Producers’ Project Support for City Council Resolution #837 --

Guaranteeing Dedicated Funding For Arts Education


The Producers’ Project (TPP) -- a not-for-profit education corporation -- is proud to join our experience and voices to the many that are campaigning in support of Resolution #837, which calls upon the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to maintain a minimum and dedicated level of arts funding in New York City public schools.

Since 2002, TPP has helped thousands of K - 12 students and teachers to make and share music, film, television, animation and art that is expressive, authentic and academically aligned.

As an approved NYC DOE vendor, we have worked in schools as diverse as Island Academy of Rikers Island, Concord High School of Staten Island, I.S. 109 of Queens, and City Hall Academy in NYC DOE headquarters. We have operated summer bootcamps, in-school, after-school , weekend and evening programs. All are designed to extend the effectiveness, relevance and reach of teaching and learning by using media and arts production processes to build skills, deepen knowledge, and demonstrate results.

The results can be seen and heard in an array of music videos, documentaries, animated shorts and PSAs -- all of which enjoy screenings for school communities and the public, many of which debut at venues like Urban Visionaries and the Tribeca Film Festival, several of which stream at www.tpp.org, and most of which air on TPP-TV’s award-winning television series on MNN .

The schools with whom we work consistently attribute increased and improved confidence, interest, attendance and performance to their work with arts programs such as ours.

In an era when a student drops out of high school every nine seconds (source: www.ten9eight.com), significant school budget cuts to the arts, and a lack of dedicated funding for the arts, will have dire consequences for schools, students, and all of society. Our findings concur with a report by the Arts Education Partnership (www.aep-arts.org), which shows a correlation between arts instruction and student achievement: The arts provide an avenue into improved academic and social functioning for even the most challenged students; and provide a mechanism through which many students learn and express themselves best.

A few case studies follow. More information, including examples from TPP’s media archives, is available upon request. Thank you for your consideration. Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Warmly,

Wendy Dubit & Susan Finley, directors and co-founders, The Producers’ Project


Pictured above, from left to right: A student from Concord High School of Staten Island mixes music at Kicked Down Productions; Producers’ Project participants with Steve Martin at The National Book Awards; a TPP participant being interviewed for Media and The Truth; an interview with Professor Murray Gell-Mann for The Power of Wow; a student making art at Island Academy on Rikers Island.



Where and When It Matters Most….

At Island Academy and Towards Artsway Academy

Among the media that TPP has produced is an orientation video that is seen by every young adult entering Rikers Island, advising them of their right to attend school while there.

In the words of Rademes Ramos, a student at Island Academy, “On the outside, all school got me was here. Here, all I’ve got is school….”

While lower literacy rates are common among the incarcerated, most of Island Academy’s 6,000 students per year are visually and culturally astute. For this population (as for many others), making art and media becomes one of the most effective apertures through which to generate sustained academic interest and achievement, and to instill social and emotional skills.

Based on the success of our programs and on the needs of young adults returning from Rikers Island, TPP has been collaborating with NYC DOE to launch Artsway Academy -- a new program that will thread media, performance, culinary and visual arts through academic and therapeutic lenses that are designed to help participants attain GEDs and college degrees, career skills and placements, life and leadership skills.

Currently, an average of $200,000 is spent per incarcerated inmate per year, with an 82% recidivism rate. The continuance and expansion of arts-based programs is mission-critical to improving upon these numbers. Cuts to and/or the disappearance of such programs -- as is happening throughout New York City with the 2007 elimination of Project ARTS (Arts Restoration to the Schools) -- can have disastrous results.


Time to Shine at 109

Rap Made Reel: About the Music Videos and Making-Of Documentaries

Five years ago, I.S. 109 of Queens, NY was a school at risk. It is now a success -- having risen from the next-to-last to one of the top junior high schools in District 29, as evidenced by improved attendance, decreased violence, an 11.9% increase in reading scores and an 8.5% increase in math scores.

To demonstrate, celebrate and build on that success, I.S. 109 worked with TPP on Time to Shine, Tuck That Shirt In, and The Results -- three music videos and documentaries based on songs written, performed and produced by I.S. 109 students, staff and parents.

TPP worked with I.S. 109 to weave professional production processes, appropriate technologies and NYS performance standards into every aspect of the school day: Math classes learned the music business and projected profit-and-loss from DVD production and sales. English classes were involved with planning and scripting. A marketing class produced and promoted a successful red carpet event showcasing student achievement.

At a premier event planned and promoted by the school and attended by more than 1000 guests, NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said of the program: “This is not just glitz. These students are learning the economics of production, the content of production, the discipline of production, the success of production and the hard work that goes into it….They’re taking something that’s contemporary culture and putting it to use for an old fashioned purpose, which is to say…a great education….”


Seven Years at Concord

Totally Transformed

For seven years, TPP has worked with the administration, students and teachers of Concord High School on Staten Island -- using media-making to foster improved attitude, to correct misperceptions among the community and prospective students and families, and to bring into focus the reality and assets of Concord.

Students use classes, field trips, club events, parent-sponsored events, interviews with scientists, journalists, local politicians, peers, teachers, parents and their principal as material for their media. Producing films about themselves and their school gives students an opportunity to act as mentors to peers who, like themselves, may have been failing or getting into trouble in larger institutions. One after another, the students speak on camera about how Concord has helped them to gain confidence, work harder, and turn their lives around. Glen Ladner, the guidance counselor/film teacher that has been TPP’s lead trainee at the school, reports that many incoming students credit viewing the videos with their decision to attend Concord…and with the success of their studies and activities at Concord.

Concord will be a key school in the creation, production and promotion of The Power of Wow.



About The Power of Wow

Exploring Inner and Outer Space through a series of interactive film and web projects

TPP recently embarked on The Power of Wow: Exploring Inner Space -- a 25-minute documentary spotlighting scientific discovery and the processes, plasticity and power of the mind. The program is slated to debut at the World Science Festival, June 2 - 6, 2010 in NYC.

Set in schools and against the backdrop of lab tours, experiments, shared meals and more, The Power of Wow: Exploring Inner Space employs film, music, art, animation and web tools to bring to life concepts and images ranging from sub-atomic particles to expanses of the cosmos.

For The Power of Wow, Nobel prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann shared insights with TPP producers and students about a conference on the creative process: A gathering of noted scientists, composers and artists had shared and compared their processes, and discovered them to be remarkably similar. He also explained that, while it is important to know your subject and to always “ask why,” it is often equally important to think differently, and to ask: "why not?"

All students need to love learning and to be lifelong learners. Learning through the arts helps to inspire passion, sustain interest, and to propel inquiry, creativity, discovery and accomplishment amongst all students. The loss of dedicated NYC DOE arts funding would be a loss felt at every stakeholder level; and would be especially ironic in this vibrant city of ours, where so much culture, business and employment opportunities source from the arts.

It is therefore with urgency that we support Resolution #837, which calls upon NYC DOE to maintain a minimum and dedicated level of arts funding in New York City public schools.

We are pleased to share our experiences and to answer any questions you might have.

Warmly and looking forward,

Wendy Dubit, Susan Finley, and all of us at TPP