From: Hammond, Judy <jhammond@ceo.lacounty.gov>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 12:53 PM
Subject: L.A. County's Arts for All cited as one of three top collaborative approaches to revitalizing arts education in RAND report release today
To: "Hammond, Judy" <jhammond@ceo.lacounty.gov>
Contact:
Linda Chiavaroli, Director of Communications, L.A. County Arts Commission,
213 202-5935 (office), 323 810-9240 (cell), lchiavaroli@arts.lacounty.org
FOR RELEASE
1:30 p.m. EDT/ 10:30 a.m. PDT Wednesday
June 18, 2008
LOS ANGELES COUNTY'S ARTS FOR ALL INITIATIVE
CITED AS ONE OF THREE TOP COLLABORATIVE APPROACHES NATIONWIDE
IN RAND STUDY ON REVITALIZING ARTS EDUCATION
Los Angeles County's 10-year initiative to return comprehensive, sequential arts education to all 80 of the County's school districts has been recognized as a national model in a RAND Corporation study released today. The study, "Revitalizing Arts Education Through Community-Wide Coordination," cites Arts for All as an outstanding example of "how organizations that pool resources and coordinate activities can make it possible for more children to benefit from arts learning." Leadership is identified as a key factor in the success of such efforts and the study underscores Arts for All's setting of standards for collaborative approaches and particularly its success in garnering community-wide support for the initiative.
Among the key partners in the initiative, helmed by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, are the Music Center, the California Alliance for Arts Education, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros. Entertainment and The Getty Foundation. (A complete list of the Arts for All Executive Committee and funders is at the end of this release.)
Since 2002, when the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors adopted Arts for All, the initiative has made great strides:
- Arts for All is now at work in 28 of the County's 80 school districts, representing 410,066 K-12 public school students or 40% of the County's public school population minus the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has its own arts education initiative launched prior to Arts forAll.
- 16 of the districts now have arts coordinators at the district level, one of the five critical success factors for arts education for all students in a district
- Arts for All, through coordination with the school districts, leveraged the historic arts education allocations from the state of California in 2006-07 and 2007-08 to expand and deepen the work of the initiative. Nine districts joined the program in 2007-08 as compared to four the previous school year. Districts that were already part of Arts for All were able to accelerate the implementation of key strategies.
Los Angeles County was one of six initiatives in the country examined in the study; the others were in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York City and Alameda County in Northern California. Los Angeles County's initiative is the largest in number of students and schools (p. 26 of the report) and the only one driven by a local arts agency.
The study highlights Los Angeles, Alameda, and Dallas as the three case studies that "deliberately combined several strategies, especially in their attempts to improve access." They all "conducted audits, set a goal of access for all, developed strategic plans, made a case for arts education and advocated for the arts… these activities complement each other well and are more powerful in combination than in isolation" (p. 77).
The study was commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and conducted by RAND, a non-profit research organization. The complete study is available at www.rand.org.
More information about the Arts Commission and Arts for All may be found at www.lacountyarts.org.
###
ARTS FOR ALL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Janice Pober, Senior Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Dr. Darline P. Robles, Superintendent, Los Angeles County Schools
Laurie Schell, Executive Director, California Alliance for Arts Education
Mark Slavkin, Vice President of Education, Music Center
Gail Tierney, Senior Deputy, Supervisor Don Knabe
Hope Warschaw, Commissioner, Los Angeles County Arts Commission
Laura Zucker, Executive Director, Los Angeles County Arts Commission
2007-08 Pooled Fund members: Boeing, The Angell Foundation, The Getty Foundation, The Jewish Community Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, Sony Pictures Entertainment, The Target Corporation, Warner Bros. Entertainment; Targeted Funding Partners: The Dana Foundation, Los Angeles County Arts Commission, The Herb Alpert Foundation; the National Endowment for Arts; Previous members: Creative Artists Agency, Entertainment Industry Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Thelma Pearl Howard Foundation.
The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, Laura Zucker, Executive Director, provides leadership in cultural services of all disciplines for the largest county in the United States, encompassing 88 municipalities. The Arts Commission, in addition to providing leadership and staffing to support the regional blueprint for arts education, Arts for All, administers a grants program that funds more than 300 nonprofit arts organizations annually; oversees the County's Civic Art Program for capital projects, funds the largest arts internship program in the country in conjunction with the Getty Foundation, programs the John Anson Ford Theatres and supports the Los Angeles County Cultural Calendar on ExperienceLA.com. The Commission also produces free community programs, including the L.A. Holiday Celebration broadcast nationally, and a year-round music program that funds more than 50 free concerts each year in public sites. The 2008-09 President of the Arts Commission is Betty Haagen.
--
Michael Higby
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment