the Playhouse/Intiman Theatre.

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Photo credit SEIU 775

Sylvia and Cassandra had very compelling stories (watch at about 70 minutes in) about the difficulties they face as home health care workers, including low wages, few benefits, and lacking access to health care, training, and career advancement.  All of these things put at risk the quality care of the people we love.

In February, I wrote about the launch of the Caring Across Generations campaign, the Seattle Care Congress, a town-hall style event with more than 200 attendees.   A couple weeks ago in order to learn more about the campaign, I walked in the shoes of Janet Rodriguez , a home care provider.   The goal of the campaign is to transform long-term care for:

• Our loved ones who are supported by caregivers
• The workers who provide the care
• And the families who struggle to find and afford quality care for their family members.

Ten percent of the Seattle population is 65 or older and the number of people needing home care will continue to increase in the future. For them, as well as people with disabilities, we need to ensure a dignified quality of life.  If my resolution passes, Seattle will be the first city in the country to pass local legislation on this issue.  Last week, Senator Harkin from Iowa released a senate resolution supporting a strong home care workforce, as well as making long-term services and supports affordable and accessible to elders and people with disabilities.

This campaign will take several years; I’m proud that Seattle will be first out the gate to lead the effort.

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Back in 2008, I wrote about an arts education bill (UP #264) I was pursuing in our state legislature. The bill would have redirected lottery proceeds dedicated to paying baseball stadium bonds to a state-wide School Arts Program once the bonds were retired. The Washington State Arts Commission would have created a School Arts Program Committee and a competitive grant process to support arts-infused curriculum, programs, and projects in public schools. Unfortunately, over the three years it came up for a vote, it failed to pass.

Some of you may be wondering why I pursued that bill and why the Obama Administration is spending $14 million to inject the arts into education. For one, the arts are designated as a core subject area in Washington State schools, yet funding for arts instruction lags far behind that of other core subjects.

Our state’s schools may have made arts a core subject in part due to research such as a 1998 finding by Shirley Brice Heath of Stanford University, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Americans for the Arts. It found among other things that young people who regularly participate in the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement.

But, I don’t believe test scores alone can determine a student’s success in life. “Stringent standardized testing requirements have forced schools and teachers to obsess over test scores at the cost of teaching critical thinking and creativity. The very nature of standardized testing is that new ideas are punished,” says Diane Ravitch in the Studio 360 article. She’s the author of The Life and Death of the Great American School System and served in the Department of Education in both the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

She adds “If we have a generation of kids who can’t think for themselves, our whole country is in trouble. Nations that have the highest test scores have the lowest creativity scores. The more we raise our test scores, the more we sacrifice creativity.”

The solution, Ravitch believes, is not more federal dollars. Support needs to come from local and state government, which must consider music and visual arts as valuable as reading and math, that the arts are just as important in schools as are basic subjects — that art actually is a basic subject.

We are fortunate that in Seattle schools, the arts are a basic subject. However, among the applicants for Families and Education Levy (FEL) 2012-2013 funding, no arts educators qualified. The City’s Office for Education (OFE) has now pledged to reach out to those who didn’t qualify through a series of workshops intended to produce qualifying applicants for 2013-2014 funding.

OFE will  hold four workshops: a full day on Monday, June 25^th; a half day on Tuesday, June 26^th; a full day on Wednesday, August 1^st; and a half day on Thursday, August 2^nd. For the June 26^th & August 2^nd workshops, OFE staff will meet with any arts education group requesting a one-on-one consultation. The workshops will present the Seattle School District’s general educational data and describe how FEL uses that data. School District staff will also be on hand to answer questions and to provide one-on-one instruction. Details on the workshops have yet to be published, so keep an eye on OFE’s web site for information on the location and times.

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You can help shape their plan by attending one of their three remaining public meetings. Tonight’s, Monday, March 19^th, will be from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the South Shore K-8 School, 4800 South Henderson Street. They’ll provide translators for Spanish, Somali, Chinese, Vietnamese and Tagalog.

If you miss tonight’s meeting, try Thursday’s, March 29, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Chief Sealth International High School, 2600 Southwest Thistle Street. They’ll provide translators for Spanish, Somali and Vietnamese.

Your last opportunity will be their youth meeting on Saturday, March 31^st, from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Meany Building, where Nova High School/Seattle World School reside, 301 21st Avenue East. The meeting will be led by young people engaging middle and high school participants.

Space is limited. RSVP is required. RSVP by visiting www.arts-ed.eventbright.com. For more information, contact Tamara Gill at 206-733-9591.

The Wallace grant was in part awarded to Seattle Public Schools in recognition of progress made by Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs’ (OACA) and Seattle Public Schools’ Seattle Arts Education Partnership — a multiyear collaboration between OACA, the Seattle Arts Commission and Seattle Public Schools — to put the arts back in the classroom for all students.

I’ve wanted to put arts back in the classroom, too. Back in 2006, I proposed the state-wide Public School Arts Program. Twenty-four legislators co-sponsored the resulting bills (HB 2192 & SB 6065) that called for redirecting lottery revenues then going toward Safeco Field construction bonds that were projected to be paid off by this year. After two years, neither bill reached the Senate or House floor for a vote.

