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Education's pendelum: Thinkers or test takers?
Posted on July 15, 2012 by Steve

From the Los Angeles Times editorial page:

Aiming higher on academics shouldn't have to mean leaving deeper or more open-ended thinking skills behind. No one in the American school reform movement ever told teachers they had to abandon their own creative instructional skills or drop critical-thinking lessons from the school day, but the relentless emphasis on covering tested material obviously pushed them in that direction.

Read the full article

NEA Announces 2012 Our Town Grant Recipients
Posted on July 13, 2012 by Steve

The National Endowment for the Arts yesterday announced 80 Our Town grant awards representing the NEA's latest investment in creative placemaking, totaling $4.995 million and reaching 44 states and the District of Columbia. Combined with grants from 2011, the NEA has invested $11.58 million in Our Town projects in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In Australia, Education Takes Dramatic New Course
Posted on July 11, 2012 by Steve

From Bianca Hall at The Age:

For the first time, all Australian students will study dance, drama, media arts, music and the visual arts until year 10, under a draft new national curriculum released yesterday.
Twelve Greater Boston Organizations Receive $650,000 for “Culture for Change”
Posted on July 10, 2012 by Steve

The Boston Foundation and the Barr Foundation today announced that twelve organizations will share $650,000 in grants to begin a new phase of Culture for Change. The program, originally piloted in 2008 by the Barr Foundation, is a unique approach to out-of-school time youth development. Centering on partnerships between professional artists and youth workers, Culture for Change enables youth to build fluency in an art form while both exploring and taking leadership on issues of racial justice that are of importance to them.

Are Bricks and Mortar the Best Use for Money in the Arts?
Posted on July 10, 2012 by Steve

From Elizabeth Quaglieri at Technology in the Arts:

On Thursday, the University of Chicago’s Cultural Policy Center released the report, “Set in Stone: Building America’s New Generation of Arts Facilities, 1994-2008.” The research examines the boom of major cultural building projects (museum, performing arts centers, and theaters) between 1998 and 2004, specifically looking at the decade between 1990 and 2000. The findings indicate during that period, “the level of investment in bricks and mortar as a percentage of total revenue and assets was disproportionate.”
Montana Arts Council Reports on Arts and Healthcare Survey
Posted on July 10, 2012 by Steve

The Montana Arts Council embarked on an online survey project to inventory the state of the arts and healthcare in Montana to determine where that state's technical and financial assistance might best be directed. MAC has surveyed artists, arts organizations, medical direct-care providers and administrators of healthcare settings separately. You can download and review the executive summary for the survey here.

When did being pro-artist make one anti-institution?
Posted on July 5, 2012 by Steve

From Diane Ragsdale on her Jumper blog:

I attended the Theatre Communications Group conference in Boston a couple weeks ago. On the first day of the conference Michael Maso, managing director of the Huntington Theatre, was presented with an award recognizing his contributions to the American theater. Towards the end of a humorous and lovely acceptance speech, Maso switched gears and used the opportunity to share thoughts on those that would question the priorities and processes of large institutional theaters.
Growing Up and Living in a Creative Economy
Posted on July 5, 2012 by Steve

From Soren Peterson at The Huffington Post:

Developing creative individuals takes a society that values and promotes curious, proactive qualities, interdependence, responsibility and accountability. The process of building these well-rounded citizens starts with kindergarten and continues throughout life, constantly disseminating and transferring learning to the next generation.
Archives of American Art Receives Grant from Samuel H. Kress Foundation
Posted on July 3, 2012 by Steve

The Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art has been awarded $100,000 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation’s Digital Resources grant program to support a project to preserve, arrange and create Web-searchable online electronic finding aids for 10 archival collections that are central to provenance research for the history of art during World War II.

SnaapShot Updates with 2011 Data
Posted on June 30, 2012 by Steve

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP), an annual online survey, data management, and institutional improvement system out of Indiana University, and a program designed to enhance the impact of arts-school education, has produced a nicely visualized online resource for the data collected in 2011. The data comes from 33,801 respondents to the SNAAP survey, and shows information on the degrees received, their current occupation, income, and debt, among other things. See the SnaapShot here.