On Thursday, November 17 , the second-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement, the Mobilize for Economic Justice rally in Foley Square took place. It was an event filled with both anger and hope as people including college professors and students, came together to unite in an act of civil disobedience. With the exception of few arrests, this event was suprisingly refreshing; it felt good to hear the many opinions of the people that represent the “99%” who targeted issues such as budget cuts and funding the arts.

One issue that I find to be extremely essential to the OWS cause is the underfunding of the arts in the education system due to budget cuts. In this past fiscal year, budget cuts have had a detrimental affect to the arts-in-education system. In http://www.academyofart.us/budgetcuts.html it explains that because of the economic downfall, budget cuts have increasingly threatened the use of arts in the education system, which is dangerous. Why would it be dangerous? Well, according to the article and the protestors at OWS, funds have been taken away from the arts by placing budget cuts on schools and causing them to cut “the arts” out of the picture. What is being argued is that the arts have an important role on the overall happiness of kids in the education system. Studies showed that test scores went down when schools cut the arts! I find this to be a reasonable and essential argument.

From personal experience, I have seen how budget cuts have affected the lives of kids in the education system. Being that I went to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music, Art, and the Performing, I was constantly surrounded by arts which was part of my curriculum. I could say I was lucky enough to not have to experience the major changes others younger than me had to experience in my school. Although, my school was luckily heavily funded, compared to many other schools, there were still some major differences from when I first arrived as a freshman to when I graduated. Music classes were beginning to be weaned out; instead of every student taking 3-4 periods of “studio” classes (depending on your major), they began making the freshmen only take 2-3 classes. Now they may not seem like a big difference, but given that we had a rigorous conservatory-like set curriculum, it seemed almost life-changing because the arts had such a big affect on our lives. Even our major school productions such as the annual musical had to deal with extreme budget cuts. It scary to think that money might change the identity of the “Fame” school!

Although this issue, doesn’t seem to be as important to some people I feel like it holds a great deal of pressure on our future generation. If kids in the present education system don’t have the arts to fall back on that promotes creativity, what to expect of them in the future? Who will be handling our money? It is obvious, they will, and I find it to be reckless that we’re not making this issue a more prominent argument. I can say that I mostly understand the “general” cause of the Occupy Wall Street Movement and mostly agree with it, but I wonder if we should be paying more attention to our future generation…