ARTSblog

Sarah Collins

When I was first asked to participate in the Arts Education Blog Salon, I did what any good graduate student would do. I did a little background research. From the cinderblock depths of my basement office at the University of Oregon, I poured over posts from previous salons to get a better idea of what I was getting myself into. I was humbled before the collection of knowledge and experience shared here by some of the leading voices in the field of arts education. I was left wondering what I – knee deep in lit reviews and composition notebooks – could possibly contribute to the conversation.

Yet flipping through my comp books, I find reactions to journal articles, notes from conference sessions, URLs, call numbers, quotes, big ideas, and bigger questions. So that is where I begin, with an earnest curiosity, a student of arts and education policy. Reflecting on the dog-eared pages of the past year, recalling what has had the greatest impact on my understanding of this field, I present my essential arts education reading list for 2010: Part 1.

A Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. President Obama describes his Blueprint for Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as “not only a plan to renovate a flawed law, but also an outline for a re-envisioned federal role in education.”  So, yeah. This is a pretty essential reading. When the Blueprint was first released in March of this year, much of the attention from the arts education community focused on the consolidation of the USDOE’s Arts in Education Program into a larger pool of funding for a “Well-Rounded Education.” Yet I challenge us all to read beyond the line item and consider the major themes of the plan, from college and career readiness to teacher quality. How can programs such as Young Audiences’ Arts 4 Learning contribute to the larger conversation around raising the achievement of English Language Learners? How can art-based charter schools such as Baltimore’s Booker T. Washington Middle School act as viable turnaround models? How might the artistic practices of performance-based assessment and process portfolios inform new frameworks for teacher evaluation? While a complete version of the ESEA will not likely go before Congress until next year, it’s important to proactively pose these kinds of questions so that we might “re-envision” the arts’ role in federal education policy.

Emails from Quadrant Arts Education News Service. “An email listserv is an essential reading?” you ask. Well just as the title of this blog post states, this is not your average lit review. Quadrant is a national leader for arts education research, and the Quadrant Arts Education News Service offers regular e-blasts with arts and education headlines from across the country. While access to the most recent news from Kansas City or Seattle is informative, that’s not what makes this an essential reading. Looking at the collective whole of the headlines, we can reflect on the larger question of how arts education is portrayed in the media, nationally and in your hometown. Is arts education only news worthy when it’s being cut? How can educators and advocates make sure success stories like this one are being told?         

Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art, by James Catterall.  Okay, so maybe Catterall’s new book came out in 2009, but delays in the inter-library loan system meant that I couldn’t read it until January, thus reserving its spot on my list of essential readings for 2010. James Catterall is probably best known for his contributions to the cornerstone publication, Champions of Change. A decade ago, Catterall’s analysis of data from the USDOE’s National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988(NELS:88) found that that students with high levels of arts participation outperform “arts -poor ”students by virtually every measure. Doing Well and Doing Good by Doing Art revisits the NELS:88 data set to find that intensive involvement in the arts in middle and high school is associated with higher levels of achievement and college attainment. Like the prom king coming home for his 10-year reunion, Catterall’s work reminds us of the handsome power of solid data analysis (think: your state’s longitudinal data system). Furthermore, Doing Well can certainly make significant contributions to contemporary discussions of career and college readiness. While the challenge lies in isolating the transfer effects between youth arts learning and adulthood success, I’d offer David Conley’s research as a provocative cross-reference. Redefining College Readiness lays out a research-based model for defining a “college-ready” student. At the heart of Conley’s model is a set of key cognitive strategies, including intellectual openness, inquisitiveness, interpretation, precision and accuracy, and problem solving. So how do you think Conley’s model rubs up against Catterall’s findings? Discuss amongst yourselves.

Whew. I think that’s enough for one post.  As I’ve already violated the basic blogging convention of brevity, I’ll return soon with the second installment of my essential readings for 2010.

In the meantime, what’s on your list? What have you read in the past year that has impacted your understanding of arts education policy and practice?

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