This project leverages two significant resources:

• The Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education (KCAAE) Community Audit for Arts Education: Better Schools, Better Skills, Better Communities, as an evaluation model

•  Florida’s Arts Achieve! Model Schools (AAMS) as the subject of the study. (The AAMS program was developed under a 2001 Florida Department of State/Division of Cultural Affairs grant. It was modeled on the Kennedy Center Creative Ticket (now Schools of Distinction) program.)

This study captured in-depth information to supplement and update information about the current cohort of 20 AAMS and three Kennedy Center Schools of Distinction. The information was analyzed and compiled toidentify Critical Success Factors – characteristics common to all AAMS.

Like Justice Potter Stewart defining obscenity, "...I know it when I see it." the challenge of this study was to quantify and isolate critical success factors that can be useful guidelines to schools wishing to improve their arts education programs.  Unfortunately, this may also become the roadmap for re-introducing arts education programs that have been eliminated due to budget cuts.

This study captured in-depth information to supplement and update information about the current cohort of 20 AAMS and three Kennedy Center Schools of Distinction. The information was analyzed and compiled toidentify Critical Success Factors – characteristics common to all AAMS.