| Afterschool Arts Provide Digital Lifeline in Covid Times | 23653 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>Recent studies have shown that
<a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/why-young-people-need-access-to-high-quality-arts-education.aspx">creating art can help young people</a> make sense of the world around them, process their feelings and deepen empathy. After the pandemic hit and programs scrambled to go online, making art also became a source of<a href="https://www.aep-arts.org/power-of-the-arts-a-covid-19-silver-lining/" target="_blank"> healing</a>, connection and, ultimately, resilience, as well as increasing broader access to arts programs for more youth across the country. </p><p>The Wallace blog caught up with researchers involved with two arts learning programs to get a sense of the specific lessons they learned in the pivot to virtual learning and what we all might carry forward.
<a href="https://www.researchforaction.org/about-rfa/meet-the-team/tracey-a-hartmann/" target="_blank">Tracey Hartmann</a>, Ph.D., is the director of qualitative research at Research for Action in Philadelphia and has been working with Wallace for a decade on our Youth Arts Initiative with the Boys & Girls Club of America (BGCA). All five BGCA clubs from different parts of the country stayed open during the pandemic, offering some form of virtual,  in-person and hybrid programming. <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/ckbuCv2DQvHR4DGhzLOmI?domain=linkedin.com/" target="_blank">Monica Clark</a>, Ph.D, is the Teach YR project director at YR Media–a national media, technology and music training center and platform for emerging BIPOC content creators headquartered in Oakland, California. She leads the organization’s research team and conducted this research project collaboratively with colleagues Lissa Soep, Ph.D., and Nimah Gobir, ME.d. The pandemic gave birth to YR’s <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/nEiACrkX2oTW65pFzkfBw?domain=yr.media/" target="_blank">Type Beat Challenge</a>, managed by Oliver "Kuya" Rodriguez and Maya Drexler, which allowed young people to create and submit music from anywhere, collaborating with one another and with professional music producers around different themes.</p><p></p><p>Hartmann and Clark were meeting each other personally (on Zoom!) for the first time and had a lot to say about young people and the arts. The conversation has been edited for space and clarity. </p><p>
<strong>Wallace Foundation: In your work with the BGCA clubs, Tracey, you found that in moving to virtual there needed to be a higher level of what you called “intentionality” in programming. Can you give an example of what you mean? And then, Monica, does this resonate with your findings too? </strong></p><p>
<strong>Tracey Hartmann: </strong>Our data comes from focus groups we did with 31 youth participants across the five clubs, and what we heard from youth was that what engaged them in the virtual programming was very similar to what engaged them in person. But from the teaching artists’ perspectives, they found that they had to be more intentional about the things they did, and there were three elements that came up. The first was for young people to have input into programming. The program was designed for middle school youth–and sometimes older–an age group that is really hard in any setting. So the artists had to make an effort to learn what the young people were interested in, sometimes on an individual level, and be more intentional about following these interests, even outside of the Zoom class. </p><p>
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</p><p>Artists also had to be more intentional about connecting with youth, checking in at the beginning of class. For example, one artist said he had to make an extra effort to know who was shy and didn’t want to be on camera or what was going on for them that day. We also heard from youth that they wanted more verbal guidance, especially if they were learning new skills, to help them feel like they were getting the kind of hands-on support they might get in person. </p><p>Finally, the artists had to be intentional in thinking through how to do the hands-on art, making sure young people had the supplies or equipment they needed. Sometimes they delivered art supplies or sent home packets to young people. They also found that youth really appreciated watching them do the art. </p><p>
<strong>Monica Clark: </strong>So much of what Tracey just shared mirrors findings from our focus groups with about 40 people. We also held a convening where we brought together leaders from five different arts organizations to talk about the pivot to virtual. One of our instructors from that convening said something to the effect of “I’m shouting out into the void,” talking about the black screens, and the vulnerability involved in trying to engage  students virtually and get them to turn their cameras on. How do you build community around that? </p><p>
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</p><p>One of the things that made our Type Beat project so successful for virtual was that it was co-designed with and by youth. We took advantage of remote platforms by opening up the program to young people outside of the Bay Area or to those who might not have been able to access the program in person. Doing this also highlighted the glaring inequalities that young people could face going online: access to computer hardware and software, because with music production it’s not just your laptop but the software that’s going to help you bring the beats together; unreliable broadband and wifi access; equal resources and training for teachers; and a lack of basic social and economic support for our most marginalized students in their communities. </p><p>We knew we needed to meet people virtually where they were already hanging out online, and we did this by using eight different platforms. We also collaboratively created community norms for how we were going to operate as a community in the virtual space. These were specifically outlined and always pinned up in the chat. We were always thinking about how to create a positive community space focused on mental well-being. One of the Type Beat challenges was something like “chill beats for wellness,” so the young people could build that into the art they were making.  </p><p>
<strong>WF: How did the teaching artists specifically need to change their practice in the virtual world? And what kind of support or tools did they need to be able to teach their art in this way? </strong></p><p>
<strong>MC: </strong>In some ways they were doing the things that were already done but learning how to do them in the virtual space. Of course, we always want to support our young people when they're showcasing their art. We want them to feel confident in what they're producing. But how do you do that when they're in their bedroom and you're in your apartment or wherever you are? For the Type Beat challenge, we asked our instructors to support young people in developing the design aesthetic of the background space of their room, knowing that we were asking them to be very vulnerable in showing their space. </p><p>
<img src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/afterschool-arts-provide-digital-lifeline-in-covid-times/blog-photo-ryl-studios-1.jpg" alt="blog-photo-ryl-studios-1.jpg" style="margin:5px;" />
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</p><p>Then there are the kinds of interpersonal and community building activities that are needed in any space, but you need to be even more innovative in the ways that you do it in the virtual space. For instance, you could support students on screen by doing a hype up dance that each person would perform in their own space, so the whole group would be together dancing and getting each other excited. It helps break the discomfort and model that it’s safe to be vulnerable in this space.  </p><div>
<strong>TH: </strong>Monica was referencing physical and emotional well being before, which is one of the
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/something-to-say-success-principles-for-afterschool-arts-programs.aspx">10 principles</a> [for developing high-quality afterschool arts], and which was definitely coming up around people feeling shy about having their camera on. The artists worked to help young people create virtual backgrounds. They were aware that family members were also in the room, and some artists used that as an opportunity to invite them into the conversation or the activity. In fact some of the young people in focus groups suggested that it would have been okay for the artists to ask them to turn on the camera more often to show their work.</div><p>
<br>The instructors also needed basic tools. In addition to having the wifi capacity, maybe good cameras, microphones, lighting. There was a certain software that dance artists needed that helped them sync music with their video. Some of the TAs were digital artists, so they already had a lot of tech skills, and they ended up being kind of advisors to other staff in the club. But others did not have those skills, and it was a steeper learning curve for them. They needed more training and professional development to develop the skills to be able to offer programming virtually.
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<strong>WF: What did you learn about how young people used art during the pandemic to support their mental health, process their feelings, support civic engagement or anything else? </strong></p><p>
<strong>MC: </strong>We found that young people turned to art as an escape from what is happening in the world and also in trying to make sense of and reshape what they're experiencing under these extreme and uncertain conditions. They are using art as a social intervention to formulate and share their points of view, connect with others and mobilize for equity and justice. One of our young people said, “I think my view on art has definitely changed, and now I see it, less of something, just like doodling or whatever, and more as a tool that I can use in my life moving forward.” Another one of our national correspondents from Minneapolis was talking about a
<a href="https://yr.media/news/a-minnesotan-weighs-in-is-there-hope-after-the-hashtags/" target="_blank">journalism piece she published </a>with YR  during the George Floyd protests, after his killing, and how it was one of the most difficult things that she ever wrote, but it was also the most powerful and it made her feel so good afterwards–particularly due to the fact that she was able to work with a Black editor that she looked up to in making final edits to her piece.<br></p><p>The  prevailing assumption was that the pandemic lockdown meant that young people could not go anywhere, that everyone was stuck in their house and trapped. But from a number of our focus group participants we found that the same conditions also enabled young people to explore more widely than before, forming new communities through digital access to faraway places and professional artists.<br></p><p>
<strong>TH: </strong>We saw that youth created artwork about Covid, about racial injustice, about grief and loss. It was a coping mechanism and a way to calm their nerves. Some young people needed opportunities to process some of the things that were going on in the world. But the program also served youth as young as nine, and maybe even younger, and for them it just took their mind off of what was going on, helped them feel “normal” or represent their private experiences. An instructor at one club described a song that his class created called quarantine crazy where youth were rapping and singing about their experiences during Covid. </p><p>The teaching artists were always responsive to where young people were at any given day and created the space, if needed, for them to talk about what was on their minds. Again this was particularly so for the older youth, who often wanted that space to talk about things. One artist said, “I feel as if I'm a counselor and an art teacher when they're sharing with me, and if I affirm how they feel, hopefully that makes some type of positive impact.”</p><p>
<strong>WF: What unique role do you see art making continuing to offer young people, and how can we best support both the practitioners and the organizations that are dealing with them as they do this?</strong></p><p>
<strong>MC: </strong>We are focusing now on the idea that STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics] implementation can be built on solid foundations and serve genuine opportunities for deep learning at the intersection of creative and technical disciplines. Our young people are creating art but they're also learning the technical side of packaging, developing and creating music, which is a tech skill.</p><p>It’s also important to remember that we are freed from many of the constraints of schools, including short class periods, mandated use of grades, academic tracking limits on admissible subject matter.  Out-of-school-time afterschool arts educators, who are often working artists themselves, can help support young people in the creation of creatively and socially challenging products that are guided by the young people and the issues that they want to be addressing.</p><p>
<strong>TH: </strong>The artists described how they themselves needed support in these roles. They needed to know who to go to for referrals if issues came up that were beyond their ability to respond to. They needed more training in areas related to social and emotional well-being. For example, they received training in how to manage their own emotions to support young people. They received some training around supporting youth experiencing trauma, but they would have liked even more of that training. They received training around setting appropriate boundaries, because in the virtual space, the boundaries are a little different. How to de-escalate intense situations–this was for artists that were back in person–and then again just responding to grief and loss, because that was coming up a lot. </p><p>
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<strong>WF: Any final words of advice for other organizations who are thinking about expanding their virtual arts learning or other models that include some people being online while others are in person? </strong></p><p>
<strong>TH: </strong>One of our takeaways was that the synchronous model, which is live programming on Zoom or a similar platform, works best for youth who are really passionate about the art form. We heard from the artists as well that you have to be really motivated to do virtual synchronous programming. The hybrid model that the clubs used with the artist Zooming into the in-person classroom seemed to work well, especially if the artist was able to be in the club occasionally. It works better for exposure programming, meaning programming that allows youth to try out an unfamiliar art form to see if they like it. The hybrid model also has promise for bringing in artists from all over the country, which can expand youth access to all kinds of resources.</p><p>
<strong>MC: </strong>The design of hybrid programs must be carefully considered in order for programs to, as one of our participants said, “bring the activity, energy and vibe that instructors bring to class to the virtual format.” As Tracey says, you have to carefully consider the work that's being done and determine which activities could be suited for the virtual space. Also remember that you can’t just be in one social space or one app. You have to meet students where they are and that’s always going to be shifting.
