RAND has a new publication on arts partnerships between public schools and community arts organizations (available in an on-line brief and full download in pdf). The report is actually a commissioned evaluation/analysis of Los Angeles’ ten-year, multi-million-dollar program in K through 12 arts education, which had a core component ‘to build partnerships with community arts organizations to develop and provide programs to enhance the study of the arts.’
The findings and recommendations show lots of good intentions from both the schools and the arts organizations, but also big barriers to effective on-going, curriculum-driven connections, specifically:
Both schools and arts organizations indicated that insufficient funding and limited time for instruction and communication between teachers and organizations hindered even simple partnerships. Both cited challenges reflecting a lack of information and understanding about the others¹ organizational needs and limitations.
Lack of focused communications and clear information-sharing often led to arts organization programs that didn’t actually meet the needs of the schools in meaningful ways:
Partnerships were usually simple transactions rather than joint ventures. The arts organizations developed programs without input from schools and offered them for a fee or sometimes for free. Schools selected from such programs, often using nothing more than promotional brochures….Neither the arts organizations nor the schools conducted a needs assessment to inform program development, and programs were rarely linked or integrated with school curriculum.
The report’s conclusions come off a bit soft and vague (forge better partnerships, focus on teachers, make better choices, duh). But they are interesting in their emphasis on the schools as consumers and arts organizations as service providers…and on the assumption that more information exchange and informed consumer choice can change the system for the better. That might be true, if either side actually had any resources to bring to bear.
