How Prop. 28 failed Modern Poetry

A bill that promised funding for the arts denies poetry an art all together

Staff Writer

Proposition 28 was passed during the 2022 state elections to increase art and music funding for California public schools, promising $800 million to $1 billion annually for art programs. That funding began rolling out during the 2023-2024 school year, but Ms. Luong’s Modern Poetry elective was ineligible to receive funding, having been denied the art distinction entirely.

The bill’s terms extend to “dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts including folk art, painting, sculpture, photography, craft arts, graphic arts and design, computer coding, animation, music composition, ensembles, script writing, costume design, film, and video,” according to the California Department of Education’s Arts and Music in Schools FAQ page. Because poetry is not explicitly defined within the bill, its status as an art was dismissed by higher-ups tasked with interpreting what the bill would fund.

Ms. Luong, who established the elective, recounts how Proposition 28 funding had initially been presented to her before her class had been denied an art. “I had been offered Prop. 28 money to hold sessions after school to give students a taste of what Modern Poetry would be like, but because Prop. 28 didn’t fund me, my class wasn’t considered an art, and they weren’t going to pay me to try and spread this class.”

Other staff have been campaigning to remedy the treatment of the elective, a pursuit not exclusive to the financial issues, but also the greater effect the decision has on art electives. Ms. Luong adds, “I asked Principal Sharma why my class got denied funding, and she went to advocate. She believes in the value of the class, but higher-ups were hung up on the fact that poetry is not creative expression or performing arts, which, you either read the thing, which is visual or perform the thing. I have units for spoken word poetry and verbal performance poetry, and district higher-ups said they looked through that when they decided my class wasn’t worthy of funding. So who decided that it’s not an art?”

The decision that poetry is not an art threatens both the future of the elective and the quality of education provided. This year, students were unable to receive textbooks.

Ms. Luong said, “Because no one put my textbook order in, we just didn’t get them; we don’t have the money for them. Principal Sharma is trying to amend this, but we’re the only class who doesn’t have textbooks because we didn’t matter enough for a follow up with the textbook committee. Mind you, Prop. 28 funding was from the government. It’s not our district’s money.”

Alameda County Youth Poet Laureate and Modern Poetry student, Jovina Zion Pradeep (11) explains how the lack of funding was reflected in class. “Because the class explores the methods to write poetry, a textbook would have been helpful because we would have physical resources throughout the year, save time on group lectures, and spend more time writing because of independent reading.”

The decision to deny Modern Poetry funding impaired student accessibility to certain resources, hurting students in spite of the bill’s proposed uplifting of the arts. Its exempting poetry as an art form also sets the precedents that only certain arts deserve formal recognition, and that the decision can be made in spite of student input, even while disrupting their academic environment.