<strong></strong></p><p>Most importantly, anytime you're doing programming that supports young people, young artists, they need to be brought into the design. I am really hyped about how our Type Beat challenge did that. It meant a lot to our young people, particularly in the moment in time that we were in, for them to have that agency, to feel that power and feel like they would produce not only the music but they would produce this program that is now living on.<br></p><p>
<em>All photos courtesy of the Boys & Girls Club of America and YR Media.</em></p><p><em>Lead photo courtesy of YR Media, featuring </em><em>Oliver "Kuya"  Rodriguez, music and audio production program manager, who ran the <a href="https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/nEiACrkX2oTW65pFzkfBw?domain=yr.media/" target="_blank">Type Beat Challenge</a>.</em></p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2022-06-21T04:00:00Z | Two arts education researchers share what they learned when programs went online–and the strategies that might endure | | 7/12/2022 7:15:11 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Afterschool Arts Provide Digital Lifeline in Covid Times Two arts education researchers share what they learned when | 1691 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Decade-long Effort to Expand Arts Education in Boston Pays Off | 23748 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>A few years ago, a middle school student came to the United States without knowing any English. Joining a chorus through her school in the Boston Public Schools (BPS) district helped change that. By translating the songs on her phone, she was able to get a swift grasp of the language, something that otherwise might have taken years.  
<br></p><p>Anthony Beatrice, BPS’s director for the arts, shared this and other stories with us in a recent Zoom conversation spurred by a new study that documents the unexpected benefits and power of the arts in schools. Published by Edvestors, a school improvement nonprofit in Boston,
<a href="https://www.edvestors.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/The-Arts-Advantage-Impacts-of-Arts-Education-on-Boston-Students_Brief-FINAL.pdf">
<em>The Arts Advantage: Impacts of Arts Education on Boston Students</em></a> found consistent positive effects on student attendance as a result of students taking arts courses, and these effects are notably stronger for students who have a history of chronic absenteeism and students on Individualized Education Plans. In addition, parent and student school engagement were higher when more students in a school were enrolled in arts courses. Teachers were more likely to report that students put more effort into their work and parents were more active at the school. The study was based on more than 600,000 K-12 student-level observations across every Boston Public School over 11 school years from 2008-09 through 2018-19.</p><p>The benefits for students documented by the research come on top of the intrinsic benefits of the arts as a discipline, a point alluded to by Marinell Rousmaniere, president and CEO of EdVestors.  </p><p>“We're an education organization,” she said. “We're not an arts organization, and our underlying belief about the arts is that all students deserve access to arts education as part of a well-rounded education.”<br></p><p>The study used data collected through EdVestors’ BPS Arts Expansion program, launched in 2009. A public-private partnership led by EdVestors and the Visual and Performing Arts Department at BPS, which Wallace <a href="/news-and-media/press-releases/pages/boston-receives-4-million-grant-to-expand-arts-education-in-boston-public-schools.aspx">helped fund in 2012</a> through a four-year grant,  the multiyear initiative brought together local foundations, the school district, arts organizations, higher education institutions and the mayor’s office to focus on creating a coherent, sustainable approach to high-quality arts education for all of the district’s students.<br><br>“Boston is a large urban district, and a very diverse district,” said Carol Johnson, who served as superintendent at BPS from 2007 to 2013. “Almost half of students in Boston come from households where English is not the first language. That diversity, coupled with a number of equity issues and equity access issues, were important factors in how we began to approach this work.”</p><p>In the early days of the initiative, according to Johnson, the district had to deal with challenges such as financial constraints, budget cuts and competing interests from some principals. However, she and the school committee were dedicated to not allowing these barriers push them away from their main goal—equitable access to the arts for all students.</p><p>“Even though there were doubters about the strategy from some principals, once they began to expand opportunities for students, they began to see that this had possibility,” she noted.</p><p>Early planning of the initiative was extremely important, according to Johnson: “We had to be very strategic, thoughtful and purposeful and set up our methods of collecting data to see where we are, then map out a long-term strategy.”</p><p>The longstanding partnerships between the district, EdVestors, local and national funders, arts organizations and other community members were key to the district’s success in boosting arts education.</p><p>“We are truly fortunate to have such a cohesive arts community in Boston,” said Beatrice, the BPS arts director “Simply put, we have more impact when we work together. The vision of the BPS Arts Expansion from 11 years ago has worked. A majority of our schools that were able to be granted funds for arts partners have now also added certified arts educators, nearly doubling the amount of certified arts teachers from around 164 in 2009 to over 300 today.”</p><p>Indeed, the study supports the value of increased access to arts learning, specifically stating, “when students have more opportunities to participate in arts learning experiences, their engagement in school overall increases, as measured by reductions in absenteeism; increases in student and parent school engagement; and modest effects on student achievement, particularly English Language Arts for middle school students.”<br></p><p class="wf-Element-Callout"> “Simply put, when we talk about the social-emotional well-being of our students, the arts are a huge part of that."</p>Arts can be powerful for young people in other ways, too, Beatrice said.  “The arts provide an opportunity for students to not only showcase their artistic skills but also give an opportunity to reflect about their process and their learning,” he said. “Simply put, when we talk about the social-emotional well-being of our students, the arts are a huge part of that."<p><br>Brian Kisida, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri’s Truman School of Public Affairs who co-led the study, said its findings about arts learning and the link to student engagement might help schools as they begin to respond to the disruptions to in-person learning caused by COVID-19.</p><p>“Arts education should absolutely be a focus of getting students re-engaged in school as we return to some sense of normalcy after the pandemic,” he said. “I think there are some fears that schools may try to prioritize tested subjects at the expense of the arts, and I think that that would be a mistake. We know that students didn't just suffer from learning loss, but the last year has done serious harm to students’ social and emotional health—they lost the connections with their friends, they've lost the connections with their teachers.”<br><br>Rousmaniere also agreed that the findings are important as schools try to return to normalcy after the pandemic.</p><p>“People are focused on learning loss, but I think we need to be focused on learning readiness,” she said. “Arts is like a swiss army knife—it feeds many different needs that schools have and will reach certain populations of students that maybe other things would not.” <br></p><p>Kisida pointed out that often the arts teacher is the only teacher, especially in an elementary school, who knows every student in the building and knows them for multiple years. “That's a real connection point for re-engaging in school that needs to be given serious consideration,” he said.<br></p><p>In preparation for the 2021-2022 school year, BPS has formed a working group of arts educators to create arts lessons connected with the core competencies of social and emotional learning to accompany the curriculum materials provided by the district’s social and emotional learning office. Beatrice sees this as a continuation of Boston’s unique system-wide approach to arts education. </p><p>“Over time I have learned that there are so many people who have our students’ interest at the heart of what they do,” he said. “Having a systems approach to ensuring students have access to quality arts education ensures that everyone is working in tangent with each other. Each program and organization have a sense of autonomy while understanding their role in the bigger piece of the arts education pie.”<br></p> | Jenna Doleh | 91 | | 2021-08-10T04:00:00Z | Study finds arts education increases student attendance and student and parent engagement | | 8/13/2021 12:32:01 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Decade-long Effort to Expand Arts Education in Boston Pays Off Study finds arts education increases student attendance and | 2051 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Why Young People Need Access to High-Quality Arts Education | 42612 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 |
<p>Though he'd been drawing since he was young, Kaden Robinson, 17, says it was his program at the Boys & Girls Club in Knoxville that taught him how to express himself through art. Help from mentors, and access to easels and canvases, helped him escape the "dark place mentally" he says he'd been in. "I cannot imagine being the person I am without art," he says.  </p><p>Kaden’s experience is not unique. Studies confirm that especially with sustained engagement, arts experiences, and especially making art, can help young people gain new perspectives, deepen empathy, picture what is possible, collaborate, and even fuel civic engagement.</p><p>Arts learning can also promote school success. In Houston, a randomized study of 10,548  students in grades 3-8 found increasing arts education improved writing achievement, school engagement, college aspirations and arts-facilitated empathy.<br></p><p>Yet spending on arts education has declined, and too many miss out: A 2017 National Endowment for the Arts survey found among 18-24 year-olds, 67 percent of white students reported having had an art class in or out of school, 52 percent of African-Americans, 47 percent of Asian-Americans and 33 percent of Hispanics.<br></p><p>All children deserve access to high-quality arts education in and after school;<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/something-to-say-success-principles-for-afterschool-arts-programs.aspx"> research</a> shows that includes knowledgeable instructors, positive relationships with adults and peers, high standards, a welcoming environment, and a culminating event to build confidence and community. Within cities, schools and arts organization<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/revitalizing-arts-education.aspx"> collaborations</a> can help overcome barriers like transportation and access to instructors.</p><p>As Kaden reminds us, arts experiences affirm children’s imaginations, and expand their sense of self--and possibility--in the world. With parents deeply concerned about both learning loss and social and emotional well-being, and in the context of our emergence from COVID-19 and in a national conversation on race, ensuring access to arts experiences will help us build a more equitable future.</p><p>
