Little Steven Goes to Washington...and Wants To See Laura Bush

Little Steven wants to chat with Laura Bush.

That's what Steven Van Zandt--a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, the actor who played Silvio Dante in The Sopranos, and the host of the syndicated radio show, Little Steven's Underground Garage--told me on Monday after a press conference in which he teamed up with the National Association for Music Education to promote music in primary education. At the event, Van Zandt announced his Rock and Roll Forever Foundation is creating a music appreciation curriculum for middle and high schools that will cover the history of rock and roll.

Van Zandt is no fan of the Bush administration. He has long identified with progressive causes. His 1984 album, Voice of America was loaded with rough anti-Reagan sentiment. In 1985, he pulled together dozen of top recording artists--Bob Dylan, U2, Run DMC, Springsteen--for the antiapartheid anthem, "Sun City." And in 2004, Van Zandt (with Springsteen and the rest of the band) was part of the Vote for Change tour that hit swing states to encourage people to, well, vote for change--that is, to vote against George W. Bush.

But now Van Zandt is pushing an issue that he says "transcends politics." At the press event, he was joined by John Mahlmann, the executive director of the National Association for Music Education, who noted that student access to music education has dropped about 20 percent in recent years--thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act. Mahlmann also said that students' "contact time" with music and all the arts has fallen 40 percent. The No Child Left Behind law, Mahlmann claimed, has caused schools to obsess over testing for math and reading and that "pushes out other areas of the curriculum."

Van Zandt added, "We don't live by just math and science alone." He and Mahlmann repeatedly made the point that music education teaches kids to how to be creative, how to solve problems, and how to work in groups--skills that can be transferred to other endeavors. And they cited a poll showing that adults in higher education and income brackets had music education when they were in school. Arts are as essential in education as the basics, argued Van Zandt, who was wearing a red leather jacket and one of his trademark bandanas, "We seem to be the only country in the world that considers the arts a luxury," he said.

After Van Zandt signed a white Gibson electric guitar that will be auctioned to raise money for his project, Paul Houston, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators (which represents school superintendents and principals from across the country) approached him and complimented Van Zandt for talking about the obvious connection between music education, smarter (and happier) kids, and U.S. productivity. "The fact that creativity is critical to our international competitiveness is a major point," Houston told the musician/actor/activist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Van Zandt nodded in earnest agreement.

So will this lefty guitar hero be able to meet with and win over Laura Bush? "This transcends politics," he says. "I'd like to get her advice and opinion." But as of yet, the First Lady is not on his schedule. Nor is Margaret Spellings, the secretary of education and another target of Van Zandt's policy-minded interest. But while Van Zandt is in Washington for two sold-out Springsteen shows, he will be hobnobbing with Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Mitch McConnell, and--naturally--the two senators from Jersey. It would be surprising if he gets that gig with Bush's wife. She's probably not a fan.

Comments

Could be a PR prize - I wonder if those in the WH can think clearly and take advantage.

Thanks for all of your work.

Posted by: capt on 11/12/07 at 10:28 AM Respond

Music has been used to teach math for many years and very effectively.
The arts, music, dance, visual and creative are essential in the development of a well rounded person.

Posted by: Maureen Fahlberg on 11/12/07 at 4:07 PM Respond

Not only can music help teach math (among other subjects), there is lots of scientific evidence that hearing and learning music helps hardwire children's brains to be better at math and science. But we know how this administration feels about scientific evidence.

Posted by: Liz on 11/13/07 at 3:41 PM Respond

The truth, at least as I see it, is that music and the arts have intrinsic value that doesn't depend on whether or not they help kids do good in math or whether they ultimately end up taking people to higher income brackets.

I mean, if all music and art education is about helping people do better at math and science at its heart where does that leave people who decide to become musicians and artists? As the fuckups who didn't get the memo that this stuff was only good to help out with the very things that No Child Left Behind stresses? And what about lit. classes?

There needs to be a revival of the idea that humanities education is important for its own sake and not because of some instrumental value that it might have in helping people out in outside fields.

Posted by: John Madziarczyk on 11/13/07 at 9:55 PM Respond

"We learned more from a 3 min record than we ever learned in school"
GO STEVIE!!

Posted by: Katherine on 11/18/07 at 1:50 PM Respond