Acting in concert with Arts for LA, a coalition of senior arts leaders in Los Angeles that has been meeting regularly since 1993 to advocate for public support of the arts, the Arts Commission launched an arts education initiative in 2000.

It commissioned and partially funded Arts in Focus, the first-ever survey of arts education in Los Angeles County, released May 2001, which provides baseline data on arts education and reveals the lack of a systemic approach to teaching the arts and wide variations in the degree to which arts are included in the educational experience. As Los Angeles is the largest and most populous county in the nation with 1745 schools and 1.7 million students, the students in the districts surveyed represent 27% of all students enrolled in K-12 public schools in California, and 3.4% of all students enrolled in K-12 public schools in the nation.

Data was collected through in-depth, in-person interviews conducted with officials from 80 of the 82 school districts in L.A. County.