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You
are here: A Conversation with Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
on his 2004-06 Education Commission of the States Chairman's Initiative:
"The Arts – A Lifetime of Learning"
Interviewed by Richard (Dick) J. Deasy, Director, Arts Education Partnership July 15, 2004
Research shows arts education has the power to improve student achievement, get troubled youth involved in schools and prepare students for an increasingly knowledge-based workforce. The role of state policy in integrating the arts into the K-12 education curriculum will be explored during Education Commission of the States' 2004 National Forum on Education Policy, July 13-16 in Orlando, Florida, and will be the focus of Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee chairmanship.
Mike Huckabee will become 2004-06 ECS chairman during the business session of the National Forum. He will succeed Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner.
"There is compelling evidence that shows student involvement in the arts can make a significant difference in improving educational outcomes for all kids -- in terms of their academic achievement, their engagement in learning, and their social and civic development," Huckabee said. "State policymakers play a critical role in helping realize these goals."
Huckabee's arts initiative will work with state leaders to:
-- Learn what the latest research says about the educational, economic and social benefits of student involvement with the arts and the implications for state policy and practice
-- See how their state compares in a 50-state "ArtScan" of current state policies, programs and statistics
-- Find which state policies and practices are successful in keeping the arts strong in schools and why
-- Share strategies for implementation with other state and local education, business and policy leaders.
Dick Deasy: Let me first say what an honor this is. We (the Arts Education Partnership (AEP)) are thrilled. I am an advocate for the arts and think this is an extraordinary thing you are doing. I would first like to ask why you chose the arts to be your focus as incoming chairman of the Education Commission of the States (ECS)? There are a lot of competing pressures on public education across the country. What brought you to a decision to have this major education commission devote two years to a priority on arts?
Governor Mike Huckabee: Thank you Dick. First, it is my deep personal belief that the arts are a vital part of an education for every child. Second, I think that if we don't provide an arts education, at least an arts opportunity for every child, we are leaving a lot of children behind. In the true spirit of No Child Left Behind, leaving the arts out is beyond neglect and is virtual abuse of a child. It is certainly inexcusable.
I think we need to be able to demonstrate that there are genuine correlations between participation in the arts, academic performance and long-term life success. But it is not just academic success I am interested in. I am more concerned that we develop children who are good citizens, productive citizens and happy well-adjusted citizens, rather than kids who can just pass a test and get through school.
The arts opens up a whole new horizon for every human being and without that, we will have very one-dimensional children who become one-dimensional adults. In addition to being less than they should be as members of the workforce, these one-dimensional adults are likely to lead far less interesting lives. We can fix that while they are young, and so I am very passionate about the arts.
A focus on the arts is not just a theme for an initiative, but rather something I am genuinely driven by. What makes this issue particularly important right now to me is that I don't hear it talked about much in mainstream education circles. Instead, the arts often get subjugated to the role of the unnecessary, the extraneous, the extracurricular and the expendable. I'm trying to say here that I disagree with that role. The arts are essential. We cannot do without them. They are an integral part of a good, overall academic preparation for life.
DD: I am intrigued by the notion that your focus on the arts is not just about academics, but rather what changes a kid. There is some pretty good research though, around the impact that arts education can have on academic performance. Will some of that research be used as a part of your initiative?
GMH: It will. I think the reason the research is so important is because it gives us a calling card to get at least a hearing with some policymakers. Some of them are so focused on math and science and to make sure kids can write and read. I would say to them, "I agree, but if you want to improve their math scores, here is the data that shows that kids who are exposed to music early in life will score several points higher on the SAT exams. There is a direct correlation to math and spatial reasoning skills." Do you want these kids to do well in language? If so, get them into music early because their capacity to learn music is really about learning new esoteric symbols they are not used to, a skill that will help them improve their math and language scores.
When kids learn music, they learn how to learn. When you learn how to learn, this skill can be applied to any subject, whether it is speaking French or learning Algebraic formulas.
Also, many kids are bored in school and have nothing there that makes them want to go. If you unlock a child's capacity for art, whether it is visual arts, theatre, dance or music, that capacity can be the motivator for a child to make the academic grades to stay in the choir or the band. This motivator gives the child a sense of anticipation, hope and interest that otherwise he doesn't have.
