Arts Education for All

Gerri Spilka and Meg LongThe OMG Center for Collaborative Learning

Lessons from the First Half of the Ford Foundation’sNational Arts Education Initiative

THE OMG EVALUATION TEAM IS GRATEFUL TO THE FORD FOUNDATION, particularly to Cyrus Driver, DeputyDirector for Education and Scholarship and Margaret Wilkerson, former Vice President for Knowledge, Creativity,and Freedom for their commitment to equity and social justice, quality education, and the arts. Their passionand leadership created the conditions for all of us to explore how to make arts learning central to high qualityeducation for all children.We also thank all of the leaders and partners in the nine grantee organizations and the communities in which

they work. We remain grateful to them for welcoming us, for the frank and open-hearted discussions, and forremaining focused on our shared work through successes and set-backs. Specifically, we are grateful toPaul Ammon, Gigi Antoni, Mark Cross, Marsha Dobrzynski, Carolyn Jolivette, Varissa McMickens, Louise Music,Erin Offord, Stephanie Riven, Andrea Temkin, Pat Teske, Joanne Toft, Joan Webber, and Susan Womack.We are thankful for the specific talents and skills of those supporting the work. Notably, we thank Sandra

Ruppert, Executive Director, Dick Deasy, former Executive Director, Andrew Nelson, and Hollis Headrick of theArts Education Partnership. Also, we wish to thank the skillful communications team at Douglas Gould andCompany, Douglas Gould, President, Jennifer Hahn, Janine Compitello, and Patty Armetta Haubner. You have allbeen outstanding thought partners, travel companions, and contributors to our shared thinking throughout.Thanks, too, to Mindy Levine for her masterful editing of this report.And lastly, we thank the full OMG team whose talents, passions, and commitment to advance learning make

evaluation a shared, positive experience for all involved. Thank you Vivian Figueredo, Project Manager,Emily Byrne, Elena Tamanas, Sarah Singer, Shawn Mooring, and Chetna Patel.

Gerri Spilka, Executive Director, OMG CenterMeg Long, Project Director, OMG Center

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THIS MONOGRAPH 3

INTRODUCTION: ARTS EDUCATION FOR ALL 4

INITIATIVE OVERVIEW: STRUCTURE AND PARTICIPANTS 6

MOBILIZING FOR ACTION: THE THEORY OF CHANGE 10

PROGRESS, CHALLENGES, AND LESSONS LEARNED 12

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS 22

APPENDICES 25

Some Ideas Underpinning the Initiative’s Theory of Change 26

Highlights of Strategic Communications Technical Assistance 31

As arts educators build strong programs,they must also develop relatedpolitical-advocacy, partnership-building,and strategic-communication skills.

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About this Monograph

N 2004, THE FORD FOUNDATION launched theNational Arts Education Initiative — a bold andforward-looking effort to address issues of equityand access in arts education. The initiative

advances a new and significant framework for achievingthe goal of increasing access to quality integrated artseducation for all children.In its underlying strategic approach, the Ford initia-

tive charts important new ground. It proposes that asarts educators build strong programs, they must alsodevelop related political-advocacy, partnership-building,and strategic-communication skills. Through thisprocess, they strengthen their capacity to catalyzepublic demand and policy momentum for the kinds ofsystemic changes that are essential if arts education isto flourish broadly and equitably — across communitiesand across the nation.Through the work of the nine grantees that are being

supported through the National Arts EducationInitiative, and several national partner organizations thatare assisting them, important findings are emergingconcerning the successes and challenges involved inmobilizing for the type of change and action that isenvisioned by the National Arts Education Initiative.This monograph covers roughly the first half (2004 –

2007) of the Ford Foundation’s National Arts EducationInitiative. The initiative is now in its final phases and isscheduled to conclude in 2011. The OMG Center forCollaborative Learning intends to produce a final reportfor the field thereafter, examining outcomes, successes,and lessons learned across the initiative’s lifespan.The monograph that follows aims to share more

broadly with the field — including arts educators, funders,policymakers, artists, educators, and others — importantlearning that is emerging from the National ArtsEducation Initiative. Based on an internal evaluation ofthe initiative’s first phase, conducted from Spring 2004through Spring 2008 by the OMG Center forCollaborative Learning, this monograph will likely be ofinterest to those invested in issues of educational quality,arts learning, equity considerations, and systemschange. It includes: a discussion of the philosophicaland strategic underpinnings of the initiative; an overviewof field trends and contexts; a synthesis of relevant liter-ature from the fields of arts education, political science,and other sectors; a discussion of various successesand challenges faced by initiative participants as theywork to strengthen programs and mobilize constituen-cies; and illuminating case studies that bring to life

