In case you missed it, The Wallace Foundation commissioned Susan J. Bodilly, et al.,  from RAND to write a report entitled “Revitalzing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination.” This report was released in June.

There’s lots here to chew on here and I am guessing that this won’t be my last post on this report.

While there are areas that appear weak, most noticeably the absence of a necessary and reasonable explication of what they mean by “coordination,” and it should be noted that a number of the school districts complained heavilty after not receiving the glowing endorsement they believed they were entitled to, the biggest question I was left with centered in the nature of systemic relationships between school district officials and their external partners/community. I also think the report should have done more to examine the community of schools that are tied to the district, as well as the greater community the schools are situated in. 

If you believe as I do that ‘revitalization” or let’s just say the development of efforts that result in providing high quality arts instruction and experiences to all public school students in a district, requires the involvement of community, well then, it bumps up against at least one major cultural/protocol issue.

Imagine you’re a school district official whose job is to oversee arts education. You have been given authority (to a degree) and responsibility. However, you need to partner with the larger community to make this happen. But, real partnership occurs only when there is a sharing of authority and responsibility. There’s the rub. It would require a very savvy, progressive, and risk friendly district administrator willing to share the authority for what they are being held responsible for. There are multiple paradoxes here.

As I said, lots to chew on. Lots of good questions will come from reading this report. An excellent jumping off point for a deeper conversation about access to arts education for ALL students.