Background
Statewide Scope
Language of the Act
Organization
Origins of the Act:
The Digital Arts Studio Partnership Act (DASP) was conceived to provide a comprehensive policy and design tool to community, school, and industry leaders to address the strategic training needs of youth, 13-18, in media and communication arts for extended day and after school programming. Although todays students live in rich digital and media environments outside the classroom, they find that the curriculum related to the digital and media arts in their schools is too often technically inadequate, marginalized from high status and college credit benefit, devoid of state of the art tools and closed off to after school access, or just non-existent. Most digital and media arts programs for youth currently rely on dedicated, individual classroom teachers, or by non-profit organizations with limited capacity and excessive demands. No statewide or national coordinated plan exists to address the universal digital arts literacy and emerging tool access needs of the millions of young people passing through our high school system on their way to their workforce futures and community life.
The legislation, Senate Bill 1937 (Costa) moved forward with the support of key business interests such as the American Electronics Association and Apple Inc, with virtually no opposition through 2 years of Senate and Assembly hearings and was signed into law by Governor Gray Davis, January 2003.
The legislation calls for:
Although no state general fund dollars were allocated to implement the Act due to Californias staggering deficit, a specific earmarked General Fund account was established with "continuous appropriation" that insures the integrity and immediate accessibility of any local, Federal, or private funds deposited in the state account for this purpose.
The California Arts Council, designated as the administrator of the Act, experienced a devastating budget cut in excess of 96% in 2003 and the fate of the new Act was left to volunteer leadership to implement its organizational and to search for statewide and regional funding for the immediate future.
The Launch:
From its inception, the mobilization of legislative support for the regional digital arts training models led to a series of California regional meetings in the LA basin, Fresno, and Santa Barbara among the leading proponents and advocates of youth media production. This call to organize was based on the Sacramento-Sierra regional experience developed from 1997 by the non-profit Tower of Youth. This consisted of using large, annual regional and North American youth digital and video movie showcase events supported by college-based weekend digital media training sessions for scores of high schools media teachers and allied community professional wizards to stimulate collaboration and excellence. The proposed law used this recipe to define the strategies and assemble existing programs to achieve the legislation's targeted numbers of youth and mentors to be trained and to formally request Partnership designation by the California Arts Council. After the legislation's passage into statute, William Bronston, M.D, CEO of Tower of Youth and the original proponent of the DASP legislation, was authorized by the CAC Director to proceed with the Act's development. Additional regional meetings were held in the Wine Country Northern California counties and Bay area to stimulate similar broad based partnership model organizing.
In July 2004, The California Arts Council issued a small contract to assist in funding a key Invitational Digital Arts Studio Partnership Conference, September 28-30, followed by the 8th Annual North American All Youth Film & Education Day movie festival to launch the formal work of the Act. Invitations are being extended to the public and private high school and post secondary education community leaders, the manufacturing and entertainment production corporate heads, the digital media artist professional community and youth media artists to convene together to define what is to be done voluntarily in the first year as funding is sought.
This invitational working conference must examine and overcome the challenges presented by an as yet undefined and grossly uncoordinated, "digital media field" in California. These challenges are aggravated by significant economic and budgetary shortfalls in the state. School programs are being closed or hang by a thread, Teachers at the high school level are substantially embattled, Help among them is rarely sought and usually out of reach, Industry, in frustration seeking qualified employees while pursuing economic self interest, moves more and more to seek out of state and foreign sources for their domestic workforce needs. The arts in schools is progressively "disappeared". For media arts this is the case in spades. No easy solutions exist for the adverse steep technology learning curve, the lack of agreed upon teaching standards, core curriculum, testing, reimbursements, expensive tool purchase and maintenance supports needed for the constantly upgraded hard and software innovations that assaults all educators.
Finally, with this Act, a common sense blueprint exists that is inclusive of all stakeholders and issues that must be simultaneously addressed. The timing of this venture clearly comes when the economy of the state is at its all time worst. Nevertheless, the central role that media plays in our culture and economy, the insatiable hunger for access from the youth generation, the pioneering dedication of so many teachers and digital arts professionals, if diplomatically assembled, cannot but succeed in this historic gambit.