TRUE SKOOL'S ARTS PROGRAMMING

TRUE Skool's Urban Arts curriculum is based on Milwaukee Public School's Learning Targets for the arts based on high school and middle school age youth. It is also based on the National Standards for Arts Education that were developed by the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, through a grant administered by The National Association for Music Education (MENC).

Resources:

• Milwaukee Public Schools Learning Targets-Setting Learning Targets for each subject area and grade level:
  
  • Ensures that all teachers focus on developing the same skills and concepts at a level appropriate for each child
  • In setting these targets, we expect all children to enjoy high level learning experiences
  • Learning Targets promote consistency in teaching and learning
    
• National Standards for Arts Education-were developed in 1994 by experts in education and the arts. They describe what a child with a complete, sequential education in the arts should know and be able to do at various grade levels in each artistic discipline. The 1997 National Assessment for Educational Progress was developed in coordination with these national standards.
  
• Wisconsin State Standards of Education-Academic standards specify what students should know and be able to do, what they might be asked to do to give evidence of standards, and how well they must perform. They include content, performance, and proficiency standards.

ARTS EDUCATION FACTS

Environments of afterschool activities at arts organizations "emerged as somewhat different from those of groups engaged primarily in community service or sports." Linguistic anthropologists found that in the arts organizations, "Students participated in planning and preparing as a group, their sentences peppered, "with 'could,' 'will,' 'can,'—asserting possibility."

source: Champions of Change, 1999, pp. 24–25
Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
study: Imaginative Actuality: Learning in the Arts During Nonschool Hours

Troubled students involved in afterschool arts programs excelled in academics and school life beyond less troubled students in a national sample. Though the students observed and studied in after school arts organizations were twice as likely as those in a national sample (U.S. Department of Education, NELS:88) to be undergoing insecure family situations and attending violent schools, they were four times more likely to have won school-wide attention for their academic achievement, three times more likely to be elected to class office, four times more likely to participate in a math and science fair, four times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem, and three times more likely to win an award for school attendance.

source: Americans for the Arts Monograph, p. 3
Living the Arts through Language+ Learning: a report on community-based youth organizations
Shirley Brice Heath
Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation For the Advancement of Teaching

Drop outs rates are co-related to levels of arts-involvement among all students, even when controlled for socioeconomic status (SES), and high arts-involved, low SES students close the drop out gap with higher SES but low arts-involved students. Low SES students in general have a higher drop out rate than higher SES students but 3.5 percent of low SES, high arts-involved 8th graders studied dropped out by the 10th grade whereas 3.7 percent of higher SES but low arts-involved 8th graders dropped out by the 10th grade.

source: Champions of Change, 1999, pp. 6, 8
Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, University of California at Los Angeles
study: Involvement in the Arts and Human Development: General Involvement and Intensive Involvement in Music and Theater Arts

FOR MORE INFO...VISIT AMERICANSFORTHEARTS.ORG

ARTS EDUCATION RESEARCH

Did You Know?
Young people who participate in the arts for at least three hours on three days each week through at least one full year are:

• 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement
• 3 times more likely to be elected to class office within their schools
• 4 times more likely to participate in a math and science fair
• 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance
• 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem

Young artists, as compared with their peers, are likely to:

• Attend music, art, and dance classes nearly three times as frequently
• Participate in youth groups nearly four times as frequently
• Read for pleasure nearly twice as often
• Perform community service more than four times as often
  
  ("Living the Arts through Language + Learning: A Report on Community-based Youth Organizations," Shirley Brice Heath, Stanford University and Carnegie Foundation For the Advancement of Teaching, Americans for the Arts Monograph, November 1998)

The facts are that arts education...

• makes a tremendous impact on the developmental growth of every child and has been proven to help level the "learning field" across socio-economic boundaries
  (Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School, James S. Catterall, The UCLA Imagination Project, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA, Americans for the Arts Monograph, January 1998)
• has a measurable impact on at-risk youth in deterring delinquent behavior and truancy problems while also increasing overall academic performance among those youth engaged in afterschool and summer arts programs targeted toward delinquency prevention
  
  (YouthARTS Development Project, 1996, U.S. Department of Justice, National Endowment for the Arts, and Americans for the Arts)

For more info ...VISIT AMERICANSFORTHEARTS.ORG

Arts Education Partnerships-Downloads of Studies are located at: www.aep-arts.org

Arts @ Large-Best Practices Handbook