Klarinet Archive - Posting 000295.txt from 2002/09

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Benefits of Arts Education
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 22:44:00 -0400

Returning to a previous topic, I submit the following forward for your
edification:

>From: "Why Music Ed" <whymusiced@-----.net>
>Subject: Week 195
>Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 17:25:39 -0500
>X-Unsubscribe: send a blank message to whymusic-off@-----.com
>
>
>WEEK 195
>
>EFFECTIVE ARTS PROGRAMS IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES
>
>excerpts from the report "The Impact of Arts Education on Workforce
>Preparation," an Issue Brief from the National Governors Association
>Center for Best Practices
>
>----
>
>As states continue to focus on the future development of their
>workforces, arts-based education proves to be a viable option for
>developing skills necessary for increased productivity and prosperity.
>The following programs highlight several states' best practices in
>arts education for general [and] at-risk...youth.
>
>Schools throughout the country are implementing arts-focused curricula
>targeting the general population to create a more educated workforce
>with a set of well-rounded and applicable skills.
>
>-----
>
>In Mississippi, the Whole Schools Project expands regular classroom
>instruction to include the arts and promotes collaborations between
>arts and classroom teachers to create arts-infused instruction.
>Currently, Mississippi has 20 schools (more than 15 percent of all
>school districts) participating in this model of school reform. All
>members of the school community play an important role in this
>initiative: superintendent, principal, arts and classroom teachers,
>students, parents, community organizations, and businesses. The Art
>Commission's goals for this initiative are to foster sequential,
>comprehensive arts education programs that serve every student in a
>single school and offer the prospect of being replicated in other
>parts of Mississippi.
>
>OUTCOMES: The measured results of Mississippi's arts-infused
>instruction include enhanced curriculum assessment practices (as
>measured schoolwide); increased student engagement (as measured by
>lower absenteeism rates and fewer discipline problems); and increased
>student achievement (as measured by classroom grades and higher test
>scores). (1)
>
>-----
>
>In Ohio, the cities of Hamilton and neighboring Fairfield resolved
>during 1990 to map out a cultural action plan for their schools,
>beginning at the elementary level. The program outlined in the plan
>called SPECTRA+ (Schools, Parents, Educators, Children, Teachers
>Rediscover the Arts) was implemented during the 1992 school year.
>SPECTRA+ is a methodology that places the arts in a daily curriculum
>as a basic subject. The program has five major components: arts
>instruction, arts integration, artists-in-residence, professional
>development for teachers, and evaluation and advocacy. These
>components combine into a curriculum that involves art, music, dance,
>drama, literature, and media arts. Each school must offer arts
>instruction in music, visual arts, dance, and drama at least one hour
>per week, and classroom teachers are trained to deliver academic
>subjects through the arts by teaming and planning with arts teachers
>and artists. As a result, students receive direct arts instruction as
>well as lessons that combine, for instance, math with music or science
>with drama.
>
>OUTCOMES: SPECTRA+ schools showed significant gains in student
>creativity, teacher/student attitudes, academic and thinking skill
>improvement, attendance, discipline, school climate, student
>self-esteem, and parental self-esteem (children's belief that parents
>are proud of them). These outcomes were documented through an
>independent evaluation that included pre- and post-program testing in
>four schools, as well as through comparisons between SPECTRA+ schools
>and other schools in the Hamilton-Fairfield area. (2)
>
>-----
>
>Initiated in South Carolina in 1987, the Arts in Basic Curriculum
>(ABC) Project is a statewide initiative to ensure that every child
>from preschool through college has access to quality, comprehensive
>education in the arts, including dance, music, drama, visual arts, and
>creative writing. It is directed cooperatively by the South Carolina
>Arts Commission and the South Carolina Department of Education. ABC
>was founded on the premise that the arts are an indispensable part of
>a complete education because quality education in the arts
>significantly adds to the learning potential of students. Arts
>education complements learning in other disciplines and establishes a
>foundation for success in school and lifelong learning.
>