efforts of practitioners to reform education within theirlocal communities.Directly and indirectly, the monograph examines such

important questions as: In an initiative of this magnitudeand scope, how can consensus be reached amongdiverse participants as to the identification and bench-marking of progress toward goals? What constitutes“readiness” to take on the challenges of partnershipbuilding, advocacy, and strategic communications toadvance arts education for all? In the volatile and oftenpolitically-charged context of local school systems, howdo organizations respond to and ready themselves forinevitable leadership changes? What are the linksbetween data collection, evaluation, and effectiveadvocacy? What innovative strategies are emerging forinvesting parents in arts education advocacy? Whatissues and themes are proving to be especially effectiveand resonant in mobilizing community interest in artseducation?Ford launched the National Arts Education Initiative

with the recognition that the long-term building of coor-dinated arts and education program delivery systemsfor all children requires significantly more public andprivate resources. Thus, for this initiative, Ford’s primaryintention is to demonstrate how communities build localpublic will for expanded and systemic approaches toarts and education, with a focus on two key areas:partnership building, and strategic communication andadvocacy. For it is only through increased public willand market demand that more public and privateresources can flow towards arts education. Moredollars will allow successful arts and education pilots toscale up and achieve greater reach. In support of publicwill-building and advocacy, the initiative also seeks tohelp locales learn how to prepare and build their artsand education delivery systems for broader impact.Additionally, Ford anticipates that the initiative can

contribute substantially to the national debate aboutwhat constitutes quality education. Through thismonograph, and other information disseminationstrategies, it is hoped that a widening circle of citizenswill be galvanized to work systemically for the importantgoal of quality arts education for all children.

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Introduction: Arts Education for All

THE CONTEXT FOR CHANGEEducating the Whole Child: In the last decade, ashigh-stakes testing in math and reading has dominatednational educational improvement efforts under theNo Child Left Behind act, the Ford Foundation hasremained steadfast in its belief that quality educationought to develop the whole child, cultivating knowledgebuilding in a range of disciplines and through multiplelearning modalities. Intending to reintroduce educationof the whole child into national discussions about qualityeducation, the Ford Foundation in 2004 launched ademonstration project, the Ford Foundation’s NationalArts Education Initiative. The central aim of the initiativeis to increase access to quality integrated arts educa-tion for all K-8 students in the U.S.

From Fragmentation to Coordination: As manyhave recently observed,1 few cities have well-developedand coordinated arts and education delivery systems.Rather, communities more typically are characterized ashaving arts education programs that are fragmented,uncoordinated pilots, targeted to a subset of schools.The pilots are usually supported by soft dollars and runby an array of private, nonprofit brokers and arts andculture organizations in partnership with public schooldistricts. In its underlying approach, the FordFoundation’s National Arts Education Initiativerecognizes that the long-term building of coordinatedand equitable arts and delivery systems necessitatesmore resources, both public and private; these cannotbe leveraged in the absence of building public willand policy commitment for expanded and systemicapproaches to arts and education.

Policy and Practice: The planning phase of theinitiative coincided with a period when there had beenimportant progress toward advancing arts educationwithin the public school arena. The enactment in themid-1990s of Goals 2000: Educate America Act, whichasserted the arts as core disciplines, propelled manystates to adopt or develop their own arts educationstandards. With this, the arts were educationally validated

and the bar was raised for quality pedagogy. Althoughthe formulation of arts education standards wascelebrated as a policy victory, practice unfortunatelyhad yet to catch up. Adequate arts education financing,teaching infrastructure, and effective and appropriateassessments remained to be developed.

Emerging Models: During this same time, there wasincreased recognition of the functional value of artspartnership programs in developing and delivering high-quality arts instruction. In this widely-heralded partner-ship model, a lead organization works outside theschool district and operates as a bridge and facilitatoramong the teaching artists, the arts and culture com-munity, and public schools to deliver arts education inmultiple disciplines (i.e. visual arts, music, theater,dance, creative writing, and media arts) duringin-school time to public school students. Several cities,including Dallas, Chicago, and New York City havebenefited from extraordinary arts partnership programs.In these cases, school penetration of arts programminggrew significantly. Nonetheless, even in these citieswhere public school districts were partners, andat times financial partners, the burden of deliveryremained on nonprofit and foundation dollars.

