ARTSblog

Two major arts education studies were released this past week, the FRSS 10-year comparison and the Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth, a 12-year longitudinal study. When these studies are married, their effectiveness as a tool for advocacy becomes undeniably clear.

While the FRSS will get much of the press because U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan presented it, the study is of little consequence to the progression of arts education other then outright stating of significant declines in the amount of offerings across the board.

On the other hand, move over Charlie Bucket, the longitudinal study is the golden ticket arts education advocators have been praying for.

The longitudinal study gives the data for students of Low Socioeconomic Status (low SES) with both high and low arts exposure, and their counterparts in the High Socioeconomic Status (high SES).

The matrixes measured for each of the four categories include high school graduation rates, civic involvement, recorded grade point average, college graduation rates, average test scores, volunteer rates, other extracurricular activities, and labor market outcomes.

The results are startling, not because they affirm what advocates have said for years, but because of the achievement gap between low SES/low arts and low SES/high arts. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 14%

Tara Aesquivel

The realm of combining arts and education is vast. I do not intend to address this vast landscape in a modest 600 words. However, I will highlight two of my favorite approaches to arts + education in the Los Angeles area.

Inner-City Arts (ICA) offers a variety of programs—school field trips, afterschool and weekend workshops, teacher training, programs for parents—to give children in one of the nation’s poorest areas opportunities for skill-building, artistic expression, and a safe environment.

ICA backs up its work with phenomenal statistics and partners with UCLA, Harvard, and the Department of Education to publish research that others can leverage. In addition to their excellent work and partnerships, the stories from Inner-City Arts are a never-ending source of inspiration.

Arts for All is the mothership for organizing sequential K–12 arts education in Los Angeles County and our 81 school districts. (Yes, eighty-one.) More than half of these districts have signed on since 2003. In addition to providing half a million students with arts education, the organizations backing Arts for All actually agreed on a definition of “quality arts education”.

Despite amazing organizations like Inner-City Arts and herculean efforts like Arts for All, we’re still fighting for the arts’ righteous place in society and education. We do have reason for cautious optimism, though. The #1 most-watched TED talk is Sir Ken Robinson talking about the faults of linear-based education, a product of the industrial revolution. He illustrates his point with the story of a dancer, which gets us artsy types all atwitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 12%

Molly O'Connor

There’s a crisis underway in Oklahoma’s public schools. Even though House Bill 1017 requires art and music as core curriculum, these programs have disappeared from too many Oklahoma schools in communities both large and small.

This is nothing new, but that fact alone ensures that any attempt to reinstate these programs faces increasingly tough challenges. Today’s generation of parents were some of the first to miss out on art and music education, and therefore, are often unaware of the benefits of arts education and what their own children are missing out on.

Interestingly enough, several community leaders in Oklahoma continue to step up in efforts to pick up where the schools are falling short. Although, in most cases, it’s about so much more than providing an arts learning experience: It’s about providing hope.

With a thirty-year history of presenting modern dance in Oklahoma, Prairie Dance Theatre has developed new outreach programs for underserved youth and struggling Oklahoma City public schools. Artistic Director Tonya Kilburn is one of the instructors who has been instrumental in implementing dance into physical education programs in the public schools.

Tonya: “Bringing dance to children in OKC is both exciting and rewarding for me as an educator and as a concerned community member. I’ve always felt very fortunate that my chosen art form is so physical, and with Oklahoma rated as the seventh most obese state in the nation, I feel very connected to the solution.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7%

Nancy Biberman

Last month, The New York Times documented an incredible group of local artists coming together to turn a rundown (but not forgotten) Bronx building into a work of art.

The canvas was the Andrew Freedman Home, which originally opened in 1924 as a home for New York’s high society elders who had fallen on tough times in their senior years.

Decades later, when the building itself was in economic turmoil, it was saved by a community group and used for services, but “much of the rest of the vast building has been kept sealed off like a tomb, a time capsule monument to the Bronx’s grand past, awaiting a new kind of future.”

Much of the Bronx is on the threshold of this “new kind of future.”

In spite of being dealt a nearly impossible hand when the city systematically disinvested in the borough in the 1970s, the Bronx survived, and in many ways, flourished.

A haven for new immigrant populations since the early 1900s, the Bronx became a melting pot where music and culture were shared. Its diverse neighborhoods fostered both the passing on of traditions and musical mash-ups. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5%

Narric Rome

On April 2, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a study glamorously entitled Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools 1999-2000 and 2009-10.

The surveys that contributed to this report were conducted through the NCES Fast Response Survey System (FRSS), mailed to about 3,400 elementary and secondary school principals and approximately 5,000 music and visual arts teachers.

National arts education leaders, through policy statements, have been calling for this study to be administered for many years, and helped to direct specific funding from Congress to make it possible.

Ten years is a long time to wait for a federal study to be published and finally it has arrived!

This report presents information on the availability and characteristics of arts education programs of those surveyed, broken down by discipline (music, visual arts, dance, and theatre).