A shorter version of this post first appeared in Time Magazine’s
<a href="https://time.com/collection/visions-of-equity/6046015/equity-agenda/" target="_blank">
Visions of Equity </a>
project.<br></p><p><em>Top photo: Kaden Robinson, 17, in creative writing class; with Shannon Hance, 14, to his left and Kayla Brawner, 15, right. Courtesy of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley.</em><br></p><p></p> | Bahia Ramos | 84 | | 2021-06-15T04:00:00Z | Studies confirm that arts experiences can boost academic and social skills--but too many children and teens are still missing out | | 9/21/2022 1:52:34 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Why Young People Need Access to High-Quality Arts Education Studies confirm that arts experiences can boost academic and | 4518 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Pandemic Brings challenges (and Opportunities) for Arts Education | 42514 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>“My theme today is adaptation,” said Bahia Ramos, Wallace’s director of the arts, on a recent webinar hosted by Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA). “By that I mean a special kind of change. A change that makes a practice better suited to its environment.”</p><p>This environment, of course, is the one we are now six months into, where the COVID-19 pandemic, economic insecurity and uprisings for racial justice have transformed life in this country. For the students and teachers in arts learning programs, this has meant a total pivot, everything from transitioning to online learning and virtual convenings to teaching artists being laid off at extremely high rates. These changes and much more came up in the GIA webinar, where Ramos spoke along with Kimberly Olsen, executive director of NYC Arts in Education Roundtable and Alex Nock, principal of Penn Hill Group.<br>
</p><p><strong>Adaptation at BGCA</strong></p><p>Back in 2014, Wallace and three Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) in the Midwest embarked upon the Youth Arts Initiative to discover if <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/something-to-say-success-principles-for-afterschool-arts-programs.aspx">10 principles drawn from the nation’s best, specialty afterschool arts programs</a> could be applied within a general youth-serving organization better known for its sports programs. No one knew if it would work, but over the five years of the initiative, the clubs did <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/designing-for-engagement-the-experiences-of-tweens-in-the-boys-and-girls-clubs’-youth-arts-initiative.aspx">manage to successfully implement high-quality art skill-development programs</a> as defined by the Ten Principles for Success. Additionally, the retention rates for young people in the initiative was <em>twice </em>that of young people who were not in the program.</p><p>YAI is now in its second wave in five cities, testing whether the Ten Principles can be adapted to a lower-cost model. Clubs designed several new strategies, such as hiring assistants for teaching artists and focusing on lower-cost art forms, and initial results were promising. </p><p>Then COVID-19 changed everything. </p><p>“COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on arts and culture and the education system at large,” Kimberly Olsen said in her presentation. According to Olsen, drastic budget cuts due to the pandemic have fallen disproportionately on arts education, impacting cultural organizations, their ability to serve students and also trickling down to their teaching artists. </p><p><strong>The Impact on Teaching Artists</strong></p><p>“Before the pandemic we knew that teaching artists were at risk,” Olsen said. According to a <a href="https://dataarts.smu.edu/artsresearch2014/articles/blog-white-papers/covid-19-impact-nonprofit-arts-and-culture-new-york-city" target="_blank">recent DataArts survey</a>, teaching artists have been laid off at high rates, with a 78% decrease in artist staffing at NYC-based organizations as of May 8; of the 5,000 teaching artists who responded to the survey, 96% have experienced a loss of income.</p><p>Amazingly, Ramos said, four of the five BGCA clubs have managed to keep all of their teaching artist staff. “We continued our funding of teaching artists and programs in our clubs regardless of whether they were opened or closed,” she explained. This enabled BGCA to launch a new program called “Creates” with a special website and tips on maximizing limited budgets, arts projects and program assessment.</p><p>Sadly, not all organizations have been as lucky. According to the same survey by SMU DataArts referenced above, over 25% of organizations stated that they have laid off or furloughed their staff and artist workforce, and 11% of organizations indicated that they do not think they will survive the COVID-19 crisis.</p><p>“Our city announced a draft budget that saw tremendous cuts to arts education funding that would not only jeopardize the city’s recovery process, but limit both school and cultural organizations’ capacity to serve and engage young people while disproportionately impacting these nonprofit cultural organizations as well as students from low income communities,” Olsen explained.</p><p>As a result, the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable launched an efficacy campaign called <a href="https://nycaieroundtable.org/" target="_blank">Arts Are Essential</a>, with the goal of preserving arts education funding and investing in the community. “With all of this in mind, it means that organizations must be flexible,” Olsen said. “Flexibility means survival.”</p><p>Early lessons are emerging from BGCA’s new program as well. “Some downsides are clear – going online caused attention spans to be shorter, hours had to be reduced, fewer youth are joining, and as with regular school, lack of technology is a problem for some,” Ramos explained. “But there are some unexpected upsides like new opportunities to engage with parents; older youth have come in providing leadership roles, and youth are reporting that they feel more emotionally safe doing work at home.”</p><p><strong>Heading Toward Recovery</strong></p><p>According to Olsen, the arts and culture sector and teaching artists are going to play a huge part in the recovery of schools and communities. So how can philanthropy support artists who have been hit the hardest? </p><p>Given the very real threats to teaching artists and to arts learning programs overall, the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable encourages philanthropy to take the following action steps:<br></p><ul><li>Include teaching artists in conversations and decision-making processes as the arts sector is redefined </li><li>Invest resources in emergency funding to grant immediate direct-to-individual support for teaching artists to offset the disproportional financial impact </li><li>Ensure that funding language and programs include teaching artists</li><li>Examine longstanding siloed funding priorities</li><li>Ensure arts organizations that are being funded compensate teaching artists with fair wages<br></li></ul><p>Penn Hill Group’s Alex Nock added another way for organizations to take advantage of potential funding: The <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/unpacking-the-federal-response-to-covid-19-in-education.aspx">Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act</a>. Its provisions include more than $30 billion for K-12 and higher education programs; more than $4 billion for early childhood education; and other supports such as forgivable loans to nonprofits, including many providers of afterschool or summer programs. It also expanded states’ ability to provide Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, including for gig economy workers and individuals like artists, who would not ordinarily be eligible. </p><p>Nock spoke about other important pieces of COVID relief that affect artists and the art world in general. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act provided flexibility and additional funding for state unemployment insurance agencies to respond to COVID-19. The Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act provided $319 billion to replenish the program created under the CARES Act, in which loans to small businesses and nonprofits may be forgiven if businesses maintain their payroll.  </p><p>Looking ahead to next year, Nock said that the House had passed the majority of its 2021 appropriations bills in two packages, which included moderate increases, but said we can expect the appropriations to be wrapped up after the November election. He is hopeful that the next package of COVID federal funding will include more money for education.</p><p>Whatever happens with the funding going forward, Olsen emphasized that collaboration, flexibility and adaptation will help the sector survive and thrive. “While it’s been a hard time for the arts in education community, the field is resilient,” she said. “They’re creative, and they are driven to support their students in whatever way they can. We’re seeing opportunities and potential growing each day.”</p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2020-09-22T04:00:00Z | Recent webinar discusses how teaching artists and cultural institutions are responding to COVID-19 and beyond | | 5/31/2022 10:18:49 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Pandemic Brings challenges (and Opportunities) for Arts Education Recent webinar discusses how teaching artists and | 4282 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Keeping Young People Creative (and Connected) in Quarantine | 42481 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61;GP0|#b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211;L0|#0b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211|Afterschool;GP0|#890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667;L0|#0890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667|Social and Emotional Learning | <p>Kylie Peppler, a researcher who focuses on the intersection of art, education and technology, authored the report,
