Preserve art in our schools

Preserve art in our schools

If only school boards across the country could understand how much art can change and benefit a student's life.

According to PBS's website, art classes benefit a child's motor skills, decision making, and cultural awareness. All that and add in improvement in academic performance and you have a perfect subject to teach school children.

However, there are reports from schools all over the country that when the budget gets tight, art classes are on the top of the list of things to get cut. Chicago Public Schools are among those doing so. As a result of drastic budget cuts, 1,715 total teachers were laid off; 159 of them were in the art or music departments. Not only are art classes lost, but also the teachers qualified and trained to introduce them to the arts.

In Chicago, the arts could help kids who have nothing else to turn to but the streets. With the lack of funding the schools have, those kids aren't getting the education they deserve. Art programs can help the troubled youth of Chicago express themselves and give them something productive to do and strive to succeed in. Academic learning doesn't seem to be for everyone, so why turn down the other options a kid has at personal success?

Children deserve the right to creativity and money should not be the reason to hinder it.

Victoria Rojas

Glendale Heights