“All children in America should be able to access the best schools possible. We have a moral and societal obligation to give our children the opportunity to succeed in school, at work, and in life. We cannot meet that obligation unless parents are empowered to select the best schools of their children.” – Dr. Bill Cosby

Last week marked National School Choice Week in the U.S., a week dedicated to drawing attention to the growing School Choice movement in which parents are given the opportunity to choose the school their children attend and have that education subsidized in part by their tax dollars. Events were held across the country, and notable figures such as Dr. Bill Cosby (a good friend of the Anthony Quinn Foundation) and MSNBC political and legal analyst Michelle Bernard lent their voices and support to the cause.

Already enacted in 19 states, the School Choice program provides parents with the means to send their child(ren) to the school that best fits the child(ren)’s unique needs, rather than the school they can best afford or the school that their tax dollars will pay for. This allows children to attend private school, a charter school, a public school outside their district, or to be home schooled or attend virtual or online schooling. School Choice is made possible through school vouchers, tax-credit scholarship programs, and personal tax credits and deductions.

Several different school voucher programs exist, each with different rules and guidelines for eligibility. Households generally need to meet certain criteria in order to receive a voucher. Once issued, these vouchers allow parents to use all or part of the tax funding set aside for their child(ren)’s education for the school of their choice.

Voucher programs are divided into several categories, including:

Universal Voucher Programs: All children are eligible to receive vouchers (such as in Sweden)

Means-Tested Voucher Programs: Vouchers are awarded on the basis of financial need, where families whose total household income falls below a defined number are eligible.

Failing Schools, Failing Students Voucher Programs: Children who are attending failing public schools, or who are themselves performing poorly or failing in school, are given vouchers to attend a school that their parents determine will better suit their learning needs.

Special Needs Voucher Programs: These are issued to children with documented learning disabilities or educational needs, or children who have Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs), such as children on the Autism spectrum. This allows these children to attend a school that is better-equipped to handle their unique educational, psychological, and social needs.

Pre-Kindergarten Voucher Programs: Children attending pre-K programs are eligible.

Town Tuitioning Programs: Vouchers are offered to children whose communities do not have public schools at their grade level. Usually the parents are allowed to pick the school the children will attend, but in some cases, this decision is instead made by the town.

If a family does not qualify for vouchers, then there are some other options available to them, including:

Open Enrollment: Some states now allow parents to enroll their child(ren) in the public school of their choosing, regardless of its geographic location.

Tax-credit Scholarship Programs: Students can apply for scholarships created by individuals and corporations that provide for an education at a specific private institution. The scholarship sponsors receive a tax credit for their donation, hence the name.

Personal Tax Credits and Deductions: A tax credit or deduction is provided to households for approved educational expenses, which can include private school tuition, books, supplies, tutors, and even transportation. This helps parents recoup the cost of their child(ren)’s education. These credits and deductions may be restricted by income level, however, or may restrict the total amount that can be claimed.

The Anthony Quinn Foundation has chosen to support School Choice and National School Choice Week because we believe it can play a key role in allowing gifted young students to get the best education possible, both in the arts and in their general studies. With the arts becoming less prevalent in our public schools, School Choice gives children with an interest in the arts the option to attend a school that has a solid arts program, a program that will enrich and nurture them both as artists and academics. It enables underprivileged children to attend a school where they will be exposed to the arts and gives them a new outlet for their energy and emotions, keeping them off the streets and in the classrooms. It gives so many needy and deserving children a new lease on life and helps them to realize their full potential, unencumbered by financial restraints. It also encourages schools to become more competitive and really raise the bar in terms of the programs and education they provide. Most of all, it allows the children who genuinely want to learn do just that – learn – and to do it in the manner best suited to them.

For more information on School Choice and National School Choice Week, and how you can get involved, visit:

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice

School Choice FAQs

National School Choice Week Homepage

National School Choice Week on Facebook

National School Choice Week on Twitter

Do you have an experience with School Choice that you’d like to share? We welcome you to share your experiences and opinions in the comments section below.

Who many people don’t know, however, is Anthony Quinn the Artist, a prolific and passionate sculptor, painter, and drafter. Even the most cursory glance at his works will attest that they came from his heart and his soul; there is a strength and fervor in each of his pieces that attests to the fire that burned within its creator. Each material was carefully selected and meticulously manipulated until it reflected the emotions that inspired it. Even the pieces that remain unfinished radiate his essence; he put everything he had into his art, left it all out on the table, and those who get to see his many works are the better for it.