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/new-opportunities-for-interest-driven-arts-learning-in-a-digital-age.aspx">New Opportunities for Interest-Driven Arts Learning in a Digital Age</a></em>, in 2013. Social media was relatively young then, and Peppler set out to determine ways in which it, along with other digital technologies, could help make up for cuts in arts education and help young people develop the creativity they need to become well-rounded adults.</p><p>Those cuts in arts education pale in comparison to the disruptions we face now, as the world struggles to contain the novel coronavirus. Schools and out-of-school programs are shuttered, young people are confined to their homes and, for many, digital technologies are now the only connection to art or the outside world.</p><p>
<img class="wf-Image-Left" alt="KylieHeadshot.jpg" src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Literacy-Expert-on-Why-Kids-Must-Keep-Reading-During-This-Unprecedented-Moment/KylieHeadshot.jpg" style="margin:5px;width:219px;height:219px;" />Wallace caught up with Peppler, now an associate professor at University of California, Irvine, to see how digital technologies could be used to keep young people engaged in an unprecedented era of social distancing and isolation. Below is an abridged and edited version of our conversation.</p><p>
<strong>The Wallace Foundation: You had written in the report about three benefits of the arts: learning about oneself, learning about one's group and learning about other cultures. Can you talk a little bit about how you think any of those might apply in our situation now?</strong></p><p>
<strong>Kylie Peppler:</strong> Thinking about the self, there's a large body of research that points to the importance of expression and the therapeutic value of the arts. I think of
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/20/europe/italian-radio-national-anthem-intl-scli/index.html" target="_blank">the wonderful example from Italy</a> of people turning to music. People in my own neighborhood, every day at five o'clock, have a small concert and people social-distance in the street to come and listen.</p><p>Even as adults, we’re challenged to put words to this situation. For children, art can be so important in the expression of loss and sadness, of being cut off from friend groups and just how long this time must feel to them. It can be really valuable for them to visually represent those emotions, to put them to music, to dance, to drama.<br></p><p>My daughter is five. Her grandfather passed away, and she drew this lovely drawing that had two very similar parts. She later told me, “That was before, and this is after. Things are almost the same, but a little bit different now.” It struck me how aware she was, and it allowed us to have a conversation that we wouldn't have otherwise had.</p><p>As we think about the group, art gives us a way to understand ourselves, understand the people that are bunkering down with us and allows us to express that in ways that might evade words. Zoom was primarily a tool for business. But it has quickly turned to a tool we’re using to play music together, trying to do things that help us connect to one another. </p><p>We’re connecting through our creative writing and sharing of our stories. I've noticed my kids wanting to do more video production highlighting what this time is like and how similar and how varied all our experiences are. Sharing those messages and what that means brings us together.</p><p>In my own household, my kids and their cousins and friends are all meeting in Minecraft to build together and creating very meaningful pieces. Some high schools are
<a href="https://www.today.com/parents/kid-creates-graduation-minecraft-after-school-closure-t176475" target="_blank">having graduation in Minecraft</a>. </p><p>
<strong>WF: You spoke about four types of areas—the technical, the critical, the creative, the ethical. Can you think of any one of those areas that you would put more emphasis in as an educator? Are there opportunities to work on any of those four areas?</strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>I think there's opportunity to work across all four of them. I would put the creative at the center. We all need a creative mindset to get through this, to think about possibilities that aren't there and solve problems in new ways. Everything from cooking without all the right ingredients to using current technologies, but in in vastly different ways. </p><p>What are our boundaries and how can we defy them? How can we use what we have in hand to do something new? The arts have a way of teaching that. As we’re exposing kids to these creative expressions, we're looking at the tools that we might have buried in our garages or under the kitchen sink and thinking, well, what can I do with these today? </p><p>And that takes us into the technical. We start learning about STEM aspects of whatever our kids are creating. Whatever they want to create, they're not going to be able to get around the technical aspects; that they have to learn how to code, for example. </p><p>And our current moment puts, whether we like it or not, another emphasis on the critical and the ethical portions of arts. With this pushback on Zoom (https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/newsletters/politico-new-york-education/2020/04/06/carranza-says-city-will-transition-out-of-zoom-333886), for example, we have more context to think through. We have to think about the pressure we're putting on companies to regulate themselves. We're putting pressure on schools and teachers to learn digital technologies, to update them and to use them thoughtfully. </p><p>When you’re in a creative line of thought, you have to think critically about how you're engaging children. So the critical and the ethical are definitely going to be important in this period.</p><p>
<strong>WF: A large part of your report is about interest-driven arts, where young people select their creative pursuits for themselves. Now that young people are at home, perhaps with more freedom and less structure to select their pursuits, is there anything adults should be doing to direct them?</strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>A lot of times we have a notion of what kids
<em>should</em> be doing or what we
<em>should</em> be doing. It distracts us from seeing the value of what they're
<em>actually</em> doing.<br> Why does my kid keep coming back to Minecraft, for example? What might they be learning? What social skills are they practicing? How can I talk to them about that? </p><p>I think the first part is to be curious to take a genuine interest.</p><p>My son, for example, just made a replica of the Statue of Liberty in Minecraft. But on the inside, he had created a garden. What was he thinking about there? It became a venue for us to talk about how little of his physical environment he can change, and how he’s turning to Minecraft to redesign things and explore ideas. </p><p>If we stay curious, if we stay interested, we can start to connect these things to children’s development and understanding. As adults we know what other people are going to value. We should be thinking about how we can help young people make small steps towards those things, through the things they’re already interested in, rather than saying, “Stop what you're doing, do this thing because society values it.”</p><p>
<strong>WP: In your report, you mentioned social learning networks and that they're not very well studied. Has that changed? If it has, are there any lessons about social learning that parents or educators might use in this period of social distancing?</strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>That's one area in which we have done a lot of design and development and research. We're still in early stages, but one thing that we know is that the wide-open internet is just too big for kids. If you start searching for something, you see all the solutions. Whether you're going on
<a href="https://www.instructables.com/" target="_blank">instructables.com</a> or
<a href="https://scratch.com/" target="_blank">scratch.com</a>, you're almost intimidated. There's just too much. </p><p>Right-sized developmental groups are coming up.
<a href="https://diy.org/" target="_blank">DIY.org</a>, for example, has started creating camp-like structures. They're small groups where people with similar interests can come together. Seven or eight parents could band together with their kids, who all share the same interest and have weekly interactions. You could trade off among parents and have small homework groups. Why should it just be one parent working with one child? Why not band together and do group work?
<a href="https://connectedcamps.com/" target="_blank">Connected Camps</a> is another one, led by my colleague, Mimi Ito. </p><p>Another thing we know that promotes interest-driven learning is that there's usually an audience for it. Pulling in an audience—as big or as small as right-sized for your kid—is important. Create a thirst and an accountability so they want to share what they learn. </p><p>Third, we’re looking at pathways. How do we move from one interest to the next piece? Maybe a kid has an ambition to be one of Beyonce’s backup dancers. How do I move from an interest to that next level? We've started thinking about ways to connect those interest-driven activities to future opportunity. </p><p>If you've got money and time, you can give your kids options. You have a large network of people, you've got other adults or other parents giving you other ideas as well. That's not true of all parents and all contexts. How can institutions like afterschool centers connect kids to those futures and to future economic opportunity?</p><p>We’ve found that new technologies can help do that. Social learning networks have blossomed.
Nichole Pinkard, for example, is starting to think about how learning opportunities can be connected to enrollments in other programs, and how all our policies and programs start to be well aligned to support future learning. <br></p><p>
<strong>WF: You mentioned diy.org and Connected Camps. In your report, you mentioned Etsy and Revelry as sites that might be constructive and artistic, but without the vitriol that we often see online. What is it about those sites that helps keep things constructive? What could parents and educators look for to ensure that time online is as constructive as possible and avoids the worst of the internet?</strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>A lot of social spaces can be constructive spaces if there's some accountability. To leave a comment, you need to log in, for example. There are also ways of monitoring.
