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Your article on Gallery 37 [“The Show Must Move On,” August 14] was very interesting. Gallery 37 does a wonderful job of keeping Chicago’s teenagers busy after school and in the summer. Teens learn important job skills. They learn about the creative process. They learn about themselves. Teenagers need to learn these things in order to become productive adults in our society.
As an independent consultant working with five Chicago public schools, I have worked with over 15 arts organizations that offer educational programming to teachers and children. I believe that major educational reforms took place only after the state legislature decentralized many educational decisions, making it possible for local schools to make choices about programs that fit their particular students’ needs. While decentralization is not perfect, it is a vast improvement over the centralized approach that preceded it.
