Palm Springs, CA

Prop 28 and CAP28 StudioLabs can turn arts education into training grounds for the human intelligence and skills AI can’t replace.

California just crossed a threshold most of us only hear about in headlines. Economists now estimate our state’s GDP at around $4.1 trillion—large enough to surpass Japan and make California the fourth-largest economy in the world, behind only the United States, China, and Germany.

We can treat that as a bragging right. Or we can treat it as a question:

Now that we’re operating at the scale of a nation, what kind of future are we building—and how are we preparing our young people to lead it in the age of AI?

It’s tempting to think the answer lies mostly in faster chips, larger models, and more data centers. I don’t believe that’s true. The real competitive advantage will belong to the places that invest in something far older and more human:

Our capacity to imagine, to make, to collaborate, and to lead with purpose.

That’s where a deceptively simple ballot measure—Proposition 28—and arts education, and a vision for what California could become.

One arts teacher turned my world into a studio

Before I ever developed the phrase Universal Creative Intelligence, I was a kid in Iowa with no art teacher, a library card, and a few books filled with Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings. I remember those pages vividly—hands in motion, twisting muscles, flying machines that never quite left the ground—and I sat at the table copying them line by line. No one graded me. There was no rubric. It was just: look carefully, try, miss, try again.

The real change came in high school, when I finally, by chance, met the assistant director of our local art center—a ceramic artist with a master’s degree. By my junior year, he had quietly turned my whole world into a studio. He taught me everything he could about ceramics, then opened new doors: visiting artists, curators, museum professionals, conversations about why certain works mattered and how they were made. Every gallery opening, every museum visit, every conversation with an artist became part of my classroom.

Without knowing it, I was building the habits I now call Universal Creative Intelligence: learning in real time, following a creative process, collaborating with others, managing my emotions when things cracked or failed, and staying focused on a purpose bigger than a grade.

That education became the foundation I used for decades in film and theater, museum and arts education, and even in collaborating on multibillion-dollar resort projects. The hard truth is that I was lucky. Access to books, a mentor, and institutions that opened doors should not be the exception.

Proposition 28 is one of the tools California now has to change that—by giving school systems and professional arts educators the time, resources, and partnerships they need to turn whole communities into studios where every student can build the same kind of creative foundation, not by chance but by design.

The arts are not enrichment. They are training.

For decades, many schools were forced to treat the arts as “enrichment”—something you add if there’s time, money, or a generous donor. When budgets get tight or test scores dip, arts programs are often the first to be cut.

Meanwhile, employers keep saying they want graduates who can think creatively, work in teams, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems. Those skills do not appear out of nowhere.

One influential synthesis, Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, brought together research from seven different teams and concluded that sustained involvement in the arts offers “unparalleled opportunities for learning,” particularly when programs are well designed and consistently supported. The point is not that the arts magically fix every problem. The point is that arts learning builds specific habits that matter everywhere.

In a good studio, students learn to try, revise, collaborate, and persist. They learn to accept critique, manage frustration, finish what they start, and see their own growth over time. Those habits transfer into every subject and every career.

In a world where AI can generate answers in seconds, those deeper human capacities—curiosity, courage, collaboration, emotional maturity, and purpose—are exactly what we cannot outsource.

Prop 98 + Prop 28: the quiet engine behind a big opportunity

To understand why Prop 28 is such a big deal, it helps to see how it sits on top of Proposition 98.

Proposition 98, passed in 1988, created a constitutional minimum funding guarantee for K–14 education—K–12 schools plus community colleges. Each year, the “Prop 98 guarantee” is calculated using formulas that consider state revenues, personal income, and student attendance. It acts as a floor the state must meet or exceed in its education budget.

Proposition 28, approved by voters in 2022, builds on that floor. It created the Arts and Music in Schools (AMS) program, directing an amount equal to 1% of the K–12 portion of the Prop 98 minimum guarantee from the prior year specifically into arts education. The program began in the 2023–24 school year and is designed to be ongoing.

For most larger school districts and charter organizations, the rules are straightforward:

• At least 80% of Prop 28 funds must pay for staffing—teachers and other employees providing arts instruction.
• Up to 20% can be used for supports like training, supplies, and partnerships with community arts organizations.
• No more than 1% can be used for administrative costs.

In plain language, Prop 28 doesn’t just sprinkle a little money on arts programs. It creates a dedicated, ongoing stream that can hire and retain arts educators, equip studios and performance spaces, and build partnerships with museums, nonprofits, and universities.