DD: We have seen interesting situations as we work in states around the country where kids drop out of school and sneak back in for their arts classes. This example supports your point that the arts are a magnet and an avenue to make kids want to come to school every day.
Now, you started by saying that part of your interest is personal. You are, of course, a musician, but how did that develop? Was it a school experience or a family one?
GMH: When I was an 11-year-old kid, my parents got me an electric guitar from the J. C. Penney catalog for Christmas. It only cost $99.00 and I still have the guitar and the amplifier that is now on display at the State House museum in Little Rock. The museum asked for artifacts from first families and I thought that my first guitar would represent me perfectly.
I started playing in a little band and took lessons from a Pentecostal preacher in Pope, Arkansas, who taught guitar lessons, and who, by the way, would probably be aghast if he knew the kind of stuff I was playing today.
Like many kids in the mid-1960's, I wanted to be a musician and to be in a band and go on tour. I had an incredible amount of fun playing in bands from the time I was in junior high school. Yet, later in life, I look back and realize some of the wonderful life lessons I have learned – everything from teamwork to a sense of discipline – and I know that I have learned those things from music.
A musician understands that for every minute of performance, there are a hundred hours of practice. That is a good life lesson. As the Governor of a state, I know that I may have a few moments in the spotlight, but I am going to have many, many more hours toiling behind the scenes and that any success I may have is not dependent upon my time in the spotlight, but rather by time in rehearsal. That is a great life lesson.
I was very involved in drama in high school. Though people may find this hard to believe, I was an incredibly shy person as a little kid. I was very intimidated by people and wouldn't even go to ball games because I didn't want to walk in front of a stadium full of people. If I did ever go, I would go early and sit way up at the top so I wouldn't have to interact with anyone.
My first experience on stage was in a PTA Christmas play in 1st grade. Everyone gets at least a small role in this play, if even for just a minute. I was one of the two kids presumed to be the least likely to perform well, so we were dressed in clown suits and were supposed to go out on stage at the end of the play and say, "Thank you everybody, goodnight" and then close the curtain. That was the only thing we had to do and weren't even part of the program at all. We were backstage, ready to go out for our big moment, and the teacher said, "go" and I froze. I could not do it. I went out on stage to look and there probably weren't 75 people in the crowd, but I couldn't move. I could hear people whispering "get off, get off," but I just stood there like a deer in the headlights. The other kid closed both curtains and the parents in the audience were asking out loud, "who was that kid?"
To have come from that to where I am today, where I get up and speak in front of people all the time, shows that obviously something happened between points A and B. Both my love for playing music and for dramatic acting gave me the ability to get over my fear.
When you want to participate in a craft so badly, the audience becomes secondary. Yet, the first time an audience gives you their affirmation of applause, it is a feeling of accomplishment that is incredible.
I think people in America make this huge mistake of trying to give kids what I call artificial self-esteem. If you tell kids they are really good at something when they haven't really performed, they know better. Kids aren't stupid, so if you give a kid a sticker that says, "you've done great" when all they have done is show up, you are not fooling him. In fact, I think that kind of thing can be hurtful to a child's self-esteem and development. Instead, we should help each child discover something that he or she is good at, whether it is painting, drawing, singing, acting or athletics. That is where self-esteem comes from and self-esteem is a key to unlocking potential. For many kids who grow up in neglected or abusive households, the arts can unlock potential more than anything else ever will.
DD: This topic is obviously in your heart and I see that you are serious. How are you going to mobilize your colleagues around the country? What do you hope has happened when your term as ECS chairman is complete two years from now?
GMH: For policymakers (governors, state education chiefs, legislators, school board members) what I want is that when they are designing state education policy and curriculum, they are going to talk about strong math, science, reading AND arts. I want the arts to be a part of that sentence. It is a matter of conditioning, a matter of making the arts something that policymakers are aware of.
