Bloomberg, Thompson lay out school arts priorities

Mayor Bloomberg and Comptroller William Thompson both want to see arts thrive in the schools but have different strategies about how to make that happen, according to their mayoral campaigns’ responses to questionnaires from the Center for Arts Education.

In its response, the Bloomberg campaign explains why city schools don’t need dedicated arts funding, which the city eliminated in 2007: 

A fixed per-pupil arts allocation does not work because no two schools are the saem. A micro example would be that a school that is adjacent to the Brooklyn Museum does not need the same resources to provide arts exposure for its students as a school in Far Rockaway would.

Thompson would restore dedicated arts funding, according to his campaign’s response. And he says he wants the arts to have a place of prominence in the city schools:

We can no longer tolerate the erosion of arts education in our schools. It is time that dance, music, visual arts, and theater are valued and treated as an integral part of a child’s academic experience.