<a href="https://scratch.mit.edu/" target="_blank">Scratch.mit.edu</a>, for example, has full time monitors looking at things flagged by the community and pulling things off. A lot of times people will flag something as useful or flag something down. You want to look for that kind of group moderation or paid moderation. </p><p>
<a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/" target="_blank">Common Sense Media</a> is a great place to start if you're looking for new apps or new web communities. But if you want a gut check, go right to the comments, go right to the forums and just see what kind of language people are using.</p><p>
<strong>WF: Since young people are spending a lot of time online right now, perhaps with little supervision, are there ways for adults to differentiate between time spent constructively and time spent just to kill time? </strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>There are two things I think that you need to do. One is to look for the creative over the consumptive. Consuming it is quite easy and sometimes important. You can’t make a game if you've never played a game, for example. You can’t make a movie if you've never seen a movie. </p><p>But often, we're consuming way more than what we're producing. So look for the creative technologies, the ones in which kids are producing something, anything.</p><p>The second piece is to make it social. If you look at early studies about Sesame Street, for example, it wasn’t just kids watching Sesame Street. They were watching with parents or siblings or other adults. Adults have to take experiences kids learn and apply them to other situations. That's what we do well as adults. Kids don't see the connections between contexts. </p><p>Right now, while we’re shut in our homes, that’s a very large ask. Thinking about doing more together is stressful. But even if you're just trying to do it for 20 minutes a day, or one hour a day. The media consumption done together as opposed to apart can make small inroads.</p><p>
<strong>WF: A lot of what we’ve talked about assumes there are parents at home while schools are closed. But the pandemic is affecting different socioeconomic groups in different ways. Many young people may be home from school, but the adults of the household may be out delivering mail, collecting trash, driving buses or operating trains. What can society do to keep such young people engaged? </strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>Structured and scheduled peer interactions can help. A physical example is the
<a href="https://theclubhousenetwork.org/" target="_blank">Computer Clubhouse Network</a>. It’s an adult-supervised, physical space where kids come together, but the kid-to-adult ratio can be up to 100 to one. Still, those learning environments can be of higher quality than what we can do in our homes. Because the kids are involved in long-term production together.</p><p>So, before the parents go out the door, they could say, “Oh, at one o'clock. you've got this call by phone,” or a call with a grandparent, or with peers. Making these connections part of the rhythm of the day can be very helpful. Just bringing a peer group together, trying to have people meet in a video game and asking how it went that day, can make a difference.</p><p>You can try small things that could generate an audience. Taking the sidewalk chalk outside, for example, and having kids draw things. Maybe leaving a piece of chalk there for other people to respond. Different ways to kind of create audience to create that social community. </p><p>But, unfortunately, this is going to be one of our most inequitable times. Wifi is going to be a problem. Having the digital technologies is going to be a problem. I'm looking at school districts that have whole libraries of Notebooks and Chromebooks. They've got one per child, but they're not releasing them to homes. A lot of times we want to hold on to these technologies. We're not sure that we’ll get them back in the right condition or get them back at all.</p><p>But in reality, programs that do lend out their equipment are often amazed at how well-respected things are. These are things that people appreciate. They will take care of them. Give people a chance right now to meet that expectation.</p><p>Instead of canceling your programs, think about how you can move services. Let's take this as a time to go to the next level. How can I move my services to bring people into a Zoom chat? How can I lower their costs? How can I lobby to help them [kids] get wifi?</p><p>I hope, out of this, we’ll have lots of really cool stories about how people really stepped up in this time. It's still not going to be equitable, but we'll certainly know a lot more about how to achieve equity through all of this.</p><p>
<strong>WF: What recommendations would you have for philanthropies or foundations that are interested in arts education? What can we do at this time of very great but uncertain need?</strong></p><p>
<strong>KP: </strong>Equity is something that we all need to double down on. The middle class needs to take responsibility for ensuring that not just that our children and our homes have access, but the other kids that go to school with our children, that they have access. </p><p>Second, now that people are interested and we're looking at this, how can we start to document some of the innovation happening here? How are people continuing with music lessons? How are people continuing with dance lessons? What are the ways in which this enforced isolation is changing the amount of time spent on the arts? </p><p>There are always going to be pluses and minuses. How do we learn from what was great? And what did we lose in translation?</p><p>Third, art museums are letting up to 80 percent of their workforce go, and that's just the first hemorrhage. A lot of times, in these kinds of structural losses, people look for other jobs, and they start doing other things. We lose all that capacity. It's not a switch we can just turn on later.</p><p>Arts organizations I'm working with are not feeling like they're going to be able to open doors within the next year or so. How can foundations help translate those services and try to keep as many people in their jobs? Not just for their human needs but also because of that lost infrastructure? </p><p>These will be changed organizations when they do reopen their doors. How do we prevent the epic loss that could really happen here?</p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2020-04-14T04:00:00Z | Expert at the intersection of arts, education and technology shares ideas and resources to help keep kids constructive at home. | | 1/4/2023 3:55:00 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Keeping Young People Creative (and Connected) in Quarantine Expert at the intersection of arts, education and technology | 8931 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Research About the Arts and Kids: A Fertile Area for Inquiry | 42536 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 | <p>When Diane Ruggiero, director of the Alexandria, Va., Office of the Arts, installed artworks on the sidewalks of the small city just south of Washington, D.C., she turned to her research director with a question: How can we measure the art’s impact?</p><p>As she recounted at a recent symposium, finding the answer was important because the display was a new taxpayer-funded effort whose expense Ruggiero’s office would need to justify.  In the end, though, city decision-makers decided on a metric that was easily measurable—the number of artworks on display—but failed to provide the information needed to answer her question.   </p><p>In fact, there could have been ways to measure impact: Did people notice the art? Had passersby  stopped to look at it? Had they engaged in conversations about the display? Did residents’ pride in their city increase? But those indicators are more difficult to measure—and doing so requires more resources. </p><p>Ruggiero’s story illustrates some of the challenges facing arts research and was a familiar kind of tale to many attendees at the symposium, which examined research into arts education. Held at George Mason University last October, the conference was called Making Connections for Arts Education Research, Policy, and Practice. It was part of an effort by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to develop insights to support the goal “that every child will have access to arts education,” as Ayanna N. Hudson, the NEA’s director of arts education, put it. </p><p>At a time when equity is on the minds of many educators and policymakers, she noted, the children most deprived of a sound arts education are “primarily kids from underserved communities, primarily kids of color.” A major reason for this unlevel playing field is the sense that arts is an extra, said Steven John Holochwost, principal and director of research for youth & families at the consulting firm WolfBrown.” The notion that arts education is different from education is a strange thing—but the fact is that this is where we are,” he said. This is especially troubling, he said later, because “the expansion of arts education to all children could help buffer the effects of poverty.”</p><p>At the symposium, many agreed that new and promising avenues of research are opening up that could build understanding of the value of arts education. A number of the studies have found links between hands-on arts learning experiences and a range of social and emotional skills.</p><p><img alt="NEA-Arts-Ed-panel-lg-feature4.jpg" src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Research-About-the-Arts-and-Kids-A-Fertile-Area-for-Inquiry-/NEA-Arts-Ed-panel-lg-feature4.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /><br> </p><p>For example, Kim Sheridan, associate professor of educational psychology, described an ongoing research project that has, so far, identified arts education as being particularly effective in building “agency.” This is a key social and emotional learning concept that encompasses the ability to define a problem, see an opportunity and create a solution, she said.  Interestingly, though, agency is generally not studied in arts education. </p><p>Sheridan ran an experimental study centering on 36 fourth-grade children. Half were given a kit with step-by-step guidance; the other half worked in a museum “makerspace,” where children are encouraged to play and make something with circuits.</p><p>Both groups showed equal interest in the projects and an equal level of confidence in carrying out the projects, the study found. But when about half a dozen children were interviewed from each group, those in the makerspace were more likely to use two telling pieces of language: first-person pronouns to describe their working process and verbs focused on what they did. “These findings suggest while children find both approaches to making enjoyable, activities allowing exploration and individual design choices seem more useful and promote a greater sense of individual agency in making,” Sheridan concludes in her paper. </p><p>In a separate project, researchers studying the Early Bridges program for pre-schoolers at the
<a href="https://childrenstheatre.org/" target="_blank">Children’s Theatre Company</a> in Minneapolis have found positive results for the participants’ language
<em>and</em> social-emotional development. The program “uses storytelling and creative drama to help young children transform into storytellers of their own lives,” in the words of the company. Teachers rated the participants more collaborative in their play than a comparison group of children, according to Amanda Grenell, a doctoral student at the Center for Early Child Development at the University of Minnesota. “We know that it is definitely due to the program, not due to the fact that the kids are in a good pre-school,” she said.</p><p>Yet another study, a major piece of experimental research, found that relative to a control group, students in a music education program scored higher on standardized tests, earned better grades in English language arts and experienced improved “executive function,” the ability to plan, pay attention,  switch tasks and do things that promote goal-directed behavior. It’s important to note, said WolfBrown’s Holochwost, the study’s lead author, that the participating students had been in the program for two to three years, meaning they had had a chance to sharpen their skills, put on performances and feel pride in the hard work of building difficult skills. </p><p><img alt="NEA-Arts-Ed-panel-lg-feature3.jpg" src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Research-About-the-Arts-and-Kids-A-Fertile-Area-for-Inquiry-/NEA-Arts-Ed-panel-lg-feature3.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /><br> </p><p>The research is described in
<em>
<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317160011_Music_education_academic_achievement_and_executive_functions" target="_blank">Music Education, Academic Achievement, and Executive Functions</a></em>, published in 2017 in the journal
<em>Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts</em>. “Our results suggest not only that the elimination of music from public education in the pursuit of higher academic test scores may be counterproductive, but that denying students music education may deprive them of an opportunity to build the basic cognitive and behavioral skills necessary for success in nearly every domain of school and life,” the report concludes.</p><p>The new body of arts education research contrasts with an older “either-or” debate about whether the goal of arts education is to teach technical skills like painting or playing a musical instrument—or, to improve academics. The intense interest in social and emotional learning, a composite concept of ideas drawn from psychology, learning theory and development, provides an “opening” to broaden the discussion about the value of a high-quality arts education, said Kenneth Elpus, associate professor of music education at the University of Maryland.</p><p>This more expansive view was reflected in a Wallace-commissioned literature review,
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/review-of-evidence-arts-education-research-essa.aspx">Review of Evidence: Arts Education Through the Lens of ESSA</a></em>, which found studies showing benefits from arts education not just in arts skills and academics but also in areas including social and emotional learning, and “processes,” a word for critical thinking. What’s more, the effects were robust enough to put them at the 75th percentile of 70 studies encompassing reading, math and science. Put another way, nearly three quarters of activities examined in those non-arts areas had lower levels of positive effects than the disciplinary approaches to arts education that were the subject of studies. </p><p>Moreover, arts learning can drive future engagement in the arts, according to an evaluation,
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/designing-for-engagement-the-experiences-of-tweens-in-the-boys-and-girls-clubs’-youth-arts-initiative.aspx">Designing for Engagement: The Experience of Tweens in the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Youth Arts Initiative</a></em>, which found high-quality arts programs created “sparks” that led to enrollment in more advanced classes.</p><p>Researchers are also widening their range of inquiry on arts education into realms including neuroscience, where new studies examining the impact of arts education on the developing brain are underway, Holochwost said. 
