I found ironic the juxtaposition of the Feb. 9 article about Edward Little’s outstanding arts educator Matthew Peinado, and that about parental and fan violence at local school sporting events.

Since the 1980s, when “No Child Left Behind” began mandating standardized testing in math, science and language arts, schools have been reducing and eliminating arts education programs, in Maine and across the nation — because standardized tests don’t measure artistic/musical achievement.

Some see school arts programs as “frills,” yet it’s only the arts that teach kids about the emotional reality that lies within all of us. The arts give form to feeling, and learning about the arts gives youngsters the means and vocabulary to express and understand the realm of feeling through which we all view the world.

So, now that we’ve been cutting school arts programs for 40 years, why are we surprised to see that the adults whom those children have become are reacting violently at their own kids’ sporting events? We cut from their curriculum the tools to learn to manage their own emotions, so why are we surprised to see that now, as adults, they cannot do so?

The hens have come home to roost, and now we are reaping what we’ve sown. The only way to solve this problem is to fully fund arts education programs K-12, if we ever hope to raise emotionally mature and literate adults.

I hope everyone who reads this letter presses their local school boards to support and improve arts education K-12, statewide.

John Neal, Greene