In upcoming months, we will be featuring some of Anthony Quinn’s works as chosen by those closest to him, and we thought who better to start with than his youngest children, Ryan and Antonia?

Here is what they have to say, in their own words, on their favorite works of their father’s.

Ryan

My favorite sculpture of my father’s is called “Destroyed But Not Defeated.” I have always found the title to be so inspiring. I believe that it means no matter how much your enemy tries to hurt you or destroy you, you should never concede defeat. As well as my fascination with the title, the sculpture itself also has sentimental value to me because it reminds me of my father’s strength and determination. I love the roughness it has on the edges and the smooth feeling on the head. Whenever I see it I run my hands up and down the sculpture to get the textural feeling of it.

I find all of my father’s pieces to have this sort of feeling, so that literally touching them enhances or amplifies the metaphorical or sentimental meaning my father wanted to convey when he was creating them.

Years ago, we had “Destroyed But Not Defeated” out in our front yard. I remember it covered with snow and my friends and I throwing snowballs at each other while using the sculpture as a shield. I always felt protected by it.

Antonia

My favorite work of my father’s [would be] the drawings he created of me as a child. With so many amazing works, it is very hard to choose just one thing to be my favorite; I love watching his movies as well as seeing his artwork every day in our house, but there is something about how personal these drawings are that makes them my favorite.

I have the drawings hung over my bed at home because I think it is amazingly emotional to see a portrait of myself as a child through my dad’s eyes every day. I only discovered the drawings a couple of years ago, but I imagine they were very special to him as well.

The drawings are just sketches of me as a baby, [but] I think they are wonderful because they capture my personality in such an artistic and abstract way that only my dad could have created.

All photos ©The Anthony Quinn Foundation. Photos may not be distributed or reproduced without prior consent. For information and permissions, contact info@anthonyquinnfoundation.org.

Anthony Quinn Foundation: One of the Anthony Quinn Foundation’s primary missions is to promote arts education and provide scholarships to deserving young artists. How did you get your start in the arts? Did you always know that comedy and acting was what you wanted to do?

Bill Cosby: To answer that question, a two part question, [I] didn’t always know. [I] did not want to be a painter, sculptor or to draw cartoons. [I] did not consider being on the radio as a comedian as an art form. It still isn’t an art form. Being a serious actor in Broadway musicals, serious drama, comedy, and writing requires study. You get there by being in the arts as an actor.

I had no financial help until I went into a club and got paid … The oddest situation comes about when people want to cut the arts because not everyone agrees with what is important. So the disagreements happen … The challenges of whether something appears to be anti-American in song, spoken words, filmmaking, art, so the cuts become political. When cuts are made — without entertainment — where are [kids] going to go on the weekend, what are they going to do in the evening to be entertained? What will children who cannot afford equipment or lessons do?

This Foundation started to honor a man who came up, not through the ranks, [not with] the professional schooling; everything done was without the classic classroom in the school. Tony Quinn’s life has always been hands-on in terms of the arts. He has been his own student and his own teacher. He didn’t want to do a traditional thing. He was broke. His ability was to go on [about] his life but not be afraid to do things that he was curious about and loved to do.

The Foundation is a natural way to raise funding to help those young Tony Quinns, male and female, that want to be whatever is natural to them. They want to learn and study to prepare for the next step. This is what this Foundation is about. We need to bring attention to Foundation and what its help is doing.

AQF: You are well known for your charitable involvement, and even received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award and the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom. What inspires you to give back in this manner?

BC: Forget [my] awards. Tony was monetarily poor, but culturally rich, and wanted to discover what he enjoyed. He was a successful artist. He wanted to teach. He taught when he spoke. He always had encouragement for others, passion, and respect of humans. He even looked at boxing as an art form.

“It is up to the human being to become
what ever they want to become.”

For me it was similar. My life was lower economic. But my life was opposite Tony’s. I listened to the comedy because I laughed. I didn’t think to go to Hollywood. I didn’t realize anything about myself until I was put into a position that I had to do things; all of a sudden I had an epiphany to get out of things that I shouldn’t be doing. If I didn’t get an education, credentials, by earning them, then I would be in a position of doing things like scrubbing floors, doing things with my hands and my body with low, low pay. There is nothing wrong with these jobs if you work yourself up. That is when I recognized the need …an epiphany…oh, now I get it. The answer to the question, “Why do I need this?”