Equity and Access: No matter what their scale, thesearts partnerships did not have the resources to reach allchildren with quality arts education. In many locales,reliant on soft funding, arts partnerships remainedfragile and provided programming to schools in whichchampions pursued them. Many schools and many chil-dren remained untouched, particularly in lower-incomecommunities. Thus, no matter how the arts partnershipsgrew, they remained demonstration programs.

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PLANNING THE INITIATIVEArts education as part of quality education for allchildren was therefore an ultimate goal of the initiative.In Ford’s planning, initiative designers realized thatcreating equity and the scaling up of arts integrationdemonstrations would require buy-in and collaborationfrom those working in the arts and education fields aswell as others who influence policy-making decisions.Ford, with its long history of philanthropic support forprogram innovation, recognized that equity and broadaccess to arts education could not be achieved inthe absence of public dollars to support the exemplarypractices that foundation dollars demonstrate.

Partnership and Strategic Communications: Theoverall design of the initiative reflects Ford’s under-standing that arts education policy is the result ofdecisions made by local school district leaders, as wellas multiple interest groups working through an alignedcoalition to inform and at times pressure these deci-sion-makers. To advance local arts education policies,therefore, grantees would need to be able to sway localeducation policy influentials, or “grass tops,” and alsomarshal more “grassroots” coalitions, comprised of avariety of stakeholders interested in youth andeducation issues.For the National Arts Education Initiative, Ford antici-

pated that a partnership of arts and education champi-ons representing arts and culture organizations, schooldistricts, community and youth organizations, as well asparents, would be the lead drivers of local arts andeducation reform. On the local and national levels, theinitiative supports targeted and well-developed strategiccommunication efforts — for example, conductingaudience research, identifying core messages toinfluence various targeted audiences, and developingand implementing effective communications campaigns— as central elements in buttressing and advancingthese initiative advocacy goals.

A Focus on Integrated Arts: While firmly committedto the value of the arts as discrete disciplines (“learningin the arts”), Ford’s strategic emphasis for this initiativehas been on the arts as effective tools (“learningthrough the arts”). Ford’s interest in integrated artseducation follows an emerging body of literature thatpoints to the arts as effective tools for studentlearning.2 Ford’s commitment to arts education is alsogrounded in the foundation’s belief, supported byresearch, that arts in education can affirm multiculturalidentity, motivate and engage students in learning byproviding varied entry points to learn other subjects,3

and lead to improved student outcomes in otherdisciplines.The initiative’s integrated arts emphasis is also rooted

in the reality that within most urban school days thereare many competing subjects and demands; adding yetanother could be too logistically challenging for schools.Further, many urban schools have no arts at all,therefore, integration was deemed more practical as anintroductory approach.

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It is only through increased public will and marketdemand that more public and private dollars can flowtowards arts education.

1 See, for example: the Rand Corporation’s report, Revitalizing Arts through Community Wide Collaboration, April, 2008.

2 See for example: James Catterall, “Involvement in the Arts and Success in Secondary School,” Americans for the Arts Monographs, 1998, 1(9), Washington, DC;Palmer Wolf, “Why the Arts Matter in Education Or Just What Do Children Learn When They Create an Opera?” Champions of Change, The Arts Education Partnership andthe President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, Washington, DC 1999.

3 See, for example: Howard Gardner. Frames of Mind: A Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Basic Books, New York. 1989.

Initiative Overview: Structure and Participants

To carry forth its ambitious agenda, the Ford Foundationcreated a multi-dimensional, long-term initiative, bring-ing together diverse grantees with varying approachesto and experiences with arts education programming,partnership building, and advocacy efforts. Key designelements of the initiative are highlighted below:

INITIATIVE DESIGN AND STRUCTURE

• Multi-year financial support to nine grantees, representingdiversity of geographic locale, expertise and history ofdeveloping arts and education programming, organizationalstructure, and other factors. The nine grantees are: Alliancefor Arts Learning Leadership (housed with the AlamedaCounty Office of Education), Alameda County, CA; Arts EveryDay, Baltimore, MD; Arts Education Initiative (housed withinthe University of California—UC Berkeley Graduate School ofEducation), Berkeley, CA; Art is Education (led by YoungAudiences of Northeast Cleveland), Cleveland, OH; BigThought, Dallas, TX; Ask for More Arts (housed withinParents for Public Schools), Jackson, MS; Interchange(housed within the Center of Creative Arts), St. Louis, MO; andDC Arts and Humanities Collaborative, Washington, DC. In2007, Arts for Academic Achievement (housed within theMinneapolis Public Schools), Minneapolis, MN was added.

