Americans for the Arts

Creative Many is headquartered in TechTown, Detroit’s self-styled “business innovation hub.” Our office in Michigan’s capital city is co-located with The Runway, an incubator helping startup fashion designers produce and market their collections. Both TechTown and The Runway are emblematic of the exploding creative sector in Michigan.

According to the Creative State Michigan 2014: Creative Industries Report, in FY 2011, the creative sector accounted for over $3.6 billion in wages to 74,049 employees in more than 9,700 businesses in the Great Lakes State. This accounts for nearly 3 percent of Michigan’s employment totals, more than 3 percent of total wages and 4.6 percent of total state businesses in leading core industries such as advertising, publishing and printing industry, design, film/media and broadcasting and architecture.

It is past time to put the arts into action for every child in this country. If we are serious about equipping our kids with the tools they need to be successful in the future, let’s prove it by systematically and completely addressing the inequities that exist in our schools right now.

I recently participated in the New Community Visions Initiative in Oklahoma City. I came away from that event filled with hope and inspiration after a day of working side by side with many intelligent and empowering people: educators, government officials, private industry leaders, cultural organization heads, and foundation leaders. We looked at how we see the arts and culture playing a strong role in building a healthier, more vibrant, and more equitable community over the next ten to fifteen years.

This is the first of four blog posts on Americans for the Arts’ new public opinion survey.

In December 2015, Congress passed the new Every Student Succeeds Act reauthorization, with a provision that includes the arts in the definition of a “well-rounded education.” Arts advocates certainly found something to celebrate with that, but just where does the public stand on the issue? Later that same week, Americans for the Arts conducted a nationwide public opinion survey on the arts and arts education. Findings showed:

Jamie Kasper

Here in Pennsylvania, we are currently mired in educator effectiveness. Before I left the elementary music classroom in 2007, my effectiveness as a teacher was measured by variations on these steps:

1. Around May 1, I would meet my principal accidentally in the hall. That person would inform me that he/she had forgotten to observe my class that year and said our spring performance would serve as my evaluation.

2. In mid-May, I would herd approximately 100 kindergarten students into our gymatorium. In between tears, loud exclamations of “Hi, Mommy!” accompanied by violent waving, dresses pulled over faces to hide from the audience, and other manifestations of 5-year-olds’ stage fright, we managed to sing, play instruments, and move. I may or may not have noticed my principal standing in the back of the room.

3. A few days later, I was called into the office, told everything was great, and asked to sign a paper saying just that. Then I went back to my classroom.

Two significant events in the accountability landscape have occurred in Pennsylvania since then. In 2010, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Pennsylvania an $800,000 Momentum Grant. The purpose of the grant was to develop an evaluation system that included student achievement as one significant part. The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), working with other stakeholders, closely examined Charlotte Danielson’s revised 2011 Framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument and piloted it in 2010-2011 with three school districts and one intermediate unit. This measurement tool included four domains on which teachers would assess themselves and also be assessed by their supervisor:

Jeff Poulin

As a field, we have come to understand, as articulated in the recently published A Shared Endeavor document, that Teaching Artists are a vital part of our arts education ecosystem.  To this point we have invited 25 leaders in the field, throughout the ecosystem, to discuss the challenges, opportunities and best practices of teaching artists in the field of arts education.

As there are so many angles to discuss on this broad topic, we have clustered the posts in related areas of interest. Throughout the week we will cover the history of the role that teaching artists play in the field to best and most innovative practices for both teaching artists and organizations that work with teaching artists. See the schedule below!

Lori Sokolowski

Being a teaching artist is hard work. There are the sticky, dirty germs and the immune system that can’t keep up at every new school site. Then there’s those Friday afternoons with a hyper class of third graders. Sometimes, there’s the not so great classroom teacher who sits disengaged in the back of the room grading papers, eating, or even worse, napping. Yes, I said napping. But it’s not always like that. The teacher napping incident was a one-time thing. Most of the time being a teaching artist in a school setting is an inspiring and invigorating experience. I learn from my students and their classroom teachers as much as I hope they learn from me.

At San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts I split my responsibilities as a teaching artist for CARE (Collaborative Arts Resources for Education) with other administrative responsibilities. The pedagogy of teaching artistry has made me a better administrator and I would like to share these four tips with you.