[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 100 (Thursday, July 23, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1400-E1401]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FUNDING OF THE NEA AND CENSORSHIP
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HON. BERNARD SANDERS
of vermont
in the house of representatives
Thursday, July 23, 1998
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to have printed in the Record
statements by high school students from my home State of Vermont, who
were speaking at my recent town meeting on issues facing young people
today.
Funding of the NEA and Censorship
(By Daniel Luzer)
There has been a great deal of controversy lately about the
National Endowment for the Arts. The Supreme Court is
expected to rule in July in the case of National Endowment
for the Arts versus Finley to decide if the federal law
requiring the head of the Endowment to consider general
standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and
views of the American public when considering whether or not
to award a grant. In Congress last month, Senator John
Ashcroft, together with Senator Jesse Helms, attempted, in an
appropriations bill, to kill the endowment program entirely.
From the beginning, the National Endowment for the Arts has
been a controversial program. Certainly the endowment is a
valuable program. Before 1965, when the endowment was
instituted, the arts were, to a great extent, still on the
fringes of society and accessible only to the cultural elite.
Since then, the arts have expanded greatly, and are now
accessible to the masses and have thus begun to educate the
majority, which was the point.
In the words of Maryanne Peters, the President of the Board
of Directors of the National Campaign for Freedom of
Expression, ``In creating the NEA, Congress recognized that
the arts are integral to fostering imaginative thinking in
our culture.'' In the 33 years which the National Endowment
for the Arts has existed, the role of art in our culture has
greatly increased. One of the main contributions that the
Endowment has made to our culture is to expand the American
art world from a largely market-driven world to a system
which allows artists to explore and to expose communities to
new creative fields, without having to worry about how to
purchase materials, or even purchase food.
It is important to remember, though, that money from the
National Endowment for the Arts is a prize, bestowed upon
artists whose work is either exceptionally good or greatly
needed in a given community. Artists who receive money from
the Endowment are singled out for the content of the work.
Organizations like National Campaign for Freedom of
Expression would like us to believe that the law requiring
the head of the Endowment to consider standards of decency
when awarding grants amounts to a violation of the rights to
free speech.
This line of reasoning is flawed, however, in that The
First Amendment to the Constitution states that ``Congress
shall make no law restricting freedom of speech.'' The fact
of the matter is that the above-mentioned law is not a law
restricting freedom of speech. The National Endowment for the
Arts is not an organization which punishes artists for poor
quality work; it is an organization which awards prizes to
artists of first quality.
The law simply requires potential grant-givers to consider
decency with respect to art. The law does not restrict the
freedom to speak in any way, since no artist is restricted
from anything; they will simply find it slightly more
difficult to receive federal money for offensive work, which
seems a logical and acceptable state for an artist to be in.
So the law is not unconstitutional.
That being said, the other issue that artists and artists'
groups have brought up is the law's potentially harmful
vagueness, which could lead to arbitrary and dangerous
selection and rejection of an artist's work, which is absurd
in a federal program, where standards are needed in order to
determine an artistic piece's relevance in relation to the
policies and purpose of the National Endowment for the Arts.
This is certainly a legitimate concern, and one which needs
to be addressed in order for the National Endowment for the
Arts to continue to function in a manner that benefits
society. What the National Endowment for the Arts needs to
continue in a way that benefits America are clearer laws and
a stricter codification of the grant system. In this way,
artists can be granted money based on whether and where their
work is needed. If a given community was seriously lacking
in, say, quality theater, then playwrights could be sent,
with NEA grants, to the said community.
To a certain extent, the National Endowment for the Arts
already works in this manner. However, greater clarity on
this issue would lead to a better relationship between the
art and political communities, which would decrease artists'
frustration and improve the quality of the overall art
program in the United States.
This plan does, to a certain extent, lead to discrimination
against certain forms of art. While that is unfortunate,
there is no way that the United States government could ever
equally support all forms of art. But that was never the
purpose of the National Endowment for the Arts. Another
objection that could be raised for this plan for greater
codification of the endowments program is that placing
restrictions would adversely affect the quality of art.
While that is a legitimate concern, as the arts are an
expression of emotion, it is important to realize that, in
order for the arts to flourish, they do not need to be
unrestricted. Some the greatest works of art were created
under severe restrictions. The entire Renaissance, which
for example, produced such masterpieces as Michelangelo's
Sistine Chapel, Donatello's Madonna and Child, and Dante's
Divine Comedy, was funded in large part by the Florentine
banking families, not to mention the Vatican.
An additional argument against the idea of greater
codification for the National Endowment for the Arts might be
that the organization would therefore not be supporting the
artistic community at all, since the award of grants would be
based on the need for certain artists, rather than absolute
support for artistic expression. One needs to realize,
however, that the purpose of the National Endowment for the
Arts should not be to encourage artistic expression among the
artistic community. That would exist whether the National
Endowment for the Arts does or not.
The purpose for the NEA ought to be to support the viewers
of art, extending their horizon so as to foster the greater
artistic understanding of the nation as a whole, not to
support the ever-expanding imagination of the elite artistic
community.
Statement by Dan Welch Regarding Vermont Education Standards
My name is Dan Welch, and two years ago--well, last year,
second semester, I was
[[Page E1401]]
given the opportunity to work with the Vermont Institute for
Math, Science and Technology on developing a handbook for
understanding the Vermont framework of standards that is in
place in our education system right now. And I found, through
visiting other schools and talking to college-level people,
that the Vermont frameworks are not understood by anyone, and
they are the basis for our entire education system for the
next decade.