It gives us a real chance to make what happened to me as a teenager—having my world turned into a studio by one committed arts educator—a standard opportunity instead of a lucky accident.

CAP28 StudioLabs: a model California could lead with4

What do we actually build with that opportunity?

One concrete approach is to treat arts spaces as CAP28 StudioLabs—arts-and-sciences studios for the AI era.

In a CAP28 StudioLab, students learn in the same rhythm that powered Renaissance workshops and still powers modern innovation: observe the real world, imagine alternatives, plan the next move, build and test, reflect honestly, improve, and share the result with a real audience or community. The arts become the connective tissue that links design thinking, the scientific method, and entrepreneurship.

This is how we turn Prop 28 from “more arts classes” into a foundation for California’s next wave of innovation—helping students build the human capabilities that will let them use AI wisely, rather than be replaced by it.

Arts educators are the drivers, not the decoration

There’s one more truth we have to say out loud: CAP28 StudioLabs—and any serious attempt to rebuild the arts as innovation infrastructure—will succeed or fail based on one group of people: arts educators.

Art, music, theater, dance, media, and design teachers already understand school systems from the inside: schedules, classrooms, family dynamics, administrative realities. They know how to teach creative process, critique, and collaboration. They are used to designing studios, performances, and projects that ask students to stretch, persist, and finish real work for real audiences.

Prop 28 does not replace dedicated visual art, music, theater, or dance programs. Instead, it gives California the chance to protect and expand those programs, train arts educators in frameworks like UCI, and invite them to co-design CAP28 StudioLabs that fit their own communities. The StudioLab foundation can be customized by arts teachers to meet the needs of their school systems—they already carry the knowledge, the curriculum, and the lived experience. Prop 28 funding can also support partnerships with higher education, museums, and community arts organizations, turning those relationships into real studios where students learn.

California doesn’t need to invent a new workforce from scratch. The drivers are already in the building. What they need now is time, support, and an equal seat at the education table so they can lead the human side of learning in the age of AI.

A choice worthy of California

Why do I now live in California with my family? Because I believe this state can expand its leadership in education and innovation. California has one of the best education systems in the world. It is also one of the most culturally diverse places on Earth, with the ability to speak many global languages—not just linguistically, but artistically and intellectually. It has everything it needs to continue to advance as a global innovation and economic hub.

The next test is whether we will also lead in how we grow human capacity: the creativity, collaboration, emotional maturity, and sense of purpose that will determine whether AI becomes a tool that serves people—or a system that leaves them behind.

Prop 98 and Prop 28, used wisely, give California a way to make opportunities like mine—a world turned into a studio by a committed arts educator—a standard, not a stroke of luck.

We can rebuild the arts not as “extras,” but as core infrastructure for innovation.
We can turn arts educators into recognized leaders of human-centric learning in the age of AI.
We can create CAP28 StudioLabs that help every student learn to imagine bravely, build wisely, and lead with both creativity and conscience. Those tools are what will give them a competitive advantage over others, without that level o arts education.

Human creativity is the power source that drives human development. And as Picasso said, “Everything you can imagine is real.” The competitive advantage that California can create is real.

So the question for us is simple:
What are we willing to imagine now—and how do we use the arts funds to help our students create a new direction for California. 

About the Author

Marty Treinen is the co-founder of Creative Core International and the co-creator of Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI), a groundbreaking framework that teaches people of all ages the creative, emotional, and cognitive skills needed for lifelong success. An artrepreneur, arts/museum educator, and project leader, Marty draws on a decades-long career spanning fine arts, theater, film, design, and museum education. 

Marty and co-author Dr. D. Wesley Spencer wrote the forthcoming books “AI and the Human Equation: How the Arts and Sciences Shape the Future of Education” and  “Who Controls AI? Collaboration or Domination: The Standards and Human Skills That Shape Our Future”

They are currently developing UCI programs for schools, universities, and businesses.

Their mission is simple: equip people with the creative intelligence to build the future they envision for themselves.

As a columnist for The Palm Springs Tribune, Marty covers theater, film, visual and performing arts, human-centric AI, arts education and cultural events throughout the Coachella Valley. His reviews are known for their honesty, authenticity, clarity, and deep respect for the power of the arts, to enhance our lives.

service.to.others.cci@gmail.com