Victoria J. Plettner-Saunders
More Thoughts on the Local Arts Agency and Arts Education
Posted by Sep 25, 2009 0 comments
Victoria J. Plettner-Saunders
In 2006, I was hired to conduct an assessment of the arts education program at the City of San José’s Office of Cultural Affairs. One of the research tasks was to create context for the OCA’s programs by putting them within a time line of influencing factors. It read like a history of arts education and politics from the 1970’s to the turn of the 21st century. It also became the most time consuming part of writing the report and it was the one part of the report I thought most people would wonder why I included it.
When I presented the full report to the Arts Commissioners, I got the most positive feedback on that one section because it helped them understand why the OCA made the arts education programming decisions it did over the previous three decades. See if you can follow the historical trends in your own community’s programs.
1. The NEA-funded artists residencies in the 70’s and 80’s and their influence on state arts agency artist in the classroom programs;
2. The after school programs for youth at risk that the NEA started in the 90’s;
3. The move towards professional development and standards-based programs and curricula in the late 90’s and early 2000’s; and
4. The movement to develop coordinated partnerships between arts organizations, school districts, teaching artists and local arts agencies that came about and have been highly researched in the last decade.
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