The Program would have partnered schools with artists and arts organizations to fund individual programs and projects at schools throughout the state. The goal was to deliver arts-infused curriculum that were interdisciplinary and that exposed students to other cultures, thereby strengthening our communities. The State Treasurer indicated then that redirecting this lottery revenue starting in 2012 would yield approximately $5.5 million each year and over ten years could have climbed to $8 million annually.

Why did I fight for these bills? Because according to Americans for the Arts and the Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, young people who consistently participate in comprehensive, sequential and rigorous arts programs are 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools, 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair and 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance.

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The City’s Technology Matching Grant is one way of doing so.

Currently our Department of Information Technology (DoIT) is seeking applicants from Seattle organizations and community groups for its annual Technology Matching Fund grants of up to $20,000 for technology access and literacy, or use of tech tools for civic engagement and community building.

The application deadline is April 3rd. 

The Technology Matching Fund supports technology literacy access and civic engagement projects that reach technology underserved communities, thereby increasing “digital inclusion.”

The City’s grant program goals are:

Technology Literacy and Access:

* Empower technology underserved communities so that all residents have the technology skills necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services;

* Increase technology literacy;

* Increase access to computers, the Internet, and other information technology; and

* Increase the creation of relevant online content.

Civic Engagement:

* Engage individuals not usually involved in the civic process; and

* Increase residents’ use of technology for civic engagement and community building by integrating technology tools into activities to increase awareness of community issues, to increase community problem solving and to increase interaction with government.

Descriptions of past projects are available from DoIT’s web site.

I encourage you to spread the word and, in turn, encourage those you suspect might be interested to consider applying.

The Fund is administered by the City of Seattle Department of Information Technology and is supported through cable franchise fees. The Technology Matching Fund was established in 1997.

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Photo courtesy Theatre Puget Sound. Melissa Hines accepting her Falls Achievement Award, 2002.

Melissa Hines, director of  the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs’ funding programs and leader of the office’s arts education initiative passed away Friday, April 8^th, from leiomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. She was 63.

Melissa’s impact on Seattle’s arts community was significant and she will be sorely missed.

I invite you to share your remembrances of Melissa by visiting the City’s arts office website.

Previous to working for the City’s arts office, Melissa dedicated 23 years to The Empty Space Theatre where she began work in the box office. She went on to guide the company, known for its bold and provocative productions, through 16 seasons as managing director. From 2002 to 2004, she served as director of development for the Seattle International Children’s Festival, now Giant Magnet.

Melissa served two three-year terms on the King County Arts Commission from 1996 through 2001 and stayed a seventh year in 2002 to help guide the transition of the Arts Commission to 4Culture, a public development authority. She served 10 consecutive years guiding the county’s arts and culture agency—the last chair of the county’s Arts Commission and the first chair of 4Culture’s board.

She also served on the boards of the Fremont Chamber of Commerce, Northwest Development Officers Association, Allied Arts and the Washington State Arts Alliance. She helped found and served on the steering committee for the Communities of Color Fund Raising Training Project (1990-1994). Her work in the arts was recognized with Theatre Puget Sound’s 2002 Gregory A. Falls Sustained Achievement Award; the Business Volunteers for the Arts’ 2000 Arts Administrator of the Year Award; the Association of Women in Communications’ 1998 Northwest Woman of Achievement Award; and the Corporate Council for the Arts’ 1994 Unsung Hero Award.

Urban Politics (UP) blends my insights and information on current public policy developments and personal experiences with the intent of helping citizens shape Seattle’s future.

________________________________________________________________

CONTENTS:

• A Brief History Of The UW Lease Lid
• UW Lease Lid Lift Vote Tomorrow
• The Drago-Nicastro Proposal
• An Alternative Proposal

A Brief History Of The UW Lease Lid

The “lease lid” is a limit on the square footage of property the University of Washington may lease in specific neighborhoods surrounding the campus. It was imposed in 1985 to prevent UW leasing from distorting the real estate market and driving out other uses.

It has been raised over the years in response to UW needs. The first lease lid allowed for 241,950 square feet of off-campus leasing. In 1991 the lid was raised to 400,000 square feet and in 1998 it was raised to the current level of 550,000 square feet.

The following statement by Jeannie Hale, president of the Laurelhurst Community Club, provides a brief history of how the current proposal to lift the lease lid has come about.

“A few years ago, the University approached its neighbors asking about working together to revise the 1983 City-University Agreement because the City’s proposal did not meet the needs of the University. The communities did that. It took a long time-18 months-and there were many compromises-including compromises relating to the lease lid. At the time, there was never any desire on the part of the University to eliminate the lease lid. The City and the UW Board of Regents approved the 1998 City-University Agreement that the University and its neighbors had developed. This was a very successful example of the University working with its neighbors. It is what should happen with the current lease lid proposal.”

