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From Ruthie Ackerman in The Wall Street Journal:
Proponents of small foundations say smaller donors often have closer relationships with the nonprofit organizations they fund, which allows them to see firsthand how donations are being used. (Suzanne) Skees, for example, says she visits her foundation's partners in California and beyond, getting to know everyone at the organization from the executive director on down, and familiarizing herself with the programs the organizations run.
In 2012, Grantmakers in the Arts will form the Arts Education Funders’ Coalition. The Coalition will consist of funders concerned with the inequities of our public education system and determined that their investments should not be undermined by federal policy that ignores those inequities. Simply put, arts education is not equitably offered to all American children. Although there are national and state standards and regulations, we have been unsuccessful in creating an educational system where arts education is delivered to every child, in every school, every day.
Ken Bernstein writes in Daily Kos about Diane Ravitch's speech (full text of the speech is available here) to the National Opportunity to Learn Education Summit on December 9:
From Sean Bowle at Technology in the Arts:
In the world of public policy, ideas are a dime a dozen. From issues ranging from education to trade issues, everyone has their opinion about the best course of action the government should take. What’s often missing, however, are new and exciting ways to present these ideas, taking formally bland issues and finding new ways to solve them.
This is where the arts community comes in.
Barry Hessenius addresses the Equity Forum on Barry's Blog:
It isn't helpful to characterize this in any pejorative sense as evil or conspiratorial — rather it is really just the natural tendency to support one's “own” — the familiar, that with which one grew up. And that legacy of how things are done favors what it has always favor — the larger Euro-centric cultural institutions. The bottom line is this: we are not likely to change private decision-making as the same governs equity considerations until we change the culture of leadership currently (still) existent in the Board rooms where the decisions about who-gets-how-much-are made.
Arlene Goldbard essays the Equity in Arts Funding blog:
Most of the GIA bloggers make modest suggestions as to how funders can channel more resources to the artists and organizations whose social and cultural contributions are now so disproportionately underfunded. Several point to their own organizations’ or allies’ work as models. Understandably, most position themselves as ahead of the curve, already taking steps to increase equity.
So far, at least, there are few comments (the online forum ends on 16 December, so there’s still time). My hunch is that is because there aren’t so many entry points in most of the posts: what is to be debated in a group of thoughtful funders and researchers mostly affirming what they already know?
From Graydon Royce at the Star-Tribune:
If you don't cross every t and dot every i, you can kiss your cultural Legacy Amendment money goodbye.
More than a dozen Twin Cities groups that received Legacy Amendment-funded grants through the Minnesota State Arts Board in past years were stunned this year to find their applications rejected on what some say are technicalities.
Teaching Artists and the Future of Education: A report on the Teaching Artist Research Project, the final outcome of the Teaching Artists Research Project, a three-year study by NORC at the University of Chicago, is now in the GIA online library. The extensive report was authored by Nick Rabkin and Michael J. Reynolds along with Eric Hedberg and Justin Shelby, and published in September of 2011.