press room

For Immediate Release

Dr. Benjamin O. Canada Testifies Before the Senate Committee
on Health & Education on Behalf of Americans for the Arts

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Dr. Benjamin O. Canada, Superintendent of Portland Public Schools in Oregon, testified today before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in support of arts education for children. Canada testified on behalf of Americans for the Arts, the nation's largest arts advocacy organization, which is encouraging more focused attention on arts education to the proposed Educational Excellence for All Children Act, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

In stating that "arts education is the bedrock for keeping democracy alive in this country," Canada cited his 31 years of professional experience in education, including his 10 years of service as superintendents of schools in Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; and currently Portland, Oregon, where a model program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Department of Justice and Americans for the Arts returned concrete results of how youth arts programming positively affected at-risk teens in the program.

Adding that Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, had recently called the lack of adequate arts education in our nation's schools "inexcusable," Canada highlighted groundbreaking arts education research results from a variety of sources, including Harvard professor Howard Gardner; the University of Minnesota's Children, Youth and Family Consortium; and the U.S. Department of Justice as providing concrete evidence of the success of arts education among the young, especially among children of need in rural and inner city areas.

He also remarked on his own involvement as an Arts Advisory Committee member for a new benchmark report called, Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons from School Districts that Value Arts Education - released by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and the Arts Education Partnership - which found that the single most critical factor in sustaining arts education in schools is the active and collaborative involvement of influential segments of the community in shaping and implementing the arts policies and programs of the district.

In summary, Canada stated his belief that public and private sector leaders at the national, state and local levels need to step up their support for integrating the arts into a comprehensive strategy to provide children with a complete and sustainable education.

"It is abundantly clear that all segments of the community must be engaged and must partner with local school districts to make this (arts education) happen. I believe a complete education involving the arts must include both high-quality, sequential instruction in the classroom as well as participation and learning in the arts in the community…..From teacher training to educational service for the underserved, the arts need to be encouraged so that we educate all our children with the democratic values that we so strongly hold dear."