School is back in full swing, but school budgets continue to be strained. As administrators look for ways to tighten spending, arts programs are often the first to be cut.
Some students have returned to find their school isn’t providing them with a musical instrument. Or that there’s not enough money to mount this year’s productions of Oklahoma and Arsenic and Old Lace.
How crucial are these arts programs to a well-rounded education?
VPR’s Neal Charnoff posed that question to Alex Aldrich, the the executive director of the Vermont Arts Council,