<br> Outcomes were not the only area that panelists pointed to as being ripe for further investigation.</p><p>Implementation research—that is, research on what makes for high-quality instruction—is crucial for improving arts teaching practices, said Elpus, noting that “the work of figuring out what good music education looks like is still in its infancy.” Laura Annunziata, who leads arts education programs at Wolf Trap, the Virginia-based performance venue within a national park, agreed, observing that many of those running arts programs are looking for guidance on how to structure the programs in ways that benefit children.</p><p>Mary Dell’Erba is senior project manager of the Arts Education Partnership, a national coalition of education, arts, government and other organizations dedicated to making high-quality arts education accessible to all U.S. students. She asked whether arts education should “seek to help improve practice, demonstrate outcomes, or both?”</p><p>Regardless of the answer, one area that could use more investigation is access to arts education; knowing more about it is essential to identifying needs and opportunities and making the case for improvements. “Good descriptive work is really important,” the NEA’s Hudson said. “What if we knew who had access in every single state and every single city in the country—just imagine what we could do on race, ethnicity, graduation rates.” Indeed, organizations like Big Thought, a nonprofit that promotes arts programming for young people in Dallas, have demonstrated that using data to map where arts education is—and is not—can be a powerful stimulus for action, as
<em>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/revitalizing-arts-education.aspx">Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination</a> </em>recounts. </p><p>The NEA is currently working with the Education Commission of the States, which houses the Arts Education Partnership, to develop data guides and communication tools so that states and communities can extract data about arts education, according to Hudson. </p><p><img alt="NEA-Arts-Ed-panel-lg-feature2.jpg" src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/Pages/Research-About-the-Arts-and-Kids-A-Fertile-Area-for-Inquiry-/NEA-Arts-Ed-panel-lg-feature2.jpg" style="margin:5px;" /><br> </p><p>The conference was a project of the multidisciplinary
<a href="https://www2.gmu.edu/news/500841" target="_blank">Mason Arts Research Center</a>, which focuses on arts engagement, child development and education. It is part of the NEA’s Research Labs program, an effort by the NEA’s research division to establish regional labs to be a resource for the endowment. Sunil Iyengar, the NEA’s director of research, noted that one way out of the outcomes quandary was to distinguish between the kind of program assessments that seek to determine what benefits—or “value”—accrue from a specific approach to arts education, and more general research that lays the groundwork for how to
<em>think</em> about value. </p><p>For Iyengar, the biggest takeaway from the conference was the importance of implementation research, given that the quality of arts education matters as much for creating benefits as access to it. The conference, he said after the meeting ended, suggested to him “that we need to employ the same level of rigor and attentiveness to understand program elements—what comprises a successful arts education, and for whom—as we bring to questions about outcomes and impacts for youth development, the 21st century workforce, or other domains.”</p><p>
<em>Lucas Held, Wallace’s director of communications, took part in the conference as a member of the Policy and Practitioner panel.
<br></em></p><p><em>Photos courtesy of George Mason University’s MasonARC website.</em></p>
<em></em><p></p> | Lucas Bernays Held | 18 | | 2020-01-14T05:00:00Z | Conference explores research about the availability, implementation and value of teaching children about the arts | | 2/3/2020 3:17:48 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Research About the Arts and Kids: A Fertile Area for Inquiry Conference explores research about the availability | 4101 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Year’s Top Blog Posts Signal Interest in SEL, School Leadership | 23644 | GP0|#330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708;L0|#0330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708|School Leadership;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61;GP0|#890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667;L0|#0890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667|Social and Emotional Learning;GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GP0|#a2eb43fb-abab-4f1c-ae41-72fd1022ddb0;L0|#0a2eb43fb-abab-4f1c-ae41-72fd1022ddb0|The Arts | <p>If we can glean any trends from our list of most popular posts published on the Wallace Blog this year, it might be: Everything is connected. From arts education programs focused on urban tweens to performing arts organizations with varied audiences, the question seems to be how to get people in the door. Then once there, how to keep them…just as school districts are struggling to retain principals and might find support in RAND’s groundbreaking principal pipeline research. And speaking of school leaders, their growing concern for children’s social and emotional learning (SEL) is more evident than ever. <br></p><p>We’ve got all that and more in our Top 10 list this year, so go ahead and get connected: <br></p><p>
10) <strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/the-benefits-of-arts-education-for-urban-tweens.aspx">The Benefits of Arts Education for Urban Tweens</a></strong><strong>:</strong> Does high-quality arts programming benefit urban tweens? What does it take to recruit young people to these programs—and keep them coming back? Read highlights from this webinar hosted by The National Guild for Community Arts Education and drawn from research and practice in our Youth Arts Initiative. <br><br>
9<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span><strong> </strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/principal-retention-findings-from-ppi-report.aspx"><strong>Systematic Approach to Developing School Leaders Pays Off for Principal Retention</strong></a><strong>:</strong> Principal turnover disrupts schools, teachers and students, and the cost to replace a principal is about $75,000. This blog post investigates the principal retention finding of  <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/principal-pipelines-a-feasible,-affordable,-and-effective-way-for-districts-to-improve-schools.aspx">RAND’s groundbreaking report</a> on building principal pipelines. <br><br>
8<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span><strong> </strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/what-if-districts-focused-not-just-on-preparing-and-hiring-principals-but-also-retaining-them.aspx"><strong>What If Districts Focused Not Just on Preparing and Hiring Principals But Also Retaining Them</strong></a><strong>:</strong> For more on principal retention, Marina Cofield, then the senior executive director of the Office of Leadership at the New York Department of Education, discusses why the nation’s largest school system decided that school leader retention mattered—and what the district did about it.<br><br>
7<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span> <strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/could-federal-funding-help-pay-for-arts-ed-in-your-school.aspx">Could Federal Funding Help Pay for Arts Education in Your School?</a></strong> The authors of <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/review-of-evidence-arts-education-research-essa.aspx">a report exploring research on approaches to arts education</a> under the Every Student Succeeds Act discuss the types of activities and approaches that qualify for funding, the results arts-education interventions could yield and how educators might use their report to improve arts education in their schools.<br><br>
6<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span> <strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/five-organizations-five-different-strategies-to-build-arts-audiences.aspx">Five Organizations, Five Different Strategies to Build Arts Audiences</a></strong><strong>:  </strong>Organizations from our Building Audiences for Sustainability (BAS) initiative share early results from their efforts to tap new audiences while continuing to engage current attendees. As detailed in accounts from our BAS Stories Project, the work of the five varies widely; some strategies show success, some falter and many fall somewhere in between.<br><br>
5<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span><strong> </strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/implementation-gets-the-job-done-benefiting-kids-by-strengthening-practices.aspx"><strong>Implementation Gets the Job Done, Benefitting Kids by Strengthening Practices</strong></a><strong>: </strong>Wallace’s recently retired director of research, Ed Pauly, shares insights from his decades-long career into why implementation studies matter, highlighting examples from recent Wallace work.<br><br>
4<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span> <strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/looking-toward-a-nation-at-hope.aspx">Looking Toward a Nation at Hope:</a></strong><strong> </strong>Rooted in findings that academic learning and social and emotional learning are intertwined, a report released earlier this year by The Aspen Institute shares recommendations and next steps for supporting a more holistic learning approach.<br><br>
3<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span> <strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/choosing-the-right-social-and-emotional-learning-programs-and-practices.aspx">Choosing the Right Social and Emotional Learning Programs and Practices</a></strong><strong>: </strong>More from the SEL front: RAND researchers discuss the importance of social and emotional learning and their new guide meant to help educators adopt evidence-based programs that fit needs of students and communities.<br><br>
2<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span> <strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/what-leading-for-equity-can-look-like-paul-fleming.aspx">What Leading for Equity Can Look Like</a></strong><strong>: </strong>Paul Fleming, assistant commissioner for the teachers and Leaders Division at the Tennessee Department of Education, discusses the importance of equity and how a publication on the subject by a statewide team seeks to help schools and districts in Tennessee better support all students.<br><br>
1<span style="color:#555555;font-size:14px;">)</span><strong> </strong><a href="/News-and-Media/Blog/pages/helping-principals-support-social-and-emotional-learning.aspx"><strong>Helping Principals Support Social and Emotional Learning</strong></a><strong>: </strong>It’s no surprise that our top post of 2019 falls at the crossroads of school leadership and SEL: Here, guest author Eric Cardwell, president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, tells of his conversations with educators around the country and the guide for SEL implementation that came out of them. </p>
<br> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2019-12-04T05:00:00Z | Read the most popular stories we published this year and the research that inspired them. | | 11/8/2022 3:47:39 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Year’s Top Blog Posts Signal Interest in SEL, School Leadership Read the most popular stories we published this year and | 2196 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Implementation Gets the Job Done, Benefiting Kids by Strengthening Practices | 42470 | GP0|#330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708;L0|#0330c9173-9d0f-423a-b58d-f88b8fb02708|School Leadership;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61;GP0|#b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211;L0|#0b804f37e-c5dd-4433-a644-37b51bb2e211|Afterschool;GP0|#ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13;L0|#0ff9563e3-b973-45a7-8ac3-c9f4122f9a13|Summer Learning;GP0|#890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667;L0|#0890cbc1f-f78a-45e7-9bf2-a5986c564667|Social and Emotional Learning;GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education | <p>Better services in schools and afterschool programs. Reforms that work. Exciting new opportunities for young people. They all come from a single source.</p><p>It’s not politics.<br></p><p>And it’s not money.</p><p>It’s better professional practices.</p><p>Think about what happens when planning for summer learning programs is left until the last minute. Or when training gaps mean that school and afterschool staff members are unprepared to support kids’ social and emotional development. Or when novice principals who are key to district efforts to improve school leadership have to fend for themselves, without mentors or coaching.
