-
The First Roadblock to Arts Education Policy Improvement
“If we did it for the arts, we would have to do it for every subject.” That’s it. There you have it. That’s the first roadblock pulled out of a hat to rationalize “why not.” I have heard this particular roadblock deployed many times, including in response to the advocacy for a special form of…
-
Beaverton Oregon School District Meets the Required i3 Match
The Beaverton School District and Young Audiences Arts for Learning have completed raising the required match to secure its i3 grant from the USDOE. The school district and partners had approximately 21 days to raise the required $800,000, not a small sum for a relatively small school district, in this economy no less. Bravo!
-
A Good Idea: Let’s End Test Prep and Expand the Curriculum
In today’s New York Daily News, United Federation of Teacher President, Michael Mulgrew called for an end to test prep: Test prep isn’t instruction. In virtually every school I have gone into in recent years, teachers complained about instructional time lost to prepping students for tests. Art and music fell by the wayside years ago…
-
Arts and Social Justice: The Genuine Article
-
Books. Children. Arts. Education!
It’s never too early to consider your holiday gift list. Today, I present to you a lucky 13 list of primarily arts-oriented books for children. The wonderful thing about these books, which for me is a big-time measure of children’s book quality overall, is that adults will enjoy these books just as much as the…
-
Fund Advocacy or Direct Service? Is there a third way?
Speaking of advocacy, I came across a rather interesting and compact blog by Ashley Blanchard of the consulting group TCC: Finding the Right Balance, Thoughts on Advocacy and Direct Service Funding. For better or worse, the recent economic crisis has changed the way some funders are thinking about their support for advocacy and direct services,…
-
Former Arts Endowment Official Takes Arts Ed Advocates To Task
In the new edition of Education Next, Mark Bauerlein takes a dim view of the nature of arts education advocacy and offers a prescription for improvement, namely a focus on arts as a discrete discipline and a more entrepreneurial approach overall. Click on through to read Advocating for Arts in the Classroom. In essence, Bauerlein…
-
Judging Teachers by Test Scores? Not quite.
This issue, one among many in “school reform,” has me worried. You have to wonder whether teacher evaluation based upon test scores will only further marginalize arts education, as arts education assessment lies outside of the types of teacher evaluation being heavily promoted by so very many. For the record, this type of assessment is…
-
What do Children Need the Most?
A number of years back I was fortunate to attend a two-day conference on Arts, Technology, and Intellectual Property at Columbia University’s American Assembly. At the time I was working for the American Music Center, so the topic was something I had a vested interest in. As with most conferences, there was the introductory moment…
-
Beaverton Oregon Bands Together Around the Arts, to Raise the i3 Match
Here’s a story out of Beaverton, Oregon, concerning the USDOE’s i3 matching requirement and the work going on to raise the necessary 20% private match. Click here to read Can You Help Pay for Arts in the Schools, from the Beaverton Valley Times. District leaders have 21 days to raise $800,000 in donations.