“The lease lid has worked well for the past 25 years. It has been modified on occasion to address changing needs of the University and new conditions. Changes have only been made, however, in consultation with the impacted communities. This has not happened with the Mayor’s proposal.”

UW Lease Lid Lift Vote Tomorrow

The City Council Finance Committee will take their first vote on whether to alter the current UW Lease Lid tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM in Council Chambers. The Committee Chair is Jan Drago, I serve as Vice-Chair and Peter Steinbrueck is also a member. It is likely, however, that other Councilmembers will join us and vote at the meeting.

The importance of this meeting is to determine if the formal Agreement between the City and the University of Washington should be amended to eliminate the existing restriction on the University’s ability to lease space in its neighboring communities. Currently they lease about 500,000 square feet within this “impact zone”. They lease approximately an additional equal amount outside this zone.

Last week Councilmembers Jan Drago and Judy Nicastro had crafted a proposal to lift the University of Washington lease lid in the core University District until July 2010.

The proposal incorporates recommendations from a University District Market Analysis commissioned by the Seattle Office of Economic Development and researched by the firm Gardner Johnson. Although the Gardner report has been criticized for its methodology it concluded that the key factor to revitalizing business in the University District is development of new housing and establishment of a permanent residential base that would serve as customers to local businesses at night as well as during the day.

This week the University of Washington’s Regional Affairs Director has written to the City Council to report that if the Council votes to approve the Drago/Nicastro proposal (Option 2) to eliminate the lease lid with conditions, the University will not support this position.

If the City Council were to vote for option 2 and University refused to sign the agreement the lease lid will simply stay in place as is. Similarly if the Mayor vetoed a Council vote supporting option 2 the lease lid would simply stay in place as is. If this were to occur then any negative consequence resulting from the failure to lift the lid would be the result of the University’s failure to negotiate and responsibility of the University, not the Council.

Out of concern that the UW, the Mayor, and the editorial boards of some of our papers may characterize the Drago-Nicastro proposal as anti-jobs and anti-growth the support of this proposal is waning and it appears that Councilmembers are supporting a more generous agreement (Option 4) to facilitate UW expansion.

The Drago-Nicastro Proposal

The Drago-Nicastro proposal, ( Option 2) which enjoyed the support of the Council majority last week offers significant concessions to the UW:

1. Negotiating this issue outside of the master plan process as required by the current agreement, eliminates 10 community organizations from the list of parties that the UW historically must negotiate this issue with.

2. This proposal eliminates the limit on the number of square feet that the UW may lease in the leasing zone. The University Park Community Club, Laurelhurst Community Club, Ravenna-Bryant Community Council, University District Community Council, Friends of Brooklyn, and the Community Council Federation, have all accepted the notion of giving the UW more leasing capacity. This is a strong statement from the community, showing their willingness to negotiate in good faith. Many of these groups wrote to Council supporting a lift of the limit to the level that equaled the projection, based upon past yearly leasing rates, that our own staff analysis supports as a likely 5-year capacity for the University.

The complete elimination of a regulation that community representatives throughout the City’s northeast region want to maintain in some capacity, offers nothing to address the concern that elimination of the lid will have a significant impact on the quality of life for a large segment of the City’s population. It cannot be denied that the wholesale elimination of this agreement, as opposed to simply increasing the square footage permitted, is a very significant gain for the University.

3. Lastly, this proposal expands the boundaries wherein unlimited leasing can occur.

A review of the public testimony illustrates that the only concession to the community is an agreement to lower the lid in five years if the City determines that the leasing patterns of the University are having a negative affect. A lowering of the lid at a later date, will allow the additional leased space to remain.

Despite all of these concessions, the University’s representatives have stated that they could not recommend it to the Board of Regents.

An Alternative Proposal

Since the University is rejecting the Drago-Nicastro proposal, I’m suggesting that the Council should entertain a straightforward increase in the lid. This is something that the communities are divided on. Some would not like to see any increase others are willing to see some increase.

I believe it provides a real compromise between the University’s and the community’s positions.

I propose the following elements of a new proposal:

1. Lift lease limit to 750,000 square feet. (Permitting 207,000 sf of additional leases) within permitted the leasing zone.

2. Provide the ability for the UW take advantage of two available exemptions to the 750,000 square foot lease limit.

Allow unlimited leasing within the permitted leasing zone and exempt from lease-lid restrictions new development projects that include a housing component of 30% floor area for the life of the building.

Also, allow unlimited leasing within the permitted leasing zone and exempt from lease-lid restrictions leases in the vacant upper floors of buildings existing as of the date of approval of this amendment.

3. New leasing shall not be permitted where it would result in the “demolition of structures with residential uses or change of use of those structures to non-residential uses unless comparable replacement is proposed to maintain the housing stock of the city.” (Language from Major Institutions Land Use Code 23.34.124).

The increase in the amount of square feet that the University can lease is what our Council Central staff determined would be sufficient to meet the University’s needs for the next five years. At any time during this period, the lid can be increased again if there is a demand for it. In addition, the past lid on the University’s ownership of land and buildings off campus has now been eliminated so they can own an unlimited amount of buildings to meet their needs.