• It indicates that while music and visual art are widely available in some form, six percent of the nation’s public elementary schools offer no specific instruction in music, and 17 percent offer no specific instruction in the visual arts.

• Nine percent of public secondary schools reported that they did not offer music, and 11 percent did not offer the visual arts.

• Only three percent offer any specific dance instruction and only four percent offer any specific theatre instruction in elementary schools. In secondary schools the numbers improve somewhat as 12 percent offer dance and 45 percent offer theatre. Sadly, the study was unable to survey dance and theatre specialists because the data sample didn’t have sufficient contact information in those disciplines. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 60%

Gregory Burbidge

I am lucky enough to work for a service organization in the arts. The Metro Atlanta Arts and Culture Coalition is a regional nonprofit organization in Atlanta, and we spend our time collaborating with local governments, business & civic leaders, funders, and arts leaders for the purpose of supporting arts and culture across a ten county region.

The work we do offers us the tremendous opportunity to observe the field broadly, something most of the organizations we serve don’t have the pleasure of doing.

If I add to this lucky breadth of scope to Diane Ragsdale’s lens on community and her call to think big (to be “reaching exponentially great numbers of people” and not just “maintain our minuscule reach”), something new comes into the picture.

Three of the programs in our community that I have spent the most time talking to people about this year have had tremendous success at reaching further by having the right people building connections at just the right intersections:

Sunny and Krista @ On the Same Page

On the Same Page, based in Decatur, GA, is a city-wide reading initiative. There are examples of community building reading programs in other cities, but this is the model that clicked here.

A locally-owned bookshop saw the need to foster a community of readers, and rather than find a nonprofit to handle a reading program or look for their own profit-making scheme, they took the initiative to make a difference on their own. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7%

Jessica Burton

I’m no stranger to great music festivals, like Voodoo Fest in New Orleans or South by Southwest in Austin, that bring together both up-and-coming and legendary artists. And I’ve been lucky enough to score box seats to mega-star performances by the likes of Lil’ Wayne, Dave Matthews Band, and Coldplay.

But even though I went to more shows than I can count, only once did I have a front row seat to a truly life-changing concert.

No, it wasn’t a performance by Chris Martin, Lil’ Wayne or Dave Matthews. And it wasn’t a music festival, as much as I live for the three-day binges on incredible musical talent and soul swaying tunes.

It was at a mall—the Regency Square Mall in Florence, AL to be exact. And the show was put on by a high school band.

On Saturday, March 17, I drove three hours from Tuscaloosa, where I live, to the mall in Florence to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the deadly tornadoes at a ‘giving thanks’ concert put on by the Phil Campbell High School Band.

A 45-minute drive south of Florence, Phil Campbell is a town of about 1,000 residents. Nearly one year ago, the Phil Campbell community was completely devastated by deadly tornadoes.

April 27, 2011 proved to be a nightmare that has taken a year to overcome. For the Phil Campbell High School band—whose band room was reduced to rubble—that Wednesday last spring marks the day the music died…almost. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 34%

Alyx Kellington

In revisiting the Arts Education Blog Salon, I’ve found that one topic keeps popping up in conversation. Victoria Plettner-Saunders asked, “When is it a partnership and when is it something else?” That something else is often a collaboration—and although equally important, there are differences between “collaboration” and “partnership.”

To celebrate Spring Break, I thought I’d highlight a true partnership.

For the past seven years, an amazing partnership has taken place at the Kravis Center for Performing Arts in Palm Beach County, FL.

Sponsored by Prime Time Palm Beach County, Inc. and the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, each year approximately fifty children attend the Spring Break Residency: a two-week intensive afterschool program for youth in grades 4–8. The kids work with professional teaching artists and learn new skills in stage production and various art forms.

Students are nominated by afterschool providers and this year, came from eight different sites within a fifteen mile radius. The students do not have to have previous experience in the arts to be involved in the residency program. Youth are encouraged to take an active part in creating their own production, work as a team, cultivate their own ideas, and use their unique talents to express themselves on stage.

The youth are very dedicated and come together for six consecutive days during spring break, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. and then for the next week, for five days after school. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 34%

John Eger

Tom Torlakson, the California State Superintendent of Education, convenes the first of several meetings in Coronado, CA later this month to talk about “how the arts and creative education can transform California classrooms.” He also plans to produce a new publication called A Blueprint for Creative Schools.

Just as important, the California Legislative Joint Committee on the Arts will hold hearings on SB 789, legislation that will require the Governor to develop a “creativity index,” which in turn would be used to measure creativity in public schools statewide.

SB 789, authored by Senator Curren Price (D-District 26) and introduced last February, was approved by all the appropriate Senate committees and is now moving toward passage.

This movement by California matches the legislation signed by the governor of Massachusetts last spring, and is much like a bill working its way through the state legislature in Oklahoma to also establish a creativity index.

Equally significant, Maine, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, Colorado, and Wisconsin are beginning similar discussions and Nebraska is getting itself organized, according to CreativeChallenge, Inc., which monitors creativity discussions worldwide. The group notes that Seoul, Alberta, and Edmonton—and probably other cities and nations around the world—are following these efforts closely.

