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.

###

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

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Up Next

Calling all Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) Artists!

Don't Miss

$4 Million Dedicated to Affordable Housing in Fairfax: County loan allows nonprofit to purchase, rehabilitate apartments

Oakland Post

Click to comment

Advice

COMMENTARY: If You Don’t Want Your ‘Black Card’ Revoked, Watch What You Bring to Holiday Dinners

From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day, whether it’s the dining room table or the bid whist (Spades? Uno, anyone?) table, your card may be in danger.

Published

5 hours ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

The ‘aunties’ playing cards. iStock photo by Andreswd.

By Wanda Ravernell
Post Staff

From the fourth week of November to the first week in January, if you are of African descent, but particularly African American, certain violations of cultural etiquette will get your ‘Black card’ revoked.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s Day, whether it’s the dining room table or the bid whist (Spades? Uno, anyone?) table, your card may be in danger.

It could take until Super Bowl Sunday for reinstatement.

I don’t know much about the card table, but for years I was on probation by the ‘Aunties,’ the givers and takers of Black cards.

How I Got into Trouble

It was 1970-something and I was influenced by the health food movement that emerged from the hippie era. A vegetarian (which was then considered sacrilegious by most Black people I knew) prepared me a simple meal: grated cheese over steamed broccoli, lentils, and brown rice.

I introduced the broccoli dish at the Friday night supper with my aunt and grandfather. She pronounced the bright green broccoli undone, but she ate it. (I did not, of course, try brown rice on them.)

I knew that I would be allowed back in the kitchen when she attempted the dish, but the broccoli had been cooked to death. (Y’all remember when ALL vegetables, not just greens, were cooked to mush?)

My Black card, which had been revoked was then reattained because they ate what I prepared and imitated it.

Over the decades, various transgressions have become normalized. I remember when having a smoked turkey neck instead of a ham hock in collard greens was greeted with mumblings and murmurings at both the dining room and card tables. Then came vegan versions with just olive oil (What? No Crisco? No bacon, at least?) and garlic. And now my husband stir fries his collards in a wok.

But No Matter How Things Have Changed…

At holiday meals, there are assigned tasks. Uncle Jack chopped raw onions when needed. Uncle Buddy made the fruit salad for Easter. My mother brought the greens in winter, macaroni salad in summer. Aunt Deanie did the macaroni and cheese, and the great aunts, my deceased grandmother’s sisters, oversaw the preparation of the roast beef, turkey, and ham. My father, if he were present, did the carving.

These designations/assignments were binding agreements that could stand up in a court of law. Do not violate the law of assignments by bringing some other version of a tried-and-true dish, even if you call it a new ‘cheese and noodle item’ to ‘try out.’ The auntie lawgivers know what you are trying to do. It’s called a menu coup d’état, and they are not having it.

The time for experiments is in your own home: your spouse and kids are the Guinea pigs.

My mother’s variation of a classic that I detested from that Sunday to the present was adding crushed pineapple to mashed sweet potatoes. A relative stops by, tries it, and then it can be introduced as an add-on to the standard holiday menu.

My Aunt Vivian’s concoctions from Good Housekeeping or Ladies’ Home Journal magazine also made it to the Black people’s tables all over the country in the form of a green bean casserole.

What Not to Do and How Did It Cross Your Mind?

People are, of all things holy, preparing mac ‘n’ cheese with so much sugar it tastes like custard with noodles in it.

Also showing up in the wrong places: raisins. Raisins have been reported in the stuffing (makes no sense unless it’s in a ‘sweet meats’ dish), in a pan of corn bread, and – heresy in the Black kitchen – the MAC ‘n’ CHEESE.

These are not mere allegations: There is photographic evidence of these Black card violations, but I don’t want to defame witnesses who remained present at the scene of the crimes.

The cook – bless his/her heart – was probably well-meaning, if ignorant. Maybe they got the idea from a social media influencer, much like Aunt Viv got recipes from magazines.

Thankfully, a long-winded blessing of the food at the table can give the wary attendee time to locate the oddity’s place on the table and plan accordingly.

But who knows? Innovation always prevails, for, as the old folks say, ‘waste makes want.’ What if the leftovers were cut up, dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried? The next day, that dish might make it to the TV tray by the card table.

An older cousin – on her way to being an Auntie – in her bonnet, leggings, T-shirt, and bunny slippers and too tired to object, might try it and like it….

And if she ‘rubs your head’ after eating it, the new dish might be a winner and (Whew!) everybody, thanks God, keeps their Black cards.

Until the next time.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Arts and Culture

Fayeth Gardens Holds 3rd Annual Kwanzaa Celebration at Hayward City Hall on Dec. 28

Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles – Nguzu Saba – that support an ideal of community, beginning from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1. Those principles, in Swahili, are: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work & Responsibility), Ujamaa (Collective Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith).

Published

5 hours ago

December 14, 2025

Oakland Post

The Pride and Joy Band performed at the first annual Kwanzaa celebration sponsored by Fayeth Gardens. Courtesy photo.

