"every child should have a chance to feel special..."

I got this in my daily "You've Cott Mail" post this morning:

(Originally Posted by Richard Kessler on his blog Dewey21C, July 7, 2010)
Painter/photographer Chuck Close, interviewed on PBS' News Hour: "Well, I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system. I grew up in a town that was a mill town, very poor, Appalachian-like, except that it was in the state of Washington. And we had as a guaranteed right from kindergarten through high school art and music every day of the week. Today that is considered to be far less important than the three R's. There is teaching for testing, and for those of us who, especially for us who are learning disabled or for those of us who learn differently, we had a chance to feel special. Every child should have a chance to feel special. If they are not good at math or science -- I can't memorize and I don't know the multiplication tables even today -- I had something that I could excel at. And that I think, that is the most troubling thing that's happened, especially with teaching through testing, that we are trying to get people to know the same thing as a kind of a litmus test to allow them to go to college or whatever. I'm a product of open enrollment. I went to a junior college that took every taxpayers son or daughter. And if I hadn't had that and hadn't had that exposure to art and music and something that I could excel at and something I could feel good about -- I've always said if I hadn't gone to Yale, I could've gone to jail. And it was a tossup. It could've gone either way."