Arts Education

BACKGROUND

ARTS FOR ALL

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

LAARTSED.ORG

ROUNDTABLE MEETINGS

Laura Zucker, Michael Balaoing, and Janice Pober at the February 11, 2004 Launch of www.laartsed.org.

With support from the California Arts Council and the Los Angeles County Productivity Fund, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Office of Education, spearheaded a year long community-based strategic planning process to address the findings of Arts in Focus, resulting in Arts for All: Los Angeles County Regional Blueprint for Arts Education.

The Blueprint was unanimously adopted by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and officially launched in September 2002 (please see the press and publications below for more information).

Arts for All provides a series of policy changes and educational initiatives to create systemic change and institutionalize sequential, K-12 arts education, in Los Angeles County school districts, based on the Visual and Performing Arts Standards for California Public Schools. The Blueprint proposes that systemic change can only occur through the commitment and involvement of every stakeholder group and identifies the steps that each stakeholder can take to create systemic change through A Call to Action Chart, pages 8-10 in the Blueprint.

Thirty diverse organizations, including the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the Los Angeles County Office of Education, have committed to provide leadership for the goals and strategies contained in the Blueprint. These organizations are working together under the umbrella of a County Task Force for Arts Education, formed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors upon their adoption.

PROGRESS ON THE BLUEPRINT TO DATE:

Goal 1: Each of the 82 school districts in Los Angeles County enacts a policy, adopts a plan with timeline, and approves a budget to implement sequential K-12 arts education.

Vanguard School Districts –
As of September 2003, five vanguard school districts –
• Culver City
• Norwalk-LaMirada,
• Pasadena
• Rosemead and
• Santa Monica-Malibu
have committed to plan for arts education and are receiving technical assistance to develop and adopt and arts education policy and long-range budgeted plan by June 2004. Laurie Schell, Executive Director of the California Alliance for Arts Education, is spearheading this initiative through funding provided by Sony Pictures Entertainment and the National Endowment for the Arts. Five districts will be chosen each year to receive technical assistance to establish these critical success factors for arts education.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education is also included this first year as the sixth district receiving guidance to provide sequential arts education in the juvenile halls, probation camps, community schools and special education sites through an Arts Work grant from the California Department of Education.

Goal 2:  Implementers and policy makers have sufficient tools, information, and professional development to achieve sequential K-12 arts education

Arts Education Website
Developed by the Arts Commission, www.LAArtsEd.org is the County’s first ever online resource directory providing one-stop shopping and the assurance that the programs meet state education standards. Full details of each program, including fee and availability information is provided. Users can watch streaming video of program providers and email a booking request to providers through an online form. Arts education service providers will have opportunities to apply to be included in the directory in spring 2004 and every spring thereafter. This project was funded by Los Angeles County.

Professional Development Workshops
In January 2003, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, in partnership with the Armory Center for the Arts and the Music Center Education Division, launched the first ever Los Angeles County Arts Education Training Program. The training program provides County-based individual teaching artists, and arts education directors of arts organizations, with an opportunity to deepen their understanding of the Visual and Performing Arts Standards, the standards for the other core-curriculum subject areas, child development, lesson plan development, evaluation and assessment.

By June 2004, through an initial grant from the California Arts Council and a current grant from the Dana Foundation, the County will have trained 100 arts education administrators through the Armory and 100 teaching artists through the Music Center. The goal is that every participant of the training program will eventually be listed on LAArtsEd.org.

Teacher Training
Spearheaded by Mark Slavkin, Vice President of Education for the Music Center and Dr. Carl Selkin, Dean, College of Arts and Letters, California State University Los Angeles, a team comprised of County-based universities, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, representatives from the school districts, arts organizations, museums and members of the Executive Committee developed the following action plan for teacher training:
1)      map existing County-based professional development in the arts to help districts access quality programs – which will eventually be included on the www.LAArtsEd.org as this site is built out overtime

2)      assist vanguard districts with including professional development in their long-range arts education plans

3)      help all county districts to align curriculum and teacher training, for example training teachers to teach the Open Court reading curriculum through the arts, and

4)      develop a model framework for preparing teachers, during their studies at the college level, to teach the arts

The subcommittee will be working with a consultant in spring 2004 to develop a plan of action to advance the four priorities for teacher training.

Goal 3:   Parents, students, arts supports, and community and industry leaders mobilize to advocate for sequential K-12 arts education

Arts Education Performance Indicators Report (AEPI)
Published by the Executive Committee of the County Task Force on Arts Education, AEPI highlights efforts to improve arts education in Los Angeles County and documents the status of dance, music, theater, and visual arts in each of the County’s 82 school districts on an annual basis. This report is the first ongoing examination of arts education in Los Angeles County and provides a framework to evaluate self-reported school district data on five critical success factors for arts education. It is a crucial component of the County’s ability to measure and track district improvement over time.

Goal 4:  Funding policies of public and private funders support and align with vision and mission of this plan

Pooled Fund
The Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) has committed to a lead gift of $500,000 to help launch a “pooled fund” that supports the implementation of Arts for All: Los Angeles County Regional Blueprint for Arts Education. The EIF’s gift will be conveyed in two installments of $250,000 each in 2004 and 2005. Conceived by Janice Pober, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Sony Pictures Entertainment, contributions to date to the pooled fund have also come from Sony Pictures Entertainment ($30,000), Jewish Community Foundation ($25,000 over 2 years) and the J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation ($25,000). The Jewish Community Foundation was the first organization to commit to the pooled fund. Other members of the pooled fund include: the Dana Foundation, Los Angeles County and the Target Corporation for their support of targeted Blueprint initiatives. Additional funders will be announced as their contributions are confirmed. A Roundtable of funders, chaired by Janice Pober, are meeting quarterly starting in March 2004 to discuss priorities and make joint funding allocations. The first meeting was held in March 2004.