Proposed Arts Cuts Go Largely Unprotested : Budget: Orange County professional organizations are doing little to try to rescue threatened programs at public schools.

By ZAN DUBIN

May 14, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Orange County’s professional arts organizations have done little to protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed $2-billion cut to public education, even though such a massive reduction could mean the elimination of myriad school arts programs and the erosion of future audiences.

“Certainly it’s of concern to us, but we just haven’t gotten organized to address this issue,” said Ken Goldman, development director for Irvine-based Pacific Symphony.

Few school administrators are optimistic about an 11th-hour reprieve from the governor’s plan, which is meant to help remedy an estimated $12.6-billion state budget deficit.

All arts disciplines would suffer under Wilson’s proposal. For instance, about half of Santa Ana’s 44 music teachers would be laid off or switched to classes other than music, and music programs for kindergarten through third-graders in the Capistrano Unified School District would be done away with, officials say. Arts programs for all elementary students in the Placentia Unified School District would be eliminated under proposed budget cuts in that system.

If approved by the Legislature by the July 1 deadline, the cuts could lead to a “cultural caste system,” where only well-off children would encounter music outside of school, said Carolynn Lindeman, president of the Bay Area-based California Music Educators Assn. That, she said, would assuredly mean smaller audiences down the road.

Yet unlike some executives of major Los Angeles arts organizations, Orange County arts officials are doing little or nothing to try to persuade school district officials or state legislators to support funding for public-school arts programs.

County arts officials site a variety of reasons for their lack of involvement. Some stress that their focus has been on maintaining or improving their own education programs--all major and some smaller groups have them. Others say the idea never occurred to them.

“Frankly it hadn’t dawned on me,” said Bonnie McClain, executive director of the Irvine-based Pacific Chorale, which plans to start a children’s chorus next year. “What we’ve been concerned with is getting music to the kids--that’s been our main thrust.”

Similarly, Costa Mesa’s Opera Pacific has concentrated on what it can contribute musically, spokesman Tim Dunn said. “There’s always the question: Is it completely appropriate (to advocate an issue) or is it better to be available (to offer school programs)?” he said.

Thomas R. Kendrick, president of the Orange County Performing Arts Center, said the Center is “doing as much as we can” to supplement children’s arts education and expand its own outreach programs. He would not say whether the Center had taken any action in response to the looming school budget crisis.

Two arts groups have joined hundreds of county parents and students in going further.

Members of Las Canciones Committee, an Orange County Philharmonic Society support group, have spoken at several meetings of the Placentia school board since January urging that district to maintain music programs, said Barbara Williams, who is on the board and the committee.

The Philharmonic Society reaches 300,000 schoolchildren annually with free concerts throughout the county, a society official said. Even so, Randy Coleman, music supervisor for Santa Ana schools, said if that district’s budget cuts go through, Santa Ana schools won’t even have enough money to pay for buses that transport students to society-sponsored concerts at the Center. (The Santa Ana Unified School District education board is scheduled to vote today on $14.2 million in proposed cuts to its overall budget.)

Newport Harbor Art Museum education officials sent one letter in March to Santa Ana schools Supt. Rudy M. Castruita in support of the district’s threatened visual artists-in-schools program. Recently, the museum’s education programs allowed some 700 students from 10 Santa Ana schools within two months to see a major exhibit of works by American artist Edward Hopper.

Like other county arts groups, neither organization has contacted state legislators or called on patrons to do so.

“We realize we need to get more involved in politics if we’re going to keep these programs in the schools,” said JoAnn Fuerbringer, the Philharmonic Society’s education coordinator. “We know our programs don’t make up the difference.”

In contrast, top executives--not staff or volunteers--from some Los Angeles arts institutions have gone to bat for their school district.

Ernest Fleischmann, executive vice president and managing director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, appeared before the Los Angeles Unified School District board earlier this year to plea for retention of all school arts programs and has requested a second hearing date, he said. That has been in addition to the orchestra’s correspondence with state legislators and the governor’s office, he added.

“The lack of priority given to the arts in our school system has already over the last 20 to 30 years had a very detrimental effect on the whole moral, ethical, historical and cultural outlook of the United States,” Fleischmann said.

“Even in the poorest former East Block European countries, the arts are treasured and made a part of everyday life like eating and sleeping. That’s how it should be in the educational system,” Fleischmann said.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s board passed a resolution earlier this month urging the Los Angeles Unified School District board to retain 75 elementary music teacher positions at risk of elimination. Then, the resolution was sent to all L.A. school district board members, said the orchestra’s executive director, Deborah Rutter.

Letters are also being mailed to the chamber group’s entire board, its musicians, volunteers and staff asking that they send the same message to the education board--by letter or by attending meetings--and to their legislators.

More active than most of the Orange County arts groups have been music merchants in the county and around the state who sell or manufacture everything from violas to sheet music.

In an effort spearheaded by the California Music Educators Assn., the merchants have been helping to raise money to bring John Benham, a Minnesota-based, nationally known music consultant and music-education advocate, back to California for seminars this week. Benham is scheduled to speak to Orange County music educators, parents and others on Sunday at 2 p.m. at Santa Ana High School on “How to Save Your School Music Program.” He will also speak at San Diego State on Saturday.

Lindeman, of the state music educators group, said she was approached by officials at Ticketmaster in the Bay Area who wanted to join the advocacy effort. As a result, the company will insert into ticket envelopes notices calling attention to the arts-funding crisis, Lindeman said. She said a similar program is expected to begin shortly in Southern California.

Professional arts organizations’ contributions could help immensely, she added.

“Yes, they should write to the governor and legislators,” she said. “But also, they should put (flyers) in their programs and at every concert they need to say, ‘Lets make sure our children don’t get shortchanged.’ ”

South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa plans to mention the proposed school cuts in a June program essay, said producing artistic-director David Emmes.

But, like the Mark Taper Forum theater in Los Angeles and the Pacific Symphony here, so far, the theater troupe has been concentrating its advocacy efforts toward the $16.9-million state arts budget of the California Arts Council, Emmes said.

The council, whose grants often finance groups’ education programs, may face a $1-million administrative budget cut this year. Beyond that, while Gov. Wilson has said he wants to preserve the council, some legislators--as in the past--have suggested its eradication to help deal with the state’s largest budget deficit.

“It’s very disturbing to think that further cuts would be made to arts education,” Emmes said. But “we feel obviously that (the California Arts Council) is under a great deal of attack and we have to put the majority of our energies there.”

John Benham will speak on “How to Save Your School Music Program” on Sunday at Santa Ana High School, 520 W. Walnut St., Santa Ana, from 2-5 p.m. and at San Diego State University, in the Music Building, on Saturday from 1-4 p.m. Tickets, $20, are available for both workshops at the door. Information: (415) 687-1898.

DESPERATE MEASURES: Orange County schools are cutting services and programs to the bone. A1