Arts Education
Grantmakers in the Arts holds arts education as one of its core funding focus areas. GIA is committed to invigorate funding and support for arts education within federal policy and defend that every resident has access to the arts as part of a well-rounded, life-long education. In 2012, GIA formed the Arts Education Funders Coalition (AEFC), an interest group within GIA, to address identified needs in comprehensive arts education and to strengthen communication and networking among arts education funders. Advised by a committee of Coalition members, GIA engaged the services of Washington, DC-based Penn Hill Group, a firm with education policy expertise and experience working with diverse education groups to research, develop, and promote educational policy strategies.
Most recently, GIA worked with Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) on the development of the Arts Education for All Act, the broadest arts education policy bill ever introduced in Congress.
In Spring 2021, GIA influenced the U.S. Department of Education to highlight the importance of equitable access to arts and culture to the process of reopening schools and to make explicit how racialized this access was prior to the pandemic and that addressing this inequity is essential to effective reopening.
Grantmakers in the Arts is delighted that in 2020 Congress passed the Supporting Older Americans Act, including our recommendations that the Administration on Aging include the arts in the issues to be identified and addressed and be included among supportive services for older Americans.
GIA has successfully lobbied to include arts-related provisions in the Child Care for Working Families Act, which proposes to better help low-income families pay for childcare and expand high-quality state preschool options.
GIA is extremely proud of our work over the past several years on raising the visibility of the arts in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in its legislative form. GIA and Penn Hill Group continue these advocacy efforts around the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), guiding GIA members and their grantees in advocating for new or expanded arts programs at their local schools and districts.
On January 21, 2015 the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held the first of a series of hearings regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), focusing on the subjects of testing and accountability. You can view the webcast of the hearing.
Key Issues Discussed:
The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is looking to hire a talented Head of School/Design Team Leader. CMSD is re-opening next fall in a new, state-of-the-art building in the University Circle neighborhood of Cleveland. Currently a 6–12 school, the redesigned Cleveland School of the Arts will transition to a high school, with grades 7–12 in the 2015-16 school year, grades 8–12 in the 2016-17 school year, and grades 9–12 thereafter. This is an opportunity for the Head of School to position the school as a model of excellence and innovation in that community.
Andrea Shea from Boston's The ARTery reports:
At the same time that school music programs across the country are being downsized due to budget cuts, there’s one intensive music-education program that’s growing. And now Massachusetts has become the first state in the country to set aside funding for the Venezuelan-born effort known as El Sistema.
October 2014, 10 pages. Arts Education Partnership, One Massachusetts Avenue NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20001. www.aep-arts.org.
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Read More...Anthony Mazzocchi is former Director of Fine and Performing Arts for the South Orange/Maplewood School District, where he launched one of the first K-4 Suzuki Violin programs in New Jersey. During his stay, the district was designated “One of the Best Communities for Music Education” by the NAMM Association, and he was nominated for the first ever GRAMMY Music Educator Award by the GRAMMY Foundation. He posts here to The Village Green of Maplewood and South Orange:
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded $13.4 million to 34 organizations to help arts educators grow and improve arts instruction, and share effective models of arts in education that support student achievement in the arts and other areas.
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Full briefing notes (257 Kb)
On September 15, 2014, Success for All Foundation, the KIPP Foundation, Reading Recovery, and Teach for America convened a briefing and panel to discuss Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) grantees’ successes and difficulties since receiving i3 scale-up grants to expand their programs.
GIA, on behalf of the Arts Education Funders Coalition, commented on how arts education and the arts generally could be better infused into a number of the priorities proposed by the Department of Education. DoE will now consider our comments as well as other public comments in fashioning final priorities to be used for its discretionary grant programs.
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