<br></p><p>It’s not pretty. How efforts are implemented really matters. Even the best ideas and the most well-resourced programs can’t make up for weak implementation.</p><p>We know this because we’ve seen what happens when implementation goes awry. It’s a problem first pinned down in the 1970s, when Seymour Sarason’s
<em>The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change</em> traced the surprising shortfalls of the 1960s “New Math” to lapses in how this approach to grade-school math education was carried out. Notably, teachers asked to teach the new math hadn’t been trained in how to do so. Moreover, the new curriculum wasn’t adapted to the local context, and planning was left until the new books arrived.</p><p>The bottom line was clear: Even the best idea, done with the best of intentions, doesn’t help kids if it isn’t implemented thoughtfully, carefully and with a smart change process that responds to the challenges faced by practitioners.</p><div>
<img class="wf-Image-Left" alt="ED_5991.jpg" src="/News-and-Media/Blog/PublishingImages/ED_5991.jpg" style="margin:5px;width:204px;color:#555555;font-size:14px;" />
</div><p>Practitioners in schools and youth services take their work very seriously, so they know that well-executed programming is the best way they can help kids grow. And at The Wallace Foundation, we take practitioners’ work as seriously as they do. That’s why in addition to supporting improved practices and gathering many kinds of evidence to help enhance services for young people—from cost studies and outcomes data to market research and case studies—we gather practical, reliable lessons on implementation. Indeed, we place the highest priority on finding lessons that practitioners in education, youth services and other fields can use to strengthen their work, overcome barriers to effective programming and assist staff members when new services are being introduced. And we’ve seen how useful and beneficial these lessons are for practitioners and the kids they serve.</p><div>Our vehicle for this is the implementation study—independent research, which we commission and publish, that examines how an effort is put into operation. In uncovering both the strong points and flaws of implementation, this research identifies and illuminates the practices needed to carry out an innovation well. In the foundation’s early days in the 1990s, for example, researchers examined our initiative to support then-novel efforts by public schools to provide services for children and families beyond regular school hours. Among the lessons in
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-started-with-extended-service-schools.aspx"><em>Getting Started with Extended Service Schools</em></a><em>:  </em>It’s crucial to include school custodians in planning lest afterschool programming and afterschool cleaning and repairing collide. This simple reminder saved time and backtracking when the 21st Century Community Learning Centers effort began, and the U.S. Department of Education sent each center a copy of
<em>Getting Started</em>.</div><div> </div><p>Here are three examples from our more recent work: </p><p>In our National Summer Learning Project, begun in 2011, we supported five urban school districts as they worked to make high-quality summer learning programs available to children.
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx"><em>Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd ed.</em></a> finds, among other things, that the districts needed to begin summer planning well ahead of summer’s onset if they wanted the programming to be as sound as possible. Best practices uncovered included this: Start planning in January at the latest. </p><p>Our effort to help youth-serving organizations introduce high-quality arts programming for young people in disadvantaged areas began in 2014.
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/raising-the-barre-and-stretching-the-canvas.aspx"><em>Raising the Barre and Stretching the Canvas</em></a> highlights the ways local Boys & Girls Clubs of America managers integrated teaching artists into their staff teams so the “arts kids” were supported by the entire Club community.</p><p>And then there’s the Principal Pipeline Initiative, launched in 2010, which supported six large school districts as they developed a systematic effort, known as building a principal pipeline, to cultivate a large corps of effective school leaders. A
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/principal-pipelines-a-feasible,-affordable,-and-effective-way-for-districts-to-improve-schools.aspx">recently published outcomes study</a> found that these pipelines proved advantageous to both student achievement and principal retention. The examination of the initiative’s implementation suggests
<em>how and why </em>this played out—in part, through flexibility that allowed for local adaptation. Specifically, even though each district set out to build pipelines with common components—such as rigorous job standards and on-the-job supports including mentoring for new principals—each district adapted the components to its circumstances and managed to overcome the barriers that inevitably cropped up locally. In other words, principal pipelines benefit kids when school districts emphasize strong implementation. The evidence is laid out in five Wallace-commissioned implementation reports,
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/building-a-stronger-principalship.aspx"><em>Building a Stronger Principalship</em></a>.</p><p>We are looking forward to future explorations of implementation, too. A forthcoming Wallace-commissioned report from our Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative, for example, is setting out to detail how front-line youth workers and teachers find the time to incorporate social and emotional learning into their regular practices.</p><p>Over more than two decades of commissioning and communicating about implementation studies of Wallace’s initiatives, we’ve learned a lot:</p><ul><li>We’ve learned to pay attention to straightforward descriptions of what’s feasible in several different places. Practitioners value descriptions of what their peers have actually done in the real world, because that’s how they see they can do it, too. And we’ve seen that comparisons among several sites deepen the value of the implementation evidence.</li></ul><ul><li>We’ve learned to look at the start-up process, because it points to the stakeholders who need to be at the table and the practical ideas they contribute.</li></ul><ul><li>We’ve learned to identify hindrances to implementation—whether planning oversights, disengaged management teams, unequal treatment of some practitioners, lack of preparation time, staff inexperience or other commonplace operational challenges—and crucially, how practitioners overcome them.</li></ul><ul><li>We’ve learned that sensible adaptations help practitioners respond to their own context—and show people who are considering an improvement approach how they can tweak it to fit their own situation.</li></ul><p>Most of all, we’ve found that
<em>every serious improvement effort requires significant operational changes in day-to-day practices and management</em>, so it is essential to probe and learn from the on-the-ground experiences of the front-line practitioners who are serving kids. The payoff for good implementation evidence is feasible, adaptable, practical ideas that enable institutions to engage in continuous improvement of services—with a consistent focus on benefitting young people. Strong practitioners are constantly figuring out how to do their work better. Smart implementation evidence helps them in that and, ultimately, in serving kids. </p><p>Effective implementation is the not-so-hidden story of services that work, and Wallace’s support for disadvantaged young people is rooted in the foundation’s recognition that the right kind of implementation is what gets the job done. That’s the most useful, and most constructive, lesson from Wallace’s work. And it’s the lesson practitioners use.</p><p><span style="text-align:left;color:#555555;text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-family:freightsans_probook;font-size:14px;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;display:inline;white-space:normal;orphans:2;float:none;background-color:#ffffff;"><em>Ed Pauly is Wallace’s director of research</em></span><em>.</em><br><br></p><div><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="16" style="background-color:#e4e4e4;"><tbody><tr><td><h3><strong>One More Look:  Highlights from Wallace-Commissioned Implementation Evidence</strong></h3><p>Over the years, Wallace-commissioned research has looked at the implementation of initiatives in areas ranging from adult literacy and financial management of not-for-profit organizations to school leadership and summer learning. Which reports have ideas to help strengthen
<em>your</em> practices?</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-started-with-extended-service-schools.aspx"><em>Getting Started with Extended Service Schools</em></a><em>: Early Lessons from the Field</em><strong>, </strong>Kay E. Sherwood (2000)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-study-of-adult-student-persistence-in-library-literacy-programs.aspx"><em>“One Day I Will Make It”: A Study of Adult Student Persistence in Library Literacy Programs</em></a> (2005)</p><p>
<em>Aligning Student Support With Achievement Goals: The Secondary Principal’s Guide</em> (2006).  The book is available for purchase online. A free Wallace
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/wallace-perspective-aligning-student-support-with-achievement-goals.aspx">brief</a> highlights key report findings. </p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/hours-of-opportunity-volumes-i-ii-iii.aspx">
<em>Hours of Opportunity: Lessons from Five Cities on Building Systems to Improve After-School, Summer School, and Other Out-of-School-Time Programs</em></a> (2010)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/the-skills-to-pay-the-bills.aspx"><em>The Skills to Pay the Bills: An Evaluation of an Effort to Help Nonprofits Manage Their Finances</em></a> (2015)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/building-a-stronger-principalship-vol-5-the-principal-pipeline-initiative-in-action.aspx"><em>Building a Stronger Principalship Vol 5: The Principal Pipeline Initiative in Action</em></a> (2016)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/leader-tracking-systems-turning-data-into-information-for-school-leadership.aspx"><em>Leader Tracking Systems: Turning Data Into Information for School Leadership</em></a> (2017)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/raising-the-barre-and-stretching-the-canvas.aspx"><em>Raising the Barre and Stretching the Canvas: Implementing High-Quality Arts Programming in a National Youth Serving Organization</em></a> (2017)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/designing-for-engagement-the-experiences-of-tweens-in-the-boys-and-girls-clubs’-youth-arts-initiative.aspx"><em>Designing for Engagement: The Experiences of Tweens in the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Youth Arts Initiative</em></a> (2018)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/launching-redesign-university-principal-preparation-programs.aspx"><em>Launching a Redesign of University Principal Preparation Programs: Partners Collaborate for Change</em></a> (2018)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/a-new-role-emerges-for-principal-supervisors.aspx"><em>A New Role Emerges for Principal Supervisors: Evidence from Six Districts in the Principal Supervisor Initiative</em></a>(2018)</p><p>
<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/getting-to-work-on-summer-learning-2nd-ed.aspx"><em>Getting to Work on Summer Learning: Recommended Practices for Success, 2nd edition</em></a> (2018)<br></p></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br> </p><br></div> | Ed Pauly | 99 | | 2019-05-20T04:00:00Z | Studies Probing How to Carry Out Improvement Efforts Help Practitioners See What Works—and What Doesn’t | | 7/17/2019 6:55:11 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Implementation Gets the Job Done, Benefiting Kids by Strengthening Practices Studies Probing How to Carry Out Improvement | 2684 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| The Benefits of Arts Education for Urban Tweens | 42573 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 |
