By Lesli A. Maxwell

Premium article access courtesy of Edweek.org.

Thousands of California public schools face the prospect of slashing up to a week of instruction, canceling bus services, or laying off nonteaching staff in the middle of this school year because state revenues are expected to fall below what the governor and lawmakers counted on when they approved an $86 billion general fund budget last June.

The Legislative Analyst’s Office—the nonpartisan fiscal adviser to California’s state lawmakers—predictsRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader the state treasury will be down as much as $3.7 billion, which would automatically trigger up to $2 billion in midyear spending cuts in public programs that will fall hard on K-12 education. The analyst is also projecting a $13 billion shortfall in next year’s budget.
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Elaine Cimino Studios is offering the Born to Draw Drawing for Holidays and Special Occasions
Children’s Drawing Workshop on Dec. 20th

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Building community through Arts projects is in
the 9th year of service to the Albuquerque, NM community!

Despite the doors being open for 9 years Off center Community Art Project was a surprise to me.
in the Afternoons and early evenings anyone can walk into OFFCenter and start making arts. Supplies are there for children and adults. Workshops are help in both arts and crafts

OFFCenter believes in artmaking as central to community building.

Shared creative expression leads to shared visions and the emergence of a compassionate collective life.

OFFCenter is a community artspace located in downtown Albuquerque. Home to a studio, gallery and sales shop, anyone in the community is welcome to come to OFFCenter to make and buy art.

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I was looking back at past students works from 1999 – 2006, at Santa Fe Community College. I was a drawing, painting and art history adjunct instructor and helped co-found, write grants and was the project director of the summer series program, Make Your Mark, that offered Visual and Performing Arts program college credit to high school students. We received a yearly $15,000 grant from the NEA and NMArts program.

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Shel Silverstein

Years from Now
Although I cannot see your face
As you flip these poems awhile,
Somewhere from some far-off place
I hear you laughing —and I smile.
Shel Silverstein

The dedication of Shel’s new book of poems published by Harper-Collins grabbed me. The simplicity and elegance of his line drawings makes drawing look so simple putting a pen to paper or a stylus to a tablet. What I found creative about looking at the Harper-Collins webpage was that it also included classroom activities. Activity guide was created by Sue Ornstein, a first-grade teacher in the Byram Hills School District in Armonk, New York.

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ALEX TABARROK, a George Mason economist and blogger at Marginal Revolution, notes that though many more young Americans, about 50% more, now go to college than did 25 years ago, the number of students studying science, engineering, technology, or mathematics has not increased. So, Mr Tabarrok asks, “If students aren’t studying science, technology, engineering and math, what are they studying?” They are studying interesting and enjoyable fields, it turns out. Mr Tabarrok reports, with no little dread:

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Art by Justin Jew, Manzano High School A is for Art Auction for Albuquerque Public Schools

Welcome to Born to Draw

We are under construction for the next 3 days and hope to be up and running by the weekend.