• Participation of three organizational collaborators withexpertise in arts education technical assistance, strategiccommunications, and evaluation and partnership building.These organizational participants include the Arts EducationPartnership, Douglas Gould and Company, and theOMG Center for Collaborative Learning.

• Bi-yearly convenings of grantees to foster communication,build networks, share emerging best practices, and provide acoordinated mechanism for the delivery of technical assistance.

• Individually-focused technical assistance to the granteesprovided by the Arts Education Partnership, Doug Gould andCompany, and a team of other specified consultants.

THE GRANTEESAppropriately for a pilot strategy, the Ford Foundationselected a diverse set of grantees to lead the work ofdemonstrating how different types of organizations takeon arts education systems-building and policy-changework. The sites vary geographically, in arts and educa-tion reform know-how, organizational capacity, andexperience in leading arts and education advocacy andsystems-building work. They range from organizationswith multi-million dollar budgets that have beeninvolved with arts-related systems change work for overa decade to start-up organizations with limited artseducation programming experience. This diversity hasled to fruitful dialogue among initiative participants andyielded important lessons about different ways organi-zations and leaders mobilize for change in light of localcontexts. A summary of each grantee’s core programsand capacities can be found at the end of this section.For the purpose of the analysis that follows, the sites

may be broadly categorized as:

• “advanced” — already engaged in the type ofpartnership building and strategic communicationschampioned by the initiative (for example, Dallas,Alameda, and Minneapolis);

• “developing” — possessing arts education programexperience, but more limited partnership and policy-influencing experience (for example, Cleveland);

• “emerging” — exhibiting exemplary work in discreteareas, but facing knowledge and experience gaps inthe arts and education field (for example, Jackson,St. Louis, Washington, and Berkeley); and

• “start up” — newly engaged with arts education issuesand programs (for example, Baltimore).

Not surprisingly, and as will be further discussed inthe pages that follow, based on their prior history ofdeveloping and implementing arts education programs,grantees evidenced varying levels of readiness in termsof understanding the core goals of the initiative,developing targeted strategies to achieve those goals,and engaging in necessary capacity building. However,all have come to embrace the conviction that moresystemic and equitable approaches to arts educationwill require significant shifts in public educationpolicies, and the coordination of arts educationprogramming and advocacy agendas across an arrayof public and private providers and funders.

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THE ROLE OF THE FORD FOUNDATIONTo date, the Ford Foundation has played a pivotal role inthis initiative, not just as a funder, but also as an advo-cate for arts education, particularly with those audi-ences not historically engaged in arts education, includ-ing education philanthropists and parent advocates foreducation reform. The Foundation also played a key roleas technical assistance provider to the sites, workingwith local funders and policymakers to build support forthe grantee work.During start-up, the Ford Foundation provided plan-

ning funds to organizations to develop their ideas andtheir strategies for this work. Also during this time, thefoundation began connecting grantees to one anotherto begin building a national peer-to-peer learning network.The foundation made suggestions to grantees to visitother more advanced programs across the country andit also convened grantees to meet in New York City toshare early progress and reflect on an initiative-wideTheory of Change (described in the next section of thisdocument).In this first implementation phase, Ford support

(yearly allocations of $125,000–$150,000 per grantee,which later rose to $175,000–$200,000) allowedgrantees to hire dedicated staff to lead this work, beginto convene partners, make the case for arts learningwith key policymakers, leverage local funding opportuni-ties, and build local coalitions. In some locales where

no prior integrated arts programs existed, Ford dollarswere also used to contribute to start-up programs.Given the scale of Ford resources and the primacy ofthe advocacy intention, these new programs quicklyrequired greater local investments. Foundation staffplayed an important role with the philanthropic commu-nity as an advocate and a convener of grantmakers ineducation and in the arts to discuss and advance oppor-tunities for joint arts and education funding strategies.