AQF: When did the epiphany come?

BC: In the Navy, in Bootcamp. I was19 years old. It came at 0430 hours. Waking up, getting out of that bed, realizing that there had to be thousands of boys who are growing and going to public schools and thinking [the way I thought] about life. [I realized] I wanted to become a school teacher to stop it.

AQF: So you went to Temple to be a teacher?

BC: I went to Temple University to be a teacher, and to study communications. But let’s stay talking about the Foundation and what gives them a chance to hammer away at cuts, cuts, cuts.

Every year I play at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. There is always a high school winning band to play jazz. Next day, another high school winner plays. What happens if cuts take away the conductors and leaders of these orchestra in the schools? The cuts may come so that teachers are not being paid, the instruments are no longer there, the kids can’t go from sports to lessons, can’t afford it any more. The kids have to have to music, written and to buy. Sounds systems. If a kid wants to play the violin, and there are only two violins, and he is very talented but his parents can’t afford it, he needs a foundation like the Anthony Quinn Foundation to stipend or pick up the whole thing. He may never get to Carnegie hall, but he may be playing in the symphony Houston, Chicago, or Philadelphia.

It’s very important that while the government is trying to figure out what is tasteful and what ought to be in the eyes and ears of the American public, this Foundation can afford to make it possible for [students] to continue their [arts] training.

AQF: What advice do you have for aspiring young artists and performers?very important that while the government is trying to figure out what is tasteful and what ought to be in the eyes and ears of the American public, this Foundation can make it possible for Mary White to continue her classical guitar training.

BC: Pierre Bernard said that after he graduated from art school it took him 16-17 years to find himself. I think one of the most difficult things is for any performer, any artist, to not to let the negative of learning the technical circumvent the talent.

One has to work and work and work and make decisions in art without being afraid of mistakes. And certainly I think that the most difficult thing in art is to judge the critiques because one can make terrible mistakes in thinking that the critic and the negative should be listened to, or [to let] one’s feelings after being rejected change oneself, or [make you] want to become more liked. It is difficult to believe in your own work when you get negative feedback. It is not that horrible that you aren’t discovered. Jack Lemmon took piano lessons. Not everyone is going to Carnegie Hall.

To be given the opportunity, whether you wind up Jack Lemmon or at the saloon singing, whether you play by yourself or you’re doings design on T-shirts — It is up to the human being to become what ever they want to become.

The Anthony Quinn Foundation would like to thank to Dr. Bill Cosby for his time and support of the Foundation and its mission.

You can keep up with Dr. Cosby via his
Website: http://www.billcosby.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/billcosby
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/BillCosby

(C) 2011 The Anthony Quinn Foundation. The contents of this interview may not be published or reposted without prior express permission from the Anthony Quinn Foundation and Dr. Bill Cosby. To request permissions, please contact us at info@anthonyquinnfoundation.org.

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James Montford, Curator/Director, Bannister Gallery

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For more details about Lumiere 2010, please click here

The exhibition of rare photographs released both the mood of the film and that of the actor and was organized by the Shaw Family Archives.

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Paying tribute to Anthony Quinn at the unveiling of the sculpture, Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said that the work of art was ‘both inspiring and fitting to the work of INTERPOL’ in its message of universality and unbounded versatility, paying no heed to linguistic, cultural, or religious differences.

The President of the Anthony Quinn Foundation, Katherine Quinn, said she was ‘proud to have the sculpture in such a global environment’ since her late husband had been ‘a global citizen’, as she outlined the role of the arts, education and creative thinking in bringing cultures together. In attendance was Benjamin Bergenholtz, Executive Director of Anthony Quinn Foundation, Foundation Board Members Erich G. Rhynhart and Sandra van den Broek, and Foundation friends.

‘Mercedes Woman’ was stolen in December 2006 but recovered by Rhode Island police within a fortnight.

The Grand Opening party took place on the rooftop with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, a Sofia fashion show, exhibition of sculptures by Anthony Quinn, tastings from chefs Kassie Rath of Theory & Ryan Poli of Perennial. Special performance by Tyson Ritter of the All American Rejects.

The much anticipated Scholarship Program has been developed to financially assist individual young adults in grades 9-12 who wish to attend after school and summer arts education programs in the fields of visual arts & design, performing arts, media arts, and literary arts. Uniquely, scholarship recipients can apply Foundation funds to any accredited or recognized school, camp, or program throughout the world.

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View the Invitation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPxVR3wohdI

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