Protest Theatre

I grew up in central Texas and was fortunate enough to attend a high
school that had a wide array of art, theatre, choir, band etc.
programs. When I moved to Baton Rouge in 2011, I came to realize just
how fortunate I was to have these. I have learned that such programs,
in public schools especially, are not nearly as common as I had
expected. With the focus being placed on improving state standardized
test scores, there is usually very little money left in a school’s
budget to be used for the salaries of teachers in artistic
disciplines. Art programs are among the first to be put on the
chopping block when it comes it comes to allocating funding. The
consensus being that we just don’t need these programs.

I would organize a protest in front of the capitol building in
downtown Baton Rouge. I would ideally have a group of one hundred or
so people including teachers, school administrators, and students all
spreading the message of emphasizing the importance of arts education
in public schools. By citing statistics such as how utilizing the arts
in education have been proven to increase standardized test scores, we
would be raising awareness of this issue with the hopes of changing
legislation.

I think that having media coverage could only improve the cause. This
would facilitate in the spreading the message of our cause and would
get more people listening and thinking about how this issue affects
them