I think that putting standards into education is asking a
lot of students for a lot of things, especially the standards
as high as these, and my concern is that, when students see
standards for the first time, which won't be for a couple
years, they are going to choke.
I come from CVU, which is a school where you have to do a
standard-based project to graduate, and when this project
first started off--the number was 88 percent of kids, three
years ago, failed to meet the standards on their first time
around. Had there not been a second chance to meet that
standard, had it been like an exam for their final in the
course, 88 percent of those kids, of a class of 200, would
have stayed back and joined the class behind them.
Putting standards into schools is a good thing, to level
the playing field and say, well, everyone's getting their
education based around this one concept or these ideas. But
putting it into such pass-fail stringencies and saying that
they are a standard is going far beyond what should be done.
And the setup for Vermont's framework of standards is based
on a program that was started in Essex, I believe, and they
want to work like a rubric for point systems, where it is not
necessarily pass-fail.
The Vermont framework for standards is an excellent idea,
it is a little vague in the English area, but I would like to
see programs like it going up nationwide, because it would
really make a difference in the education system as soon as
it is fully implemented.
My biggest concern is that, once it is implemented, at what
point do students find out about the standards that are
expected to be met? I found out my junior year. I would have
liked to have known my freshman year, and maybe earlier. This
is one of the issues I brought up when I was working with
VISMT on rewriting the handbook for understanding the
standards, is that the students should know what is expected
of them from day one, and the handbooks that I was given
should be made available to everyone from, probably, 7th
grade, or earlier, on. And parents should be kept informed of
what the standards are from the time their child enters the
school system until long after, because they should continue
their role as an active member of the community to know what
is being expected of their local students and how they can
get involved to change that.
Statement by Rhys Marsh Regarding Act 60/Federal Education Funding
Act 60 is one of the most controversial and monumental
bills to pass the Vermont legislature in recent years. It
comes in response to a 1996 decision by the Vermont Supreme
Court which declared Vermont's system of education funding
illegal according to the Vermont constitution.
The main purpose of Act 60 is therefore to equalize public
school funding opportunities in the State of Vermont. Act 60
accomplishes this by introducing a statewide property tax of
$1.10 per $100 of property value, which funds block grants of
approximately $5,000 per student for each local school
district.
As all but 13 of Vermont's 252 towns are currently spending
more than the $5,000 block grant per student, towns are given
the option of raising additional money for their schools
through a local property tax. Under Act 60, the distribution
of moneys raised through local taxes has been equalized as
well. A tax increase of one cent per $100 of property value
in Vernon, which has a fair market property value of about $9
million would obviously not yield as much money as a one cent
increase would in Stowe, which has a fair market property
value of $769 million. Because of this discrepancy, so-called
gold towns such as Stowe and Stratton must give some of their
money raised through local taxes to the state. This has the
effect of making a one cent tax increase in Stowe produce as
much money for the school system as a one cent tax increase
would produce in Vernon.
Opponents of the bill say Act 60 has put an unfair tax
burden on the more wealthy towns, as they must now share
their property tax dollars with other, poorer towns. Some
also complain that less affluent families who own property in
gold towns will be hurt by the tax increase those towns are
likely to face.
However, Act 60 has, in reality, only given all Vermont
students equal chance for education funding, regardless of
geographical location. Before Act 60 was passed, property
taxes varied immensely within the State of Vermont. For
example, Stratton provided lavish funds to its schools with a
tax rate of only 42 cents per $100. However, in Standard, a
grueling tax rate of $4.39 per $100 was necessary to provide
adequate school funding. This means that property valued at
$100,000 in Stratton would be taxed only $420, while, in
Standard, the same property would be taxed $4,390. Under Act
60, both properties will be taxed $1,100, unless their towns
decide to spend more than the $5,000 per pupil block grants
the state provides.
This means that the property-rich towns will now get the
same bang for the buck as property-poor towns. Even if the
gold towns continue to fund their schools at the current high
levels, the property taxes will not increase the levels any
greater than the rates some towns currently pay to send
moderate moneys to their schools.
In addition, families with incomes of less than $75,000
have been protected from the possible tax increases
associated with Act 60, by capping their property taxes at
between 3 and 5 percent of the household income. Act 60 has
provided an effective and equitable solution to the problems
of Vermont's property taxes and education funding.
However, the property tax is still a regressive tax, and
there are still enough inequalities in the state and local
taxes within the nation. While there is no stipulation in the
Federal Constitution that requires equal education funding
from state to state, increased equalized federal aid to
states could help to ease the downfalls of the property tax
and the funding inequities nationally.
Therefore, I believe the Federal Government should write
new legislation based on the ideas behind Act 60 and increase
the contributions to public education. This would help to
distribute the wealth of the United States more homogeneously
and improve school quality, especially in the nation's poorer
school districts. It also would move more of the tax burden
on Americans from the regressive and volatile local property
tax to the progressive income tax of the Federal Government.
Act 60 has done wonders for Vermont. The United States of
America could utilize the benefits of legislation similar to
Act 60 on a national level, to reduce our reliance on
regressive taxes and provide more equal funding for our
nation's schools.
Thank you.
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