ABSTRACT
We are living in a desperate time in arts education. Across the globe, programs are being savagely cut, teachers' work is being undermined, curricula outcome targets and directives, rather than their processes, are forever in sight. National priorities invade local school communities, short-term contracts control teachers' professional lives, an eager band of obsequious officers evangelize uniform attainment. A new conforming scient ism begins to breed a purblind complacency in arts education. Those who fought for and achieved their economic security show little interest in others who struggle to maintain a bare livelihood. Teachers are still the recipients of programmed curricula, students are still the recipients of the teacher's. Power games continue to be fought, intellectual insecurities still motivate, the arts are tentatively poised.
