A Music and Arts Education For All DISD Kids? Why, That’s Elementary.

Plenty going on at City Hall today — tomorrow too, for those interested in the fate of Reunion Arena or what in the hell they’re going to call Industrial Boulevard. Today’s council committees’ agendas cover everything from street-lamp repairs to an update on DART’s Green Line construction and that downtown transit study that may or may not involve streetcars.

But as someone whose kid’s about to enter the Dallas Independent School District — like father, like son, so proud — I’ll instead direct your attention to the update concerning the Dallas Arts Learning Initiative (or DALI), which will be discussed at 2 today by the Quality of Life and Government Services Committee. As we mentioned at the end of ’06, this is being funded in part by an $8 million grant from the New York-based Wallace Foundation. The initiative, overseen by our downstairs neighbors at Big Thought, promises to add “140 additional qualified, certified music & visual arts specialists” in DISD schools and make sure “every Dallas ISD elementary student … receives 45 minutes of music & 45 minutes of visual art instruction weekly.” Only, it needs a little more dough — which may be hard to come by, given the city and district’s budget shortfalls. –Robert Wilonsky