Arts and Culture

Arts Education Funding in California: How Will Proposition 28 Roll Out?

Austin Beutner, the former superintendent of LAUSD who spearheaded Proposition 28, recently talked with EdSource about how the groundbreaking arts education initiative will roll out and why this is such a game-changer for California public education. Proposition 28 creates a guaranteed annual funding stream for music and arts education by setting aside 1% from the state’s general fund. In 2023, that comes out to roughly $941 million.

Published

3 years ago

February 25, 2023

Oakland Post

Proposition 28 creates a guaranteed annual funding stream for music and arts education by setting aside 1% from the state's general fund.

By Karen D’Souza
EdSource

Austin Beutner recalls struggling to fit in at a new school as a fifth grader. He felt awkward and alone until the music teacher suggested he try playing an instrument. Beutner took up the cello and found his voice.

That epiphany transformed his childhood, paving the way for an eclectic career that includes working for the U.S. State Department, serving as vice mayor of Los Angeles, investment banking, philanthropy and keeping the nation’s second-largest school district afloat during the depths of the pandemic.

Beutner, the former superintendent of LAUSD who spearheaded Proposition 28, recently talked with EdSource about how the groundbreaking arts education initiative will roll out and why this is such a game-changer for California public education. Proposition 28 creates a guaranteed annual funding stream for music and arts education by setting aside 1% from the state’s general fund. In 2023, that comes out to roughly $941 million.

What’s your reaction to the measure succeeding?

I’m excited. It’s a meaningful amount of funding. It’s going to make a difference in every school, hopefully for every kid. The key is that art is not a luxury. It’s the glue that binds together a proper and good education. It binds together literacy, math and critical thinking. I don’t know why, frankly, policymakers haven’t made investing in the arts and music more of a priority when the path to a livelihood for so many students in the creative economy in California is right there.

I know the funding will fluctuate with the overall budget. How much funding per child this year?

Based on our estimate, it’s $112 per kid, preschool through 12 plus $85 for every Title 1 (low-income) kid. Every year. Forever. You know, it’ll bump down with some budgets and bump up with others.

How does it compare to other states?

One of the things that we uncovered was just how poorly the state of California was doing in this regard, where barely 1 in 5 public schools have a full-time arts and music program. In New York, it’s 4 out of 5. They have invested more carefully and more thoroughly in arts and arts education for children than California has. So the state of California has to catch up. I think this initiative puts us back in the lead.

How did arts education get cut from the schools in California in the first place?

The original sin is if you cut funding for schools, is that you’re not cutting fat, you’re cutting muscle and bone. You see lots of symptoms of inadequate funding. You see class sizes that are too big. The number of students per credentialed teacher in New York is something like 35% less than it is in California. You also see it in the offering of programs for children. If you’re testing for math and English, then those are probably the last to be cut. The arts are misperceived as extras, and the extras get cut.

Do you see the new arts programming as fluid? Could a school pivot from animation to sculpture to dance over time?

Absolutely. Ideally, you’re not going to pivot every six months. It won’t be a very good program. But they might try something and a year from now, say we’re not seeing what we want. Or they might see something better a year down the road and say, you know, let’s switch to that. But hopefully, schools will make an informed and thoughtful choice.

Why do you see this funding as sparking community engagement?

It’s a good place to start. It’s a path to bringing families in and giving them a voice.

Historically, most school funding in California comes very prescriptively from the top. From Sacramento to school districts, from school districts to schools. They say: Do this. Well, it’s the opposite here, which is, here’s funds for your choice of arts programs. I think there’s some exciting opportunities for school communities to engage around this choice. Imagine, a school might be thinking of a different math curriculum, and they say, “Come on in, families, and let’s have a discussion about math curriculum.” Some will come, I’m sure, but many might be intimidated. But with arts and music, everybody has a point of view. Everybody listens. Everybody watches the Grammys. Everyone will watch the Oscars.

There’s a neat opportunity for school communities to engage and help their school leadership make a good choice.

Tell me about your experience with the cello.

My parents changed jobs, so I had to start a new school in February of fifth grade. Middle of the school year. This was Michigan, but I wasn’t worried about the cold weather outside. It was really cold. I was worried about lunch because as a shy kid in the fifth grade at a new school, my great concern was, who am I going to sit with at lunch? Fortunately, I was invited to a music class. It was a string class, and they handed me a cello. I didn’t know what a cello was. But there was lunch, thank goodness! And for me, cello became bass, bass became guitar. I developed a sense of agency and confidence in high school. I could perform in front of thousands of people before I could speak in front of tens of people. It all started with that connection to other people, feeling safe, feeling like I had found a group of friends.

How long will the program take to find its stride?

It’s early days. Will schools find the best possible program right out the park? Probably not. The money will provide for about 15,000 paying jobs, full and part-time, in public schools. Are there going to be enough teachers, or teaching artists to be found, initially? Probably not. But I’d call those high-class problems because it’s still going to be better than it was. I think if you look five years down the road, the sands will have shifted. That’s where California is better placed than any of the 49 other states because we have so many gifted, creative people in this state, musicians, writers, performers, artists of all kinds, who have had a hard time connecting with the schools.

What’s the next step in the rollout?

The first step involves an advisory council that I’ve gotten together of supporters of the initiative itself to work on three things. The first is just to make sure basic information is well shared. You know, how much is it? How does it work? Some of the basics of implementation. The second would be to elevate best practices in the schools. There are great art programs out there that can help show the way. The third piece is staffing. The money will provide for about 15,000 jobs. How do we better connect that talent, arts educators and teaching artists, to the schools?

When will the funding start to land in schools? This fall?

In substance, yes. As a technical matter, the school year starts July 1. There’s nothing to stop an entrepreneurial school from starting in summer school.

Copyright © 2023 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area.

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KarenD’Souza/EdSource0833a02/21/23

https://edsource.org/2023/arts-education-funding-in-california-how-will-proposition-28-roll-out/685800/www/bcn/general/02/newsclip.23.02.21.08.36.01.1.txt

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

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Activism

50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.

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Activism

Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”