PARTNER ORGANIZATIONSThree national organizations help guide the initiative,provide crucial planning and implementationassistance to grantees, and form a leadership team —working in collaboration with the foundation andgrantees to advance initiative goals:

Technical Assistance: The Arts Education Partnership(AEP) — a national coalition of arts, education, business,philanthropic, and government organizations—functionsas the technical assistance provider to the Ford sites.As the technical assistance providers, the AEP team ischarged with providing individualized technical assis-tance to the sites and with creating networking andlearning opportunities for the nine grantees as a whole.For the individualized grantee technical assistance,

AEP provides peer-to-peer assistance; external

The National Arts Education Initiative anticipates that apartnership of arts and education champions representingarts and culture organizations, school districts, communityand youth organizations, as well as parents, will be thelead driver of local arts and education reform.

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assistance from arts education specialists to grantees;arts education knowledge-building at national ArtsEducation Partnership meetings, as well as twice-yearly,initiative-wide meetings; and direct, specific AEP staffassistance as needed. AEP also provides grantees withfunding to support targeted travel to meetings thatstrengthen grantee capacity to address initiative goals.

Strategic Communications: From the outset of theinitiative, the Ford Foundation engaged Douglas Gouldand Company (DGC), a communications firm located inthe New York City region, to provide national andsite-specific communications support for the initiative.The five-member DGC team has worked on a variety ofcommunications and research activities to identify keymessages to frame the initiative for advocacy work.Early on, DGC conducted national research includingpublic opinion polls about arts education. Using theresearch findings, DGC created a series of messagingplatforms for arts education, which linked problemidentification with suggested action steps, and includedtargeted approaches that would be especially resonantwith specific stakeholders. (See Appendix B formore details.)DGC has led site-based and on-line workshops to

help grantees develop advocacy and communicationsstrategies to mobilize arts active parents and other artsadvocates. These workshops build off web-based toolsand training guides, including media toolkits, lettertemplates that constituencies can personalize to lobbylocal decision-makers, campaign strategy hints, andother resources to encourage action by targeted artsadvocates. Also, DGC has created a website(www.keepartsintheschools.org), an information portalthat supports the work of the nine Ford grantees andalso provides interactive content for a national audienceabout how to engage in arts education advocacy.

Evaluation: As initiative evaluator, the OMG Center forCollaborative Learning has placed emphasis onformative progress during the initiative’s first phase —developing a capacity framework for the initiative(see next section), and developing initiative-wide andsite-specific benchmarks to assess progress towardsgoals and guide grantee activity. In addition, OMG iscollecting quantitative and qualitative data to trackoutcomes over the short- and long-term.

Reflective Practice in Action: As the “Ford Arts EdTeam,” the Ford Foundation, the Arts EducationPartnership, Douglas Gould and Company, and OMGengage in ongoing communication, regular conferencecalls, and annual meetings to guide initiative work. Thesupport team has also participated in joint site visitsto insure that the sites had clarity about the respectiveroles of team members, and to present the work ofthe initiative in a unified way. In turn, the team visitsalso helped with building a shared understandingof site issues related to capacity, leadership, and localcontexts. The Ford team has used the initiative-wideTheory of Change to frame the larger goals of theinitiative and the site-specific action steps necessaryto achieve them.

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NATIONAL ARTS EDUCATION INITIATIVE GRANTEES1

Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership, housed within theAlameda County Office of Education (Alameda County, CA) —Decade-old, county-wide community partnership facilitated byCounty Office of Education leaders. Provides professional devel-opment; technical assistance to districts and schools for thedevelopment and implementation of district arts plans; andmakes grants for school-based arts programs. Organizationalbudget exceeds $14 million; project budget, $754,000.

Arts Every Day (Baltimore, MD) — Start-up arts education bro-ker. Promotes information sharing and coordination of existingarts education programs and resources for Baltimore publicschools. Initial programming focus on brokering pilot middle-school arts-integrated lesson plans through shared teachingartist and classroom teacher sessions in 13 classrooms.Organizational budget, $300,000.

Arts Education Initiative, housed within the University ofCalifornia — UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education (Berkeley,CA) — Newly formed partnership of six higher education institu-tions’ professional education departments. Piloting arts integratedcurriculum planning and instruction for new teachers and schoolleaders. Limited arts education experience at initiative’scommencement. Project budget, $175,000.

Art is Education, led by Young Audiences of Northeast Ohio(Cleveland, OH) — Arts education partnership broker. Pilotingthird-grade arts integrated literacy curricula and correspondingprofessional development strategies with the school district.Organizational budget, $1.7 million; project budget, $248,000.

