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.
The Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association, using a three-year grant from Hewlett Packard in 2001, has created the Tribal Digital Village (TDV). Using a high-performance wireless backbone, the TDV project delivers wireless broadband to community centers, fire stations, sheriff substations, Tribal administration buildings, and Tribal libraries in-and-around eighteen tribal reservations. This long-distance, point-to-point, wireless system is ideally suited to the geographically diverse area that required coverage.
Read More...2005, 28 pages. California Alliance for Arts Education, 495 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA, 91191, 626-578-9315.
This briefing paper describes the benefits of arts learning for all students, current policies in the state of California and nationwide supporting arts education in public schools, and current implementation practices affecting access and equity. It also offers policy recommendations.
Read More...2005, 148 pages. Appalachian Education Initiative , 111 High Street, Morgantown, WV, 26505, 304-225-0101.
This report is a comprehensive survey assessing the status of arts education in West Virginia's public schools and communities, and was designed to provide public officials and educators with baseline data about arts education in the state.
Read More...For those of us who are passionate about the arts, it has been disheartening to see so many schools cut back on arts education. I am happy to report on a new initiative by the American Architectural Foundation that hopes to boost interest in teaching kids about architecture and design.
Read More...2004, 180 pages, ISBN 0-325-00603-2. Heinemann, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. 361 Hanover Street, Portsmouth, NH, 03801-3912, 603-431-7894, www.heinemann.com
Directed toward educators and school administrators, this book outlines how the integration of arts-based instruction can create breakthrough educational moments in and out of the classroom, and provides practical real-world experience to guide teachers and administrators around problems that can derail the best-planned reform efforts.
Read More...2004, 152 pages, Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College Chicago
Read More...2004, 88 pages, IBSN 0-8330-3650-5. Published by the RAND Corporation, 1700 Main Street, PO Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA, 90407-2138, 310-451-7002, www.rand.org
Download Report: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9058/
Read More...2004, 34 pages. Published by Arts Education Partnership, One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC, 20001-1431, http://www.aep-arts.org
Download pdf: http://aep-arts.org/files/publications/OpportunitiesResearch.pdf
February 2003, 48 pages. Published by Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, Box 1985, Providence, RI, 02912, www.annenberginstitute.org, www.annenberginstitute.org/challenge/
Download .pdf: http://www.annenberginstitute.org/challenge/pubs/Arts_Challenge.pdf
March 2004, 40 pages. Published by The American Assembly, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 456, New York, NY, 10115, 212- 870-3500, www.americanassembly.org
This summary of proceedings from the 104th American Assembly, organized by Alberta Arthurs and Sandra Gibson, focuses on the multiple ways the academy and the performing arts relate to and reinforce each other.
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