I will give you an example of what has happened with preschool. A few years ago people weren't talking about preschool as a necessity, they talked about it more as a nice thing that helps a lot of kids. But when you talk to governors and legislators today, you hear that preschool is a vital necessity. Why is that? At all of the policymaker's meetings, people kept pushing it, whether it was Rob Reiner, I Am Your Child, it was an agenda item on so many meetings. As a result, policymakers received the information they needed to change their thinking and sharpen their focus.
The same thing has to happen with the arts. We have to get it on the agenda, front and center, so people are thinking about it. When education leaders discuss education and talk about what actions to take, governors, legislators and other policymakers are driven by successes in other areas. When we show them that there is a correlation between the arts and improved test scores and that there is no political downside because there is such broad public support for the arts, we will get their attention.
I hope at the end of the two years, the arts are part of the discussion and part of legislation in states all over the country.
DD: For policymakers to understand the political context involved, you will have to mobilize the external world, the world of public opinion and the world of other major voices as you have done in Arkansas. Do you have any thoughts about how to reach out and get a broader critical mass of public opinion to support the arts in education?
GMH: It is probably going to be driven more from the bottom up than the top down. The bottom up will start with the arts councils in states, music teachers, band directors and state music associations. It is not hard to mobilize from the bottom up as many of these individuals and organizations feel so neglected and are already so eager to include the arts. If we ask for their help to speak to state legislators and help us turn up the volume on this issue, I am confident that they will be willing to step up. Many do not know how much they are needed or whom they should talk to about preserving and enhancing the arts in schools.
One of the goals we have for the next two years is to mobilize the existing army to unite. They are ready. Every time I speak about this initiative, several from the audience come to me and say things like "put me in coach I am ready to play." We need to get this message in front of other groups, whether it is the National Association of Secondary School Principals or the National Association of Music Educators. We need to approach these audiences and get them mobilized to touch this nerve in all 50 states. The people involved in the arts need to sit down with their legislators and governors and share the information they have. In a successful political operation, you sandwich the politician from both ends -- top and bottom. You need to get the policymakers to hear both from the people they represent and from the top leaders on the issue.
DD: I agree with that strategy. On that top side, do you think it is going to be important to involve the atypical voice for the arts, for example the business community voice or the higher education voice?
GMH: There is no doubt about that and I think we are going to be pleasantly surprised at the reaction we will get from the corporate world. The corporate world is already investing a lot of money in the arts in their own communities. Wouldn't it be wonderful if for the first time, corporate leaders had a partner in promoting the arts in the public education arena? I think they feel that they are always subsidizing arts programs because the schools won't do it. They would be thrilled, I would think, to know that the schools are actually going to be taking on their part of the load.
For instance, corporate philanthropy becomes so much more leveraged if what they are doing in the community to build art centers or to subsidize arts in the schools is enhanced by supportive curriculum requirements. I can imagine that corporate philanthropists will think this is a wonderful thing.
The other thing that might give this initiative more traction, to be blunt, is that most people are shocked to find that I am a conservative Republican advocating for the arts. I have had people ask me if I was sure I was a Republican. It is like Nixon going to China.
If I were a Democrat, people would roll their eyes and say, "what a feel-good guy." This isn't about feeling good, this is about true results out there in the marketplace. I think that I sort of shatter the myth that this is an issue driven by the political left. If I were a part of the left, it would be a much harder sell. The left will actually tolerate me on this issue and I have the ability to say to the right, "If you guys are out there gunning for the arts, you do it at your own peril."
DD: That is the point that I find so interesting. You are that unexpected voice and you want to recruit additional unexpected voices, not just those from the arts community. Well thank you, Governor. We at AEP are really looking forward to your initiative.
GMH: Thanks for this opportunity to share this important message.
Mike Huckabee became governor of Arkansas July 15, 1996. He moved up from lieutenant governor following the resignation of Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. He became Arkansas' 44th elected governor after winning the November 1998 election. Previous to his election to public office, Governor Huckabee was President of KBSC-TV and President of Cambridge Communications in Texarkana, AR. He enjoys hunting, fishing, reading and playing bass guitar in his band, Capitol Offense.
For more information on the arts initiative, contact Sandra Ruppert at 303.299.3691 or sruppert@ecs.org
©September 2004 New Horizons for Learning
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