On Cutting San Diego School Arts Programs

(3-8-2011) To address overall education spending cuts, the San Diego school district is considering a $2.8 million cut from a $3 million visual and performing arts budget. That's a 93% reduction in arts funding.

From Hailey Persinger's coverage in the The San Diego Union Tribune:

Cutting elementary music education could also have the same "trickle-up" effect it did in the '80s, when the music programs at several high schools dried up because there were no students feeding into them, said Ann Marie Haney, co-chair of San Diego's Community Council for Music in the Schools.

"It’s like anything that has to grow,” Haney said. "If you don’t plant seeds in the ground and you cut off the roots, you’re not going to have a surviving plant."