Blog Posts for Arts Marketing

Thank you to the many people who have been blog contributors to, and readers of ArtsBlog over the years. ArtsBlog has long been a space where we uplifted stories from the field that demonstrated how the arts strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically; where trends and issues and controversies were called out; and advocacy tools were provided to help you make the case for more arts funding and favorable arts policies.

As part of Americans for the Arts’ recent Strategic Realignment Process, we were asked to evaluate our storytelling communications platforms and evolve the way we share content. As a result, we launched the Designing Our Destiny portal to explore new ways of telling stories and sharing information, one that is consistent with our longtime practice of, “No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number.”

As we put our energy into developing this platform and reevaluate our communications strategies, we have put ArtsBlog on hold. That is, you can read past blog posts, but we are not posting new ones. You can look to the Designing Our Destiny portal and our news items feed on the Americans for the Arts website for stories you would have seen in ArtsBlog in the past.

ArtsBlog will remain online through this year as we determine the best way to archive this valuable resource and the knowledge you’ve shared here.

As ever, we are grateful for your participation in ArtsBlog and thank you for your work in advancing the arts. It is important, and you are important for doing it.


Nancy Rubino


Amy Charleroy

Educational Leaders, Arts Standards, and the Common Core: Lessons from Recent Research

Posted by Nancy Rubino, Amy Charleroy, Sep 10, 2013 0 comments


Nancy Rubino


Amy Charleroy

In a recent survey conducted by the College Board of nearly 1000 K-12 principals and superintendents, more than 75% of respondents said that nationally, arts education should be given a greater priority level than it currently holds in American schools. They also indicated that they believe that the primary benefits of arts education are that they strengthen students’ creative thinking abilities, bolster cognitive development, contribute to a well-rounded educational experience and enhance students’ emotional well-being. However, when asked what factors could most effectively work in favor of keeping arts programs in schools, school leaders responded the arts curricula need to clearly address state educational standards (in the arts as well as in other subjects), college admission requirements, and the Common Core standards. These two sets of answers at first seem unrelated, or at least as if they reflect completely different sets of priorities, but they are both true: the arts do provide significant and wide-ranging benefits including those cited by the administrators surveyed; recent research credits arts participation with bolstering creative thinking skills, increasing graduation rates, and improving students’ overall engagement with school. On the other hand, arts educators also know that the security and continuity of their programs often relies on their ability to draw connections between the activities of their classrooms and the content and skills emphasized in non-arts subjects. These kinds of connections don’t need to feel forced or artificial: arts experiences do authentically engage students in habits of problem solving, presenting their own original ideas, and analyzing and interpreting the ideas of others – all skills central to the Common Core, and to studies across the curriculum.

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Nelle Stokes

Media Arts: The (New?) Arts Education Discipline

Posted by Nelle Stokes, Sep 10, 2013 2 comments


Nelle Stokes

Nelle Stokes Nelle Stokes

Film historians are still arguing about who invented the motion picture camera in the late 1890s. Depending perhaps on the birthplace of the historian, it was either Thomas Edison in America, or the Lumiere brothers in France. More recently, the digital revolution has resulted in an explosion of online media production by homegrown filmmakers of all ages, across the globe. Every sixty seconds, another 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.

It should come as no surprise to the arts education world that Media Arts has been announced as the ‘fifth arts discipline’ that will be part of the new National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS). Due to be released in 2014, the standards will cover dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts for grades PK-12.

These new standards are designed ‘to affirm the place of arts education in a balanced core curriculum, support the 21st-century needs of students and teachers, and help ensure that all students are college and career ready.’ I’ve been honored to be a part of the Media Arts Writing Team—a diverse group of dedicated educators, administrators and practitioners from around the country, working in the fields of video, gaming, design, theatre, media, film, animation, and digital imagery.

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Mr. James Palmarini


Kristy Callaway

From Neolithic to Neo-Core Arts Standards: The Back-story to Writing the New Standards

Posted by Mr. James Palmarini, Kristy Callaway, Sep 09, 2013 11 comments


Mr. James Palmarini


Kristy Callaway

Since the Neolithic Revolution, apprenticeships were the career pathway towards master artist status. In addition, one had to have a patron to provide access to the resources of their craft. Twelve thousand years later, we have codified the artistic learning experience into a matrix of what students should know and be able to do, through specific benchmarks known as standards.

The first National Standards for Arts Education were issued in 1994. A coalition of national arts and education organizations will issue a twenty-first century update of the standards in early 2014.

