Musicians, artists support the art education promoted by Prop. 28

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“Without music, life would be a mistake,” said German philosopher Friedrich Nietzcsche.

Musician and San Fernando High School music teacher Sergio “Checo” Alonso couldn’t agree more.

“The arts and music, beyond being important in and of themselves, help support all areas of a child’s development,” notes the long-time member of the world-renowned Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano.

“Of the many reasons for engaging in arts and music, nurturing empathy, promoting cross cultural understandings, and supporting mental health and well being are among the most important,” adds the harpist who has played with some of Latin America’s greatest artists, like Jose Feliciano, Carlos Santana and Pepe Aguilar.

That’s why Alonso fully supports Proposition 28. The measure that will appear in the November 8 ballot would guarantee that 1% of the amount funded for public education annually (somewhere between $800 million and $1 billion) be set aside to fund music and arts education in every K-12 public school.

The new money would also give precedent to schools with low-income students to hire new staff.

The funding would fill a gap in state law that requires art instructions for all children in California, but due to lack of money doesn’t happen in every school or grade.

The main proponent of the measure is former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner, who has contributed over $4 million to promoting it.

Beutner said the push for more arts education was inspired by what he saw in his role while visiting schools, where arts was always atop school officials’ wishes.

“I’d see occasionally where it was present, but I’d see more often the absence of it,” he says of arts and music classes at schools.

The reason: “The funding has not been there. It’s the first to be cut and has not been restored,” he notes.

That was the reason why Pacoima-native muralist Levi Ponce decided to take a two-hour bus ride and go across the San Fernando Valley and attend Cleveland High School in Reseda instead of his home school, San Fernando High School, which lack the resources at the time.

“Cleveland High has a phenomenal art program and I encourage parents to support their kids’ careers in art as they would any other profession,” he notes.

Ponce, one of the main creators of Pacoima’s Mural Mile, a series of large scale murals along Van Nuys Boulevard, says that art allows people to express themselves in ways that otherwise they just can’t.

“Art is the application of our education to explore and reach towards the horizon,” says Ponce. “We stretch reality through our engineering. Without art, we are trapped in time and perpetuate the wrongs in our world.

“Art removes all boundaries and allows us to work for a better tomorrow. Einstein himself praised creativity over knowledge, for knowledge is limited and creativity has no end.”

Prop. 28: The who’s who in the entertainment industry has shown his support