Entertainment, vendors, and special honors for Sankofa Lifetime Achievement awardees

Special to The Post

Celebrating Ujima, the principle of ‘Collective Work and Responsibility,’ Fayeth Gardens’ 3^rd Annual Kwanzaa Celebration will be held on Dec. 28, from 12 noon to 5 p.m.

Kwanzaa celebrates seven principles – Nguzu Saba – that support an ideal of community, beginning from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

Those principles, in Swahili, are: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work & Responsibility), Ujamaa (Collective Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity) and Imani (Faith).

The free event at Hayward City Hall at 777 B St. will feature live entertainment, a guest speaker, awards for community activists whose work reflects the principle of Ujima, vendors and an honoring of the ancestors by Awon Ohun Omnira (Voices of Freedom).

On stage will be the Touch of Class Band, a New Orleans Second-Line Band, and the California Griot Storytellers. Bring the children to have fun in the Kids Korner.

Velda Goe, who has been celebrating Kwanzaa since it started in the 1960s, noticed there was no public celebration of the holiday in Hayward when she moved to the city in 2008.

“I started it a couple of years ago,” she said, “and hopefully it will continue just like the cultural events by other nationalities (in Hayward). The Afro-descendent people of Hayward deserve cultural recognition as well.”

Goe also believes it’s important that Kwanzaa gets its due because “there are so many misconceptions,” particularly by people of other nationalities, who are under the impression “that Kwanzaa is a cult, a religion, or replaces Christmas.”

The celebration, which is open to all, can have the effect of helping guests see that Kwanzaa’a principles and purpose are common to all

This year’s Sankofa Lifetime Awardees are:

Mrs. Freddye M. Davis: President of the South Hayward NAACP
•Baba Arnold X.C. Perkins: Co-founder of the Brotherhood of Elders
•Frederick Jordan,: Legendary founder of F.E. Jordan & Associates and the Design Engineer for the Charles P. Howard Container Terminal at the Port of Oakland + 1,000 Projects

Come dressed up in your best African wear to enter a raffle for a prize for best-dressed Afrocentric King and Queen.A free, healthy soul food lunch is available with an Eventbrite ticket, which can be found at for free lunch is available from for 11:30 to 12 p.m.

In its third year, the event is the brainchild of Velda Goe, founder of Fayeth Gardens, a community planting site to educate and provide a means for urban dwellers to grow healthy food for their families and develop life-sustaining eating habits.

Interested in being a vendor, volunteer, or sponsor? Reach out to FayethGardens@gmail.com

For tickets, go to: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fayeth-gardens-3rd-annual-kwanzaa-celebration-at-hayward-city-hall-tickets-1974966953322

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Essay: Intentional Self Care and Community Connections Can Improve Our Wellbeing

At the deepest and also most expansive level of reality, we are all part of the same being, our bodies made from the minerals of the earth, our spirits infused by the spiritual breath that animates the universe. Willingness to move more deeply into fear and pain is the first step toward moving into a larger consciousness. Willingness to move beyond the delusion of our separateness can show us new ways of working and living together.

Published

2 months ago

October 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Lorraine Bonner is a retired physician. She is also a sculptor who works in clay, exploring issues of trust, trustworthiness and exploitation, as well as visions of a better world.

By Dr. Lorraine Bonner, Special to California Black Media Partners

I went to a medical school that was steeped in the principles of classical Western medicine. However, I also learned mindfulness meditation during that time, which opened me to the multifaceted relationship between illnesses and the interconnecting environmental, mental and emotional realities that can impact an individual’s health.

Therefore, when I began to practice medicine, I also pursued training in hypnosis, relaxation techniques, meditation, and guided imagery, to bring a mind-body focus to my work in medical care and prevention.

The people I saw in my practice had a mix of problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and a variety of pain issues. I taught almost everyone relaxation breathing and made some general relaxation tapes. To anyone willing, I offered guided imagery.

“My work embraced an approach to wellness I call “Liberatory Health” — one that not only addresses the treatment and management of disease symptoms but also seeks to dismantle the conditions that make people sick in the first place.”

From my perspective, illness is only the outermost manifestation of our efforts to cope, often fueled by addictions such as sugar, tobacco, or alcohol, shackled by an individualistic cult belief that we have only ourselves to blame for our suffering.

To put these ideas into practical form, I would quote the immortal Mr. Rogers: “Find the helpers.” There are already people in every community working for liberation. Some of them are running for office, others are giving food to those who need it. Some are volunteering in schools, libraries or hospitals. Some are studying liberation movements, or are working in urban or community gardens, or learning to practice restorative and transformative justice, or creating liberation art, music, dance, theater or writing. Some are mentoring high schoolers or apprenticing young people in a trade. There are many places where compassionate humans are finding other humans and working together for a better world.

A more compassionate world is possible, one in which we will all enjoy better health. Creating it will make us healthier, too.

In community, we are strong. Recognizing denial and overcoming the fragmenting effects of spiritual disorder offer us a path to liberation and true health.

Good health and well-being are the collective rights of all people!

About the Author

Dr. Lorraine Bonner is a retired physician. She is also a sculptor who works in clay, exploring issues of trust, trustworthiness and exploitation, as well as visions of a better world.