>OUTCOMES: Educators report that the adoption of an arts-centered
>school curriculum has positively affected student and teacher
>attitudes, student behavior, parent participation, and other key
>variables that are linked to general student achievement. (3)
>
>-----
>
>Begun in Ft. Myers, Florida, in 1989, Success Through Academic and
>Recreational Support (STARS) is a multifaceted arts studies and crime
>prevention program for at-risk youth that offers a variety of classes,
>including modern dance, African Folk dance, poetry, creative writing
>and vocal arts, as well as tutorials in math, reading, and computers.
>The cost for each participant in Florida's arts intervention program
>is only $850 per year - compared with as much as $28,000 per youth in
>the typical juvenile boot camp. Participation in STARS is a family
>affair: Both parents and children must agree to participate in the
>activities. Children are required to maintain good behavior and at
>least a C average in school.
>
>OUTCOMES: At the start of the STARS Program, 75 percent of the
>children were making less than a C average; now 80 percent are making
>a C average or better. Since the program's inception, juvenile crime
>has dropped 28 percent, and for youth ages 11 and 12, the rate of
>recidivism has dropped 64 percent. (4)
>
>----
>
>The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild (MCG), was created in 1968 as an
>answer to a rapidly deteriorating Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
>neighborhood - Manchester - home to many at-risk children with little
>prospect of graduating from high school, let alone attending college.
>MCG is an arts education organization that employs visual and
>performing artists to educate and inspire inner-city youth to become
>productive citizens. Its success lies in its ability to combine
>academic guidance, high school and college entry counseling, and
>development of self-esteem, decision-making, and team building skills
>- resources ordinarily not available to children in the Manchester
>neighborhood. The goal of the program is not to create artists, but
>to use the arts as a means through which students learn the skills
>necessary to perform as productive members of society.
>
>OUTCOMES: With an 80-percent college attendance rate, this arts
>program has been so successful that it currently is being replicated
>in five cities nationwide (Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco,
>Seattle, and St. Louis) and has attracted attention from
>technological powerhouses such as eBay, Hewlett Packard, and Cisco
>Systems. (5) Through successful outcomes, MCG has overcome the common
>misperception that using the arts to teach workforce skills only
>produces artists - not a skilled workforce.
>
>-----
>
>Created in 1985 as an after-school program to provide an alternative
>to community despair and to standard education and social programs,
>the Boys Choir of Harlem in New York [City] has grown into a
>nationally recognized school and after-school program. This program
>uses an integrated model of education, counseling and the performing
>arts to prepare inner-city youth to become disciplined, confident,
>motivated, and successful citizens. Five days a week from 8:30 in the
>morning until 6:30 in the evening, young boys and girls in grades 4-12
>study academics and music at the Choir Academy, which operates in
>partnership with the local school district. After school, they
>rehearse for up to three hours and participate in counseling and
>tutoring sessions.
>
>OUTCOMES: The program's progress is measured by college-bound
>participants. To date, 98 percent of the participants have gone on to
>college. (6)
>
>-----
>
>REFERENCES:
>
>1. See www.arts.state.ms.us/grants_education_wholes.html and "Whole
>Schools Initiative Evaluation Summary," David Morse, Mississippi State
>University, Mississippi Arts Commission, 1998.
>
>2. "The Schooled Mind: An Empirical Evaluation of the Hamilton
>Fairfield SPECTRA+ Program," Center for Human Development, Miami
>University, Oxford, Ohio, 1994.
>
>3. See www.winthrop.edu/abc/ABCmission.htm
>
>4. Arts Programs for At-Risk Youth: How U.S. Communities are Using
>the Arts to Rescue Their Youth and Deter Crime, Americans for the
>Arts, 1998.
>
>5. See www.manchesterguild.org
>
>6. See www.cominguptaller.org/profile/pr32music.htm
>
>SOURCE: "The Impact of Arts Education on Workforce Preparation," Issue
>Brief, May 1, 2002, National Governors Association Center for Best
>Practices. www.nga.org/cda/files/050102ARTSED.pdf
>
>
>
>
>
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Bill Hausmann bhausmann1@-----.net
451 Old Orchard Drive
Essexville, MI 48732 ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

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