<p>Does high-quality arts programming benefit urban tweens? What does it take to recruit young people ages 10 to 14 to these programs—and keep them coming back? A recent <a href="https://www.nationalguild.org/resources/resources/free-guild-resource/designing-for-engagement-the-benefits-of-high-qua?viewmode=2&lang=en-US" target="_blank">webinar</a> hosted by The National Guild for Community Arts Education provided insight into these questions drawn from research and practice in our Youth Arts Initiative (YAI).</p><p>Launched in 2014 with a grant to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, YAI selected clubhouses in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wis., and St. Cloud, Minn. to test whether <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/something-to-say-success-principles-for-afterschool-arts-programs.aspx">10 success principles</a> for high-quality youth arts education could be applied to a large multiservice youth organization that services primarily low-income families. </p><p>The clubs offered both regular skill-development classes and drop-in opportunities to learn dance; painting, drawing and mural arts; graphic design, digital music, filmmaking and fashion design. Their experiences are discussed in <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/raising-the-barre-and-stretching-the-canvas.aspx">Raising the Barre and Stretching the Canvas: Implementing High Quality Arts Programming in a National Youth Serving Organization</a>, which found that the clubs could, in fact, implement the 10 success principles. </p><p><strong>Learning from Real Professionals</strong><strong> </strong><br>
The arts classes were taught by <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/teaching-artists-sparks-imaginations.aspx">professional teaching artists</a>, such as Vedale Hill, a Milwaukee native who runs a mural arts program and is a full-time staff member at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee—and who participated in the webinar. The clubs also created designated spaces for arts instruction, worked hard with families and students to encourage regular attendance and organized community performances and art shows to showcase the tweens’ creations.</p><p>“The teaching artists were real professionals in a field and that really made tweens want to learn from them. They commanded respect and were serious about teaching the art form,” Wendy S. McClanahan of McClanahan Associates, told the online audience. McClanahan is a co-author of Raising the Barre and the more recent <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/designing-for-engagement-the-experiences-of-tweens-in-the-boys-and-girls-clubs’-youth-arts-initiative.aspx">Designing for Engagement: The Experiences of Tweens in the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Youth Arts Initiative</a>,  which focuses on whether the clubs could recruit tweens engage them in arts activities and whether the programs added value for both the tweens and the clubs themselves. The answer to all, in short, is yes.</p><p><strong>Meeting Youth Where They Are</strong><br>
While professional knowledge is important, Hill agreed, effective teaching artists also know how to work with young people. Since tweens are at an age where participation in afterschool programs often declines, he stressed the importance of getting to know the students and their interests before diving right into formal instruction. </p><p>“It was important to me, as one of the kids who grew up in the inner city in Milwaukee and knowing where they were coming from, to make it a point to meet them where they were, before any drawing or painting,” Hill explained. “I went to the gym to shoot a round and played soccer and met them as the person they are. </p><p>“The best person for the kids,” he said, “is the one who gets them to learn the lesson and have it be relevant content to give purpose to the skill.” </p><p><strong>Fostering Youth Voice and Choice</strong><br>
Clubs also gave tweens a say about the programming. Ben Perkovich, director of clubhouse operations for the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Green Bay, explained that his club involved tweens early on in deciding what arts programs to offer and even in hiring the professional artists who taught them. That decision was strategic, he noted: “Once we started having them involved in the programmatic direction, that built enthusiasm and excitement.” The clubs in Milwaukee and Green Bay also offered incentives for participation and behavior, such as pizza parties, field trips and art supplies they could take home.</p><p><strong>Positive Youth Development for SEL</strong><br>
Tracey A. Hartmann of Research for Action, a co-author of both reports on the Youth Arts Initiative, said the clubs’ use of strong youth-development practices was key to keeping tweens engaged. These included building positive relationships with adults and peers; giving tweens the opportunity to have input and play leadership roles; providing hands-on activities; and ensuring that participants were physically and emotional safe.</p><p>“These were deal-breakers for the youth,” she said of the welcoming climate. In return, the clubs expected them to make a commitment to attend the skill-development classes as much as possible, a major change from the drop-in nature of the other programs offered by the clubs.</p><p>Tweens developed social and emotional skills along with artistic skills, Hartmann said. “We heard from parents that they saw a sense of responsibly and time management. Parents pointed to the high expectations, the relationship with teaching artists and high engagement with the program.”</p><p>For more insights on the benefits of arts education for young people, read this <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2019/02/12/new-evidence-of-the-benefits-of-arts-education/?utm_campaign=Brown%20Center%20on%20Education%20Policy&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70054033" target="_blank">Brookings Institution</a> evaluation of an initiative in Houston to restore arts education through community partnerships and investments. To learn more about the evidence behind the use of arts to improve student achievement—known as arts integration—and which programs would qualify for federal funding under the Every Student Succeeds Act, read our <a href="/knowledge-center/pages/essa-arts-evidence-review-report.aspx">ESSA evidence review</a>.</p>
<br> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2019-02-26T05:00:00Z | Webinar highlights publications and emerging lessons from the Boys & Girls Club’s quality arts program | | 2/26/2019 4:00:49 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / The Benefits of Arts Education for Urban Tweens Webinar highlights publications and emerging lessons from the Boys & Girls | 2993 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |
| Could Federal Funding Help Pay for Arts Education in Your School? | 23737 | GP0|#d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8;L0|#0d2020f9f-c87c-4828-b93b-572786ae94a8|Arts Education;GTSet|#a1e8653d-64cb-48e0-8015-b5826f8c5b61 |
<p>The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 makes considerable funding available to state and local education agencies for a variety of activities, including arts education. To make use of this funding, however, agencies must show evidence that the activities they propose make—or could reasonably make—a difference in student outcomes. </p><p>Researchers from the American Institutes for Research recently released<a href="/knowledge-center/Pages/Review-of-Evidence-Arts-Education-Research-ESSA.aspx"> a detailed Wallace-commissioned report </a>that points to 88 studies of arts education approaches that meet ESSA's standards of evidence. Their report also includes a broader estimate, based on available evidence, of the results policymakers might see when undertaking certain types of arts education activities.</p><p>Wallace's editorial team talked to the authors of the report—Yinmei Wan, Meredith Ludwig and Andrea Boyle—to discuss the funding programs in ESSA, the activities and approaches that qualify for these programs, the results arts-education interventions could yield and how educators could use their report to improve arts education in their schools.</p><p>The report identifies 12 ESSA funding programs that agencies could use for arts education. "Some funding programs are particular to specific activities," said Boyle. "For example, if you want to open an arts-focused magnet school, there is a program specifically for that."</p><p>Others such as the Title I program, which offers funds to help improve certain schools, can be used to support a range of activities, Boyle added. "But they might focus on specific populations, such as English learners or students of low income backgrounds, or on certain types of settings, such as extended days or afterschool programs," she said. "If you focus on those student groups or activities, then that might be the sort of program you would want to pursue."</p><p>Approaches that meet the evidence requirements for these funding programs cover a range of art forms, including dance, drama, and media arts. Most, however, focus on music and visual arts. “There is a lot more research literature about music and visual arts”, said Meredith Ludwig, "because those are the dominant programs available to students in schools."</p><p>ESSA splits evidence into four tiers. Tiers I, II and III require positive, statistically significant results for an arts education intervention to qualify for ESSA. Most of the eligible approaches mentioned in the report fall under Tier IV, which requires a theoretical or research-based rationale suggesting that an intervention islikely todeliver a positive result. </p><p>"The Tier IV evidence category allows for opportunities to innovate with new interventions or new approaches that don't quite have a research base yet," said Boyle. "It requires an intervention to have a rationale or logic model explaining how the intervention is expected to work, paired with efforts to evaluate what effects the intervention actually has once it is put into practice. To come up with a logic model, you can look at interventions that <em>do</em> have evidence behind them, what their logic model might be, and develop a rationale informed by that." </p><p>A previous ESSA study could help inform such efforts, Ludwig said. "<a href="/knowledge-center/pages/sel-interventions-under-essa-evidence-review.aspx">The RAND report on social and emotional learning</a> did a good job describing how Tier IV is a good jumping off point for further research," she said. "It's important to explore what you know about a Tier IV intervention, whether you need to make changes to it and how you might bring the level of evidence up."</p><p>Different ESSA funding programs have different requirements, however. When matching a desired activity to a potential funding program, educators must ensure that the activity meets the evidence standards for that program. "Read the fine print of the specific funding program you're going after," said Boyle. "And make sure that the evidence aligns with those requirements."</p><p>Ultimately, the authors suggest, educators must ensure that the interventions they choose fit their broader goals for their schools. "Think about where an arts program would stand in relation to other things the school might be doing," Boyle said. "Look at the other types of funding available, what your priorities might be and how arts education might fit into those priorities." </p><p>The report's authors also explored the potential efficacy of arts education efforts beyond ESSA's evidence requirements. The final chapter of the report is a meta-analysis of all empirical studies the researchers found, regardless of whether they found the positive results that would make activities eligible for ESSA. </p><p>“We examined all of the effects produced from well-designed and well-implemented studies, regardless of whether they provide positive or negative findings, or whether the findings are statistically significant or not,” said Yinmei Wan, lead author of the report. “We think it can provide more important information for policymakers that takes account of the magnitude and direction of the effects in all the studies.”</p><p>The meta-analysis found that arts education produces a moderate, statistically significant, positive effect on student outcomes. But Wan urges caution when interpreting its results, largely because of the dearth of empirical research about arts education.“For some art types and outcome domains, there is only one single study,” she said. </p><p>She also points to the difficulties inherent in measuring the entirety of the arts experience. “Researchers are trying to find ways to better measure features of the arts experience," she said. </p><p>Still, there are many studies that could help point educators in the right direction. "Our review has limited scope," Wan said. "We don't review international studies or studies about afterschool programs. But there are other resources available like the <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/">What Works Clearinghouse</a> or <a href="https://www.artsedsearch.org/">artsedsearch.org</a> that have more information about interventions that are not covered in the report."</p> | Wallace editorial team | 79 | | 2019-01-23T05:00:00Z | Authors of a new report discuss ways in which schools could get federal support for arts education and the results they could expect from it. | | 1/23/2019 2:51:30 PM | The Wallace Foundation / News and Media / Wallace Blog / Could Federal Funding Help Pay for Arts Education in Your School Authors of a new report discuss ways in which schools | 4403 | https://www.wallacefoundation.org/News-and-Media/Blog/Pages/Forms/AllItems.aspx | html | False | aspx | |