Big Thought (Dallas, TX) — Fifteen-year old, city-wide communitypartnership and arts education broker. Coordinates arts educa-tion resources and services across 70 school districts, citylibraries, childcare, recreation, and community centers. Providesarts advocacy and research services. Organizational budget,$4.1 million; project budget, $364,000.

Ask for More Arts, housed within Parents for Public Schools(Jackson, MS) — Parent organizing and education advocacyorganization. Piloting classroom-based arts integrated lessonplans and teacher professional development in Jackson publicschools. Limited arts education experience at initiative’scommencement. Organizational budget, $377,000; projectbudget, $150,000.

Arts for Academic Achievement, housed within theMinneapolis Public Schools (Minneapolis, MN) — Arts educationdepartment and teaching artist broker for public schools. Providesprofessional development institutes; arts integrated coaching forclassroom teachers; and links teaching artists to area schools.Organizational budget, $6.2 million; project budget, $1.2 million.

Interchange, housed within Center of Creative Arts (St. Louis,MO) — Start-up arts education provider and broker. Piloting artsintegrated classes in five schools; developing teaching artist andteacher professional development; and testing early arts educationadvocacy efforts. Organizational budget, $4.3 million; projectbudget, $270,000.

DC Arts and Humanities Collaborative (Washington, DC) —Membership arts broker organization. Piloting arts integratedlesson plans in six schools and providing related professionaldevelopment for classroom teachers. Organizational budget,$480,000; project budget, $150,000.

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1 All budget numbers are for FY 2007. Organizational and project budgets are estimates based on submitted proposals.

From the outset of the National Arts EducationInitiative, a key challenge for participants was to trans-late the initiative’s ambitious and far-reaching goals intoa concrete frame of work and action steps. While theconcepts of working towards partnership building andadvocacy were understood conceptually, they were tosome degree an abstraction for many of the grantees,especially those who had limited prior experience oper-ating in this realm. This is not an unusual circumstancefor any initiative that charts ambitious new ground inresponse to persistent field challenges.

DEVELOPING A “THEORY OF CHANGE”With an understanding that there needed to be collec-tive understanding and buy-in for the initiative’s agenda,as well as a clear articulation of benchmarks as to howit would be achieved, OMG engaged the FordFoundation staff, its technical advisors, and grantees ina Theory of Change (TOC) process. This work clarifiedexpectations and built a shared, explicit understandingamong all key initiative stakeholders of how the initia-tive was actually expected to work, while also allowingadaptation to different contexts in which it was beingimplemented.The initiative-wide Theory of Change has proved to be

an effective planning tool for all participants, and hasguided the evaluation methodology. In addition to theinitiative-wide Theory of Change, OMG also developedindividual site TOC’s to identify how each site’s uniqueprocess and set of outcomes might evolve.The Theory of Change identified four capacity

areas and indicators of success in each one:

• Grantee leadership: Increase grantee capacity tosupport the Ford arts and education work, asevidenced by increased organizational capacity andleadership to carry out the policy-change agenda.

Assessment Indicators: Vision and understanding of arts andeducation reform; respected as community leader in arts andeducation; organizational capacity as evidenced by designatedstaff and data collection capabilities; policy entrepreneur skills(including ability to reframe issues within an educational policyframework and build policy networks).

• Partnership leadership: Build local partnerships toshift local policy as evidenced by the establishmentof a sustainable collaboration of educational advocates,arts institutions, and educators; and strengthenedschool district capacities to support and sustain theintegration of the arts.

Assessment Indicators: Shared and articulated vision for thepartnership; diverse and appropriate membership/communitylegitimacy; adequate networks; transparent process andstructure for operations and decision-making; effective formaland informal communication processes; evaluation mechanisms;adequate staff and resources.

• Advocacy and strategic communications: Buildpublic will through advocacy and communicationas evidenced by greater public understanding andsupport for integrated arts education.

Assessment Indicators: Advocacy goal and plan; communica-tion plan including target audiences, specific messaging andtactics, and assigned responsibilities; impact tracking capabilities;sustainable advocacy infrastructure; school district buy-in asevidenced by leadership participation; and increased budget, staff,and professional development allocations.

• Strengthening and scaling arts integrationprogram models: Demonstrate equitable andquality arts education program models that can bebrought to scale as evidenced by observable,wider-spread integration of the arts into classroompractice in district schools.

Assessment Indicators: Theory-based approach;sufficient infrastructure; curriculum (standards-based, sequentialand tied to other content areas); student art production; assess-ment (performance-based/embedded in curriculum); professionaldevelopment.

