Rob Schultz

For many years, the Mesa Arts Center (AZ) conducted a successful program with Lowell Elementary, a Title I public school located in one of Mesa’s most challenged neighborhoods. The basic premise was to send a teaching artist to work with two grade levels, and introduce the students to a particular literary work. Those same students would be brought to the Center to view a live theater performance of that literary work created and presented by the Center’s in-house theater for young audiences program, at no cost to the students. Reinforcement of classroom teaching would occur through the integration of theater and language arts. The kids would enjoy Q&A with the actors, and classroom teachers would be provided with additional resource materials for future use. It was a valuable, simple, easily-replicated formula for arts integration.

Arizona Citizens for the Arts and the CO+HOOTS Foundation are two of the nonprofits partners presenting the 2014 National Pro bono Week. Our goals for the week are a) increase visibility of existing pro bono service activity, b) increase understanding of pro bono needs in the community, and c) increase pro bono service being provided in the high need areas for nonprofits.

Each morning there will be a pro bono orientation taught by one of the three pro bono champions in Phoenix. Kristin Romaine, from CO+HOOTS Foundation, Robin Hanson, from Arizona Citizens for the Arts, and Lauren Keeler, from Apollo Group will be using the pro bono training material provided by A Billion + Change.

Rob Schultz

One of the most gratifying things about working at the Mesa Arts Center is the opportunity to partner with local arts organizations, artists, and educators, help present their work, and bring it to the attention of our patrons. These partnerships come in all shapes and sizes, with varying degrees of success, affecting different audiences in different ways. So, since this is an arts education-oriented blog, let’s focus on one of my favorite partnerships, and favorite organizations: Phonetic Spit.

How does the Reauthorization of ESEA connect to the 2014 National Core Arts Standards?

The Senate “Every Child Achieves Act” version of ESEA contains language which is supportive of the intent and the content of the National Core Arts Standards.

1. The Senate bill includes a listing of core academic subjects which funding in the bill can support, including Title I, the largest allocation of education funding at the federal level. The arts and music are listed as core academic subjects in the Senate version of the bill, allowing federal funds to support learning in all the arts (see page 549).

2. The Senate bill includes language which is supportive of states creating rigorous academic content standards in all (core) academic subjects, including the arts and music. The National Core Arts Standards were written with that intent in mind – that states would utilize the new national, voluntary arts education standards to create standards of their own.

Just imagine how our lives in the arts would really be impacted if we didn’t have a U.S Department of Education (USDOE). This does not necessarily mean we would not have an ESEA, as the ESEA predates the U.S Department of Education (1965 and 1980 respectively), but they are fundamentally linked. So consider, if the USDOE was dissolved, how would that impact the reauthorization of the ESEA, and the arts in your locale? 

Roberto Bedoya

As an introduction to this blog post, I will be writing about Stewardship as a key to the values of the Tucson Pima Arts Council (TPAC), the community we serve, and to the cultural sector at larger because of its ethical and aesthetic dimensions.

To begin let me contextualize TPAC and Tucson a bit. TPAC is the designated local arts agency (LAA) that serves the city of Tucson and Pima County. Tucson is the second largest city in the Arizona and the metropolitan region’s population recently topped one million this year, of which 40 percent is Latino and Native American.

Pima County is the largest county in the state (which is bigger than the state of Connecticut) and is one of four Arizona counties that border Mexico. It is the home to two Native American tribes - the Tohono O’Odham and the Pascua Yaqui Nations; and numerous small towns and ranches.

Against this background, Southern Arizonans are mindful of the Sonoran desert that we live in, its heritages, its power, and its profound beauty and how these qualities informs the social imaginary that operate here. How taking care of the land and our relationships to each other are grounded in the ethos of stewardship.