A new coalition advocating quality arts education for every Tennessee student during school hours is gaining momentum as it works to build a network for the cause.

 

ArtsEd Tennessee is three years into an effort to become a one-stop shop for lawmakers who need perspective on whether proposed bills may adversely impact arts education.

 

“There will be a single place they can go,” said Stephen Coleman, ArtsEd director. “We’ve had a lot of organizations, but we haven’t had one voice.”

 

ArtsEd volunteers provide input each week the General Assembly is in session. The coalition also was successful in getting a resolution passed in the House that commemorated a week in September as Arts in Education Week in Tennessee. Coleman called it a positive first step.

 

The coalition, made up of about 10 organizations and a growing network of arts education supporters, functions within a state known for music. For the swinging pelvis of Elvis. For the twang of country music. For blues, for B.B. King, for Beale Street.

 

And yet, arts education advocates discovered a need for better access to the arts in schools.

 

Coleman, president of the foundation that provides funding for the Tennessee Arts Academy, began assembling the coalition a few years ago. The idea was sparked by a conversation with a legislator who said diminished class time for arts is an unintended consequence of some bills passed into law.

 

To build the coalition, Coleman enlisted support from a range of participants in the arts world including nonprofits, arts organizations, and businesses that sell musical supplies.

 

ArtsEd wants to ensure equitable, comprehensive and sequential access to visual and performing arts instruction. While the coalition acknowledges improved arts education awareness on some levels, advocates say such consciousness needs even more development.

 

Students were enrolled in at least one arts course at 70% of 1,726 schools across the state during the 2016-2017 school year, according to reported school district figures collected by the Tennessee Arts Education Data Project. In Shelby County, the percentage was higher. Using a collective enrollment figure of 124,628 students in 186 schools, 78% of county students were taking at least one art course. At the state and local level, the best represented discipline was music—63% in Shelby County—followed by art.

 

Across the state, enrollment was down near 50% in high schools.

 

The Data Project also reported that 68% of schools offer both music and arts as required by state policy. For schools with the highest enrollment of students who qualify for free and reduced lunches, 73% of students are enrolled in an arts course, while in schools with the lowest such enrollment, 78% of students are taking at least one course.

 

“The children who need arts education most often get it the least,” said Dru Davison, fine arts adviser at Shelby County Schools. “When policies and leaders become emboldened, they get it.”

 

A workshop in Memphis on Oct. 28 was the last stop of a five-city tour to offer arts education supporters strategies on being better advocates. ArtsEd hopes to expand its network through the workshops and plans to create an arts education policy and advocacy roadmap using information gathered during the tour. The workshops are being funded by the Country Music Association Foundation.

 

A representative of Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit that seeks to advance the arts throughout the country, says while the strength of musical arts in Memphis and Nashville helps promote the arts, advocacy for arts like ballet and theater is necessary.

 

“It is a huge advantage for Tennessee that we have such a rich music background,” said Lauren Cohen, a Clarksville native with a Washington office.

 

“The arts are very, very important to any city, but especially to Tennessee,” said longtime arts advocate David L. Acey Sr., executive director of Africa in April, which puts on a three-day festival in Memphis attended by 30,000 people each year. “We bring in billions of dollars in tourism. Any city that promotes the arts is a healthy, wealthy city. Not only that, but the arts are very important to students. When children play music, they learn cooperation, then a skill, then they can get scholarships. And music appreciation, it is good for the soul.”