ADOPTING THE THEORY OF CHANGEIt took more time than expected for many of the granteesto understand the significant role shift required for themto frame and then carry out the advocacy and partner-ship work envisioned by the initiative. Despite present-ing the Theory of Change in the first several months ofthe initiative, there was a learning curve that mostgrantees had to traverse as they moved from a theoreti-cal to a practical understanding of initiative goals andstrategies (described in more detail in the next section).

Mobilizing for Action: The Theory of Change

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Policy entrepreneurs have the skills to identify importantpolicy-change windows, such as shifts in district leadership,and can activate their partners and resources to seizethe policy change opportunity.

Over the course of the initiative’s first phase, granteesmade considerable progress toward achieving initiativegoals. But the trajectory of their activities has variedconsiderably, reflecting both the local conditions inwhich grantees carry out their work and their level ofinstitutional readiness to take on the sophisticated anddemanding work of partnership building and advocacy.At the same time, developments on the national

scene have, in a variety of ways, helped buttress thework of grantees, creating important windows of oppor-tunity for policy advocacy. As several policy-changeresearchers have noted, successful policy change isoften the result of leaders’ ability to mitigate or takeadvantage of “open conditions” or “policy windows.”1

A GROWING CLIMATE OF SUPPORTThe launch of the Ford Foundation’s National ArtsEducation Initiative coincided with a period character-ized by mounting public fatigue with the Bush adminis-tration’s singular focus on high-stakes testing in readingand math, creating a climate of support for a moreexpansive definition of what constitutes quality educa-tion. As work on the initiative progressed, national andlocal discussions on this topic were also fueled by theanticipated reauthorization of the No Child Left Behindact — creating a unique educational policy windowaround which communities and constituencies couldmobilize. Further, communications and opinion pollingwork had begun to shed an important spotlight on cre-ativity and the importance of developing a 21st centuryworkforce that is skilled, innovative, and adaptable — alldocumented outcomes of an arts-integrated education.The work of DGC helped translate some of theseresearch findings into practical tools for grantees.Within the philanthropic community, interest and

commitment to the type of systems-change work beingchampioned by Ford was on the rise, with the Wallace

Funds playing an especially active role in tandem withFord on the national level. At the same time, growingcross-sector funder discussions were underway, someof them initiated by Ford as part of this initiative, aboutpossible joint opportunities to support quality arts andeducation reform initiatives. Additionally, the work ofthe Arts Education Partnership had begun more broadlyto support system-building and policy-changeapproaches to arts and education.2

These national-level developments have influencedthe work of initiative grantees in their cities and localcommunities. In particular, two grantees — Dallas andAlameda County — have benefited from policy environ-ments that show increasing interest in the arts aselements of the core curricula and means for improvingeducation quality. With more than 10 years of artseducation work at a systems level, these sites haverecently experienced concrete and significant policyaccomplishments.

VOLATILE LOCAL CONDITIONSOn a less positive note, another critical environmentalfactor continues to have an impact on the work ofall the Ford National Arts Education Initiative sites:grantees and their partners continue to work in avolatile, local school district leadership and policyenvironment. School and district reform pressures,along with local political changes, have resulted insuperintendent and curricula leadership turnovers in themajority of the Ford Foundation sites. Six out of ninesites have experienced superintendent and administra-tion changes at the district level at least once sincestart-up. In the face of this turmoil, the sites have cometo realize that their partnership and advocacy activitiesmust anticipate and incorporate the likelihood ofsuch turnover.

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1 See Mintrom, Michael. Policy Entrepreneurs and Social Choice. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. 2000. Sabatier, Paul and Jenkins-Smith, Hank C. PolicyChange and Learning. Boulder CO: Westview Press, 1993. Kingdon, John W. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc. 2003.

2 In 2006, Big Thought in Dallas received an unprecedented three-year, $8 million grant from the Wallace Foundation to build out arts and education in the in-school andout-of-school system. The partnership has leveraged the Ford and Wallace investments into a three-year, $30 million budget with funds from the Dallas Unified SchoolDistrict and other local funding partners. In Alameda County, the Alameda County Office of Education has been an active partner in mobilizing constituents to support astate resolution providing financial support for arts education. At the end of 2006, the California legislature passed a resolution to allocate $105 million for visual andperforming arts to schools based on enrollment. In addition, the state has allocated $500 million for an arts, music, and physical education grant, intended to be used forsupplies. The leadership of the Alameda County Office of Education is currently focusing on making sure California develops appropriate spending guidelines.

