Privatize State Fine Arts Education

North Carolina is one of three states with a government-run fine arts education institution. The UNC School of the Arts was created back in 1965 by politicians who thought it would be a good thing to somehow change the state's stereotype as a "good old boy" cultural wasteland and bring cultural uplift to large numbers of North Carolinians. The Pope Center is releasing (tomorrow, officially) a new paper that takes a critical look at the school and concludes that it ought to be privatized, thereby saving taxpayer money for other things and probably improving its operations to boot. In this week's Clarion Call, I comment on the paper.