The budget for the State of New York has a big hole in it, this year and next. Governor David Patterson has proposed major cuts, some call it amputations, to the NYSCA budget.

A cut of $2.6 million occurred just a short time ago. Now the Governor has proposed an additional cut of $7 million.

All totaled, this is a near 20 percent cut, reducing the NYSCA budget to $39 million, from $49 million just a short while ago.

And, get a load of how it works: those who received grant awards in panels held before October receive their grants. If you were in the October panel, which was suspended, or the December panel, well, you would simply be SOL.

For my organization, that's a loss of near $50,000.

I have a colleague testifying today at a hearing up in Albany, the State Capitol.. The New York City Arts Coalition is getting the word out to members; the New York State Alliance of Arts Organizations and the New York State Alliance for Arts Education are organizing email campaigns; I am sure there are plenty of others, including lobbyists working to rethink these cuts.

No one can argue that cuts are necessary. However, these cuts are clearly disproportionate, unfair, and penalize grantees on the basis of timing, as in whether or not you were considered during a panel held before October.

More to come...

Teacher tenure: it's the Maybe the orchestras will be next....

The big news here is that Gates, as many people already knew, will be moving away from its focus on the creation of small schools. It will be interesting to see what happens to the small school movement, particularly those districts that are in the middle or early stages of development.

Here is an excerpt from Liz Green's piece from Gotham Schools. You can view her entire report My colleague said to me that "the arts are a core subject in NCLB and that alerting policy makers of this can have a powerful positive affect."

It's true, NCLB does include arts education as one of the 10 core subjects.

In reality that's a policy fantasy. "Follow the money," said another colleague. Or, "the only accountability is financial accountability," said a senior education administrator. I like that last quote. It rings true to me.

So, what's happened under NCLB? Perhaps the best take on this is from Jack Jennings at the Center on Education Policy: the narrowing of the curriculum is real.

If the curriculum was narrowing during a period of budget growth in most public schools, what do you think will happen if NCLB remains the same or has only minor changes during a period of divestment in education?

In other words, what does NCLB plus big budget cuts equal: a new, hyper-driven back-to-basics movement.