Kristy Callaway (Executive Director of the Arts Schools Network and member of arts education council at Americans for the Arts) interviews Jim Palmarini (Director of Educational Policy at Educational Theatre Association and member of the leadership team of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards) about the process of updating the national arts education standards.

Kristy: Please set this up for me. What is the back-story of the writing teams? How were they selected and assembled?

Jim: We have five writing teams working to rewrite the national standards in the content areas of dance, media arts, music, theatre, and visual arts. In October, 2011, the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) leadership issued an online application process. We had more than 360 applicants, most of who were highly qualified and experienced in one or more arts discipline. What we were seeking in each team was a balance of individuals who had expertise in teaching, standards and curriculum writing, assessment, and, of course, practical knowledge in their area of expertise. The leadership of NCCAS selected the team members. The College Board managed the selection of the media arts team.

The full five teams have met twice in person—most recently this past July—but most of their work has been done virtually in webinars, phone conferences, and email discussions. Writing grade-by-grade PreK-12 standards is intellectually challenging and complicated work, especially when you are working to both honor what is unique about each art form and trying to find common ground across the content areas. And nobody is getting paid—this is a voluntary effort by a dedicated cadre of individuals who truly believe in the value of standards for students and educators.

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Lynn Tuttle

State Standards Spree!

Posted by Lynn Tuttle, Sep 09, 2013 11 comments


Lynn Tuttle

Lynn Tuttle Lynn Tuttle

Read along and test your knowledge of standards, state policy and state level arts education as I take you through some of the oft-heard questions regarding state arts education standards.

  1. What are standards, and why do we have them? Part of the Educational Reform movement of the 1990’s, standards are descriptions of what students should know (knowledge) and be able to do (skills) in a particular content area. The first set of national standards was developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 1989; the arts standards were the second set of national standards, published in 1994.
  2. So – we have national standards? But your title talks about state standards…I’m confused… National standards are voluntary standards with no accountability or “teeth” in the educational system until they are either adopted or adapted at the state level. They are guidance, whether the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, or the soon to be released updated National Core Arts Standards.
  3. OK. What states have arts standards now?  48 states officially have arts education standards for K-12 at this moment in time. One state, Nebraska, is in the process of writing arts education standards as we speak. Can you guess which state doesn’t have state level standards?[i]
  4. How do states get or create arts standards?  The answer is… it depends. In my state, the State Board of Education, a board appointed by the Governor and including our directly elected Superintendent of Public Instruction, approves or adopts standards for our state. In other states, the legislature most vote to adopt standards. Regardless of the state, your SEADAE representative –the person who handles arts education for your state department of education - is the worker bee (or bureaucrat!) who shepherds arts standards through the appropriate process.
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Dennis Inhulsen

What Next Generation Visual Arts Standards Are Not…

Posted by Dennis Inhulsen, Sep 09, 2013 2 comments


Dennis Inhulsen

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published in the newsletter for the National Art Education Association, and has been reprinted with permission.

Dennis Inhulsen Dennis Inhulsen

Nearly one thousand art educators from all parts have reviewed and provided feedback to our Next Generation Visual Arts Standards. I am pleased to report that reviewers have supported our work as “agree” or “highly agree” with 85% to 92% approval in all categories.  As chair of the team of art educators writing the standards, I am proud and amazed by their perseverance and professionalism demonstrated throughout the process. While still a work in progress, we are on a positive path to support art education for all students and the teachers that serve them.

 

What are Standards?

The Common Core State Standards Initiative define standards as:

Educational standards help teachers ensure their students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful by providing clear goals for student learning.

Source: http://www.corestandards.org

Further, educational standards, are developmentally appropriate, assess with reliable measures, and pay close attention to the gaps of demonstrated learning for all students. Standards in education can be traced to the early 1980’s when a “Nation at Risk” was published prompting legislation by congress through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Standards for Arts Education were first published in 1994 after the standards movement in education was well underway. Since the birth of the standards arts teachers have been increasingly held accountable to them. Our new standards reflect new practices in art education aligned to new challenges teachers face such as demonstrating growth in art for teacher effectiveness ratings and to help teachers with qualities that matter most transferring learning into adulthood. NAEA in partnership with the National Coalition of Core Arts Standards in the local autonomy of teachers and is striving to write standards that can be adapted to a wide variety of teaching and learning conditions. The standards further make the case for more learning in and through the arts.

Through feedback review it was noted that there is a fine line between standards and instruction & curriculum. Indeed, standards in the new Common Core for English Language Arts & Math oftentimes have a tone suggesting “how” to teach not “what” to teach. Like our standards, they are a hybrid of sorts providing enough detail for teachers to assimilate for unit planning.

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