Welcome to the bi-weekly EdTA Advocacy Update
January
24, 2014
The Advocacy Update is
where you can find state and national news about theatre and other arts education
EdTA
NEWS
Arts
Education for America’s Students: A Shared Endeavor: Fifteen national
organizations, including EdTA, have released a statement outlining the importance of
high quality arts education and those responsible for providing it to students. Shared Endeavor articulates the purpose and value
of arts education in a balanced curriculum for all students, asserts the place
of arts education as a core academic subject area, and details how sequential
arts learning can be supported by rigorous national standards and assessments.
The
Daron Hawkins Advocacy Fund: The Educational Theatre Association has
established a new grant program in memory of the late EdTA Florida state
chapter director.The fund will be used to support student and adult advocacy
efforts on behalf of theatre and other arts education.
The
Democracyworks student essay competition: The competition
is accepting entries from students who are members of the EdTA’s International
Thespian Society. The winning essayist and a chaperone earn a trip the Arts
Advocacy Day in Washington, D.C. March 23-25. This year’s
prompt is “What advocacy have you done or do you plan to do on behalf of
arts education in your school, district, or state and how did it or will it
make a difference? The deadline for entries is February 15.
NATIONAL NEWS
Arts
Advocacy Day 2014: Registration is open. AAD annually convenes advocates
from throughout the country for training and lobbying for strong public polices
and funding for the arts and arts education.
Turnaround
Arts Initiative: The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities
(PCAH) has released an interim progress report on the program, which launched
in 2012 to help transform some of the nation’s lowest performing schools
through arts education.
SEADAE’s links state arts
standards: The
State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE) website now
features links to every state's arts standards documents.
2014 VSA Playwright Discovery Competition:
Middle
and high school students are invited to explore the disability experience—in
their own life, the lives of others, or through fictional characters—by writing
a script. The application deadline is April 28, 2014.
STATE NEWS
California:Arts funding at risk in Brown's budget proposal (Los Angeles Times)
District of Columbia: DC Public Charter School Board votes to close Arts and
Technology School (Washington
Post)
Indiana: Study reveals art's effect on GDP (Indiana
Daily Student)
Michigan: Grand Rapids schools look for arts education renaissance (MLive.com)
New Jersey:
Dodge grant will support arts-infused education (East
Brunswick Sentinel)
Nebraska:
Midlands Voices: Strong arts education is invaluable (Omaha
World-Herald)
Ohio:
Educators tout OLS arts programs (LimaOhio.com)
WORTH READING
Does Arts
Education make you smarter? (ArtSchools.com)
Social scientists Brian Kisida,
Jay P. Greene and Daniel H. Bowen found that “strong causal relationships do in
fact exist between arts education and a range of desirable outcomes” through
research involving students at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville,
Arkansas.
Portfolios:
The Next Wave of Student Assessment? (Createquity)
Portfolios are one
assessment tool under the larger umbrella of an emerging mode of student
evaluation called performance assessment which display a collection of
individual work samples (some of which may have been graded previously) and are
assessed as a whole. The author studies two case examples, in NYC and TN,
and discusses the challenges of implementing portfolio assessment.
Something to Say: Success Principles for Afterschool Arts
Programs (The Wallace Foundation)
How can high-quality arts programs attract and retain low-income
urban tweens?
Arts education is very important (Pacific
Daily News) Yet the education we
are fashioning for our children and their children have witnessed a depressing
retreat from arts education in American schools.
Is the Arts Economy Dead? (TheStreet.com) Arts education,
which grossed just sort of $104 billion and includes fine- and performing-arts
schools and departments at universities, came in second in terms of lost jobs.
The best arts education books of the year (89.3
KPCC blog)