Americans for the Arts

Although the timing of congressional votes keep getting kicked around, it remains a crucial time in Washington for arts education.

Anything’s possible^*, but what’s most likely is a U.S. Senate floor vote and amendment consideration this week—as well as a long-delayed House floor vote—on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization.

Throughout my 30 years at Americans for the Arts, I have seen first-hand the profound impact that the arts have on children's lives. Just the other evening, a YoungArts alumna, singer/bassist Kate Davis, performed before a crowd of national policy leaders, senators, members of Congress, and famous artists, for an event honoring the U.S. National Medal of Arts and Humanities honorees in Washington, D.C. I first met this young lady just a few years ago and she was a high school student who so impressed me that Robert Redford and I invited her to our National Arts Policy Roundtable, where she in turn impressed the leaders of President Obama's President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The next thing you know, she is sharing her art and ideas at the White House. Magic can and does happen all the time through the arts and arts education.

As we celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Congressionally designated National Arts in Education Week over the next few days, I want to share just a few of the experiences I have had in the arts with students as I travel the country, with the hope that these will bring to mind experiences of your own that you will share with others.

Every empty seat in a theatre isn't simply lost revenue; it's a lost opportunity to tackle one of the biggest challenges we can expect to face in the arts and culture business today - talent development.

I am not an expert by any means on the process or state of arts funding in America, but I can clearly see the dysfunction in our government at all levels. In today’s education system, there is a significant lack of equity regarding access to a quality arts education, often due to the location of the school. 

Happy New Year from all of us at Americans for the Arts! Together our work has helped transform America’s communities through the arts.  

Share with ARTSblog readers one way the arts helped transform your community in 2015, in the comments below and on social media! Tag us @Americans4Arts.

Congratulations on your success in 2015! We look forward to an exciting and productive New Year.

Somehow "equity" has become a huge topic of conversation in the arts and in arts education. Huge for consultants, some who are retired educators; others who've never spent a day in the classroom as an instructor. Equity, or the pursuit thereof, is also a huge topic of research. Study after study reveals much of what we knew decades ago—even before federal legislation that mandated that all children learn the same way and therefore let's evaluate them in the same robotic ways.

Since the Neolithic Revolution, apprenticeships were the career pathway towards master artist status. In addition, one had to have a patron to provide access to the resources of their craft. Twelve thousand years later, we have codified the artistic learning experience into a matrix of what students should know and be able to do, through specific benchmarks known as standards.

The first National Standards for Arts Education were issued in 1994. A coalition of national arts and education organizations will issue a twenty-first century update of the standards in early 2014.

Kristy Callaway (Executive Director of the Arts Schools Network and member of arts education council at Americans for the Arts) interviews Jim Palmarini (Director of Educational Policy at Educational Theatre Association and member of the leadership team of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards) about the process of updating the national arts education standards.

Kristy: Please set this up for me. What is the back-story of the writing teams? How were they selected and assembled?

Jim: We have five writing teams working to rewrite the national standards in the content areas of dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts. In October, 2011, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) leadership issued an online application process. We had more than 360 applicants, most of who were highly qualified and experienced in one or more arts discipline. What we were seeking in each team was a balance of individuals who had expertise in teaching, standards and curriculum writing, assessment, and, of course, practical knowledge in their area of expertise. The leadership of NCCAS selected the team members. The College Board managed the selection of the media arts team.

The full five teams have met twice in person—most recently this past July—but most of their work has been done virtually in webinars, phone conferences, and email discussions. Writing grade-by-grade PreK-12 standards is intellectually challenging and complicated work, especially when you are working to both honor what is unique about each art form and trying to find common ground across the content areas. And nobody is getting paid—this is a voluntary effort by a dedicated cadre of individuals who truly believe in the value of standards for students and educators.