Clearly something big is happening across America. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 16%

Robert Lynch with medal recipient Elena Urioste.

I recently had the honor and pleasure of being invited to attend the Sphinx Medals of Excellence which honors “emerging Black and Latino leaders in classical music who demonstrate the following qualities: excellence, outstanding work ethic, a spirit of determination, and great potential for leadership.”

The Sphinx Organization, led by Founder, President, and National Council of the Arts member Aaron Dworkin, is renowned for helping develop the best and brightest young classical musicians with the express purpose of debunking stereotypes about minorities in the classical music field.

In existence for only 15 years, the Sphinx has had an enormous positive impact by reaching over 85,000 students in 200 hundred schools across the country, and awarding over $1,8250,000 in scholarships.

They have also provided over $300,000 in musical instruments to young minority musicians and staged 260 orchestral performances reaching audiences of 250,000 people!

Against the backdrop of the United States Supreme Court, attendees from the worlds of politics, law, and the arts gathered in our nation’s capital to be thoroughly amazed by the skill and beauty of the performances of the three recipients: clarinetist Anthony McGill and violinists Elena Urioste and Tai Murray. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9%

Earlier this week on PBS NewsHour, Condoleezza Rice was interviewed (along with former New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein) about a new report by the Council on Foreign Relations that links education reform with national security.

While discussing the topic, the former U.S. Secretary of State and accomplished pianist was also asked about the state of arts education in America.

Here are Rice’s comments:

What do you think about her statements?

Popularity: 20%

Graham Dunstan

Academy Award© nominee Stanley Tucci joins Americans for the Arts President and CEO Bob Lynch before Congress today, providing testimony to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior regarding 2013 appropriations for the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and other programs.

Tucci dropped by our offices yesterday and talked to us about his arts background and what he hopes to convey to the Congressional Subcommittee.

He also spent a few moments discussing his role of Caeser Flickerman in the upcoming blockbuster The Hunger Games. Who do you think may have inspired his portrayal of Caeser in the movie? He gives that away at the end of the interview.

Visit ARTSblog tomorrow for more on the Congressional Hearing and for another short video with Stanley Tucci about The Hunger Games.

Popularity: 8%

Katherine Damkohler

When visiting a foreign country, you are expected to know at least a few choice phrases, if not speak the language. In addition, you need to know local customs, pastimes, and the economic/social contexts of its citizens.

In much the same way, a school’s arts partner must also be aware of the academic environment they enter, and understand the perspective of the faculty and students. Of course, as arts partners we have something unique and important to contribute to the school (that’s why we’re there, after all), but speaking the language and understanding the challenges of the school make the connections so much richer.

We all talk about the power of the arts to engage students. Engaging students is vitally important, but it cannot be empty engagement—they must be engaged in a way that inspires learning and connections across the curriculum. By speaking the language of the school you help the school’s mission and your organization’s mission simultaneously.

Currently, and in the near future, the dialog within schools focuses upon the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The shifts that are required to implement the CCSS are vital for arts partners to understand. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 19%

Joshua Miller

For the arts lovers who want become arts fighters, many of you are probably saying, “Let’s fight to keep arts in our public schools! Umm…wait…how do we actually do that?”

Indeed, wanting to fight for a cause can be an awesome feeling. However, knowing where to get started can be daunting.

The best way to join the battle to keep arts education in schools is by getting involved with your local school board. Believe it or not, school boards are one of the purist forms of democracy we have in America.

Citizens of a community or district have direct access to school board members. That’s pretty major when you consider the subjects at hand:

1. Our children, our greatest resource  

2. Education, the great equalizer in this country

In general, the responsibilities of a local school board include maintaining the local school system structure; developing curriculum; meeting both state and federal standards for public schools; approving the school district’s budget; establishing educational objectives; being involved in the administration of the school district for accountability purposes; and serving as an open forum for the citizens’ input regarding education, reflecting the values and culture of their community.

Now that you know a little about how local school boards operate, how do you get involved? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 18%

Tricia Tunstall

When was the last time The New York Times ran four major articles, including one front-page feature, on arts education?

I can’t remember the last time that happened…before a few weeks ago, when suddenly El Sistema, the vast children’s orchestra program in Venezuela, was front-page news. The program has been growing steadily for 37 years, but only recently has it become a hot topic here.

Why has El Sistema made its unlikely leap over the media’s tacit barriers to news coverage for arts education?

It’s partly because Gustavo Dudamel, the Sistema’s most famous product, has become a celebrity conductor in Los Angeles, the crucible of celebrity. In fact, the first article in the Times series last month focused on Dudamel and his star status.

But I think it’s also because El Sistema is not a strictly “arts ed” story. At the very heart of this extraordinary program is a convergence of musical and social goals—a conviction that musical excellence and social transformation can be fused in a single mission.

The real news about El Sistema is that it has given new life and hope to hundreds of thousands of Venezuela’s neediest children, by following the precept of its founder, Jose Antonio Abreu, that “if you put a violin in a child’s hands, that child will not pick up a gun.” Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 20%