Progess, Challenges, and Lessons Learned

ORGANIZATIONAL READINESSThe pathways to achieving the aims of the FordFoundation’s National Arts Education Initiative havebeen complex, especially given the ambitious goal ofachieving equity and access through partnership build-ing and advocacy, and taking into account the variousstart-up conditions of grantees as they began their ini-tiative-related work. As has been noted, some granteeshad been working on arts and education from a systemsand public will framework for over a decade and wereable to tackle partnership and advocacy components ofthe initiative almost immediately and with intensivefocus. Others, who had operated largely as arts educa-tion program brokers, or whose expertise resides morein the area of general educational advocacy, had to firstaddress knowledge and capacity gaps. Despite thisvariability, it has been possible to identify early successindicators, as well as fairly universal contextualchallenges that organizations undertaking this type ofsystems-change work are likely to encounter. These aredescribed in the section that follows. The discussionis divided into the four key capacity areas as identifiedthrough the Theory of Change: grantee capacity,partnership development, advocacy and strategiccommunications, and integrated arts educationprogramming.

Grantee CapacitySuccessful policy change frequently hinges on the lead-ership and advocacy skills of a small group of champions.They exert pressure through effective case-making tochange the opinion of policymakers and through sup-port of mobilized grassroots constituencies. The Fordinitiative grantees were expected to build their capacityto become arts education policy-change leaders, andalso to develop and manage partnerships. All granteesmade advances in these areas, although stumblingblocks were encountered along the way and progresswas variable — with the more experienced sites beingable to mobilize more quickly and work in a more accel-erated fashion to address initiative goals.

FINDING #1: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICEIt took more time than expected for many of thegrantees to understand the significant role shiftrequired for them to carry out advocacy andpartnership-building work. At the initiative’s incep-tion, many sites (including Jackson, St. Louis, Baltimore,Washington, Berkeley, and Minneapolis) focused almostsolely on building or refining their arts integration mod-els. As is common in other initiatives that similarly pushgrantees to make a major shift in how they do business,many sites initially focused on doing more of what theydo well and what was deemed to be current under-standing of best practice. In this case, sites focused onprogram development, or providing more programs,and were slow to take up advocacy or systems-changeroles required for the National Arts Education Initiative.Some sites (such as Baltimore and St. Louis) had noprogramming at start-up; they concentrated on launch-ing programs. Once the arts integration programs weremore established, and the ability to scale with current

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Communications and opinion polling work had begun toshed an important spotlight on creativity and theimportance of developing a 21st century workforce that isinnovative, adaptable, and inspirational — all documentedoutcomes of an arts-integrated education.

resources was deemed limited, the site leaders beganto appreciate the need for advocacy and the need tobuild stronger relations with diverse political, educational,and community constituencies.

FINDING #2: BUILDING NECESSARY CAPACITYAND EXPERTISEFor most sites, significant capacity building wasnecessary as a prelude to taking on initiativework. Early on, the grantees intellectually understoodthe value of the advocacy and public will-building work.However, it was not until they made the shift to thinkingat a systems level, or building equity for programswithin their districts, that they began to think aboutpolicy change and the need to build their advocacy orpolicy entrepreneur skills as a grantee and partnership.The progress of grantee efforts can be broadlycharacterized as follows:

• “Advanced Sites” — these sites had strong, pre-estab-lished arts learning programs; significant experiencedemonstrating their value and efficacy; and an exist-ing appreciation for the value of advocacy alongsideprogram demonstrations. Typically, these “advancedsites” had been functioning for more than a decadeand were institutionally stable. Organizational struc-tures varied: for example, one relatively small organi-zation, with strong leadership and financial stability,relied on a network of professional arts educationvolunteers to supplement its small staff, whileanother site was larger and more robust, possessingleadership depth along with financial stability.Advanced sites, already at work on systems building,were able to work aggressively, systematically,and immediately toward initiative goals.

• “Developing Sites” — including broker/serviceproviders — found the transition to be more challeng-ing and time consuming than anticipated. Five of thenine grantees entered this work as direct serviceproviders and/or arts brokers with limited experiencearound arts policy, education system building, andadvocacy work. They had limited or no experiencebuilding senior relationships at the district level, orbroad-based stakeholder partnerships, particularlybeyond the arts and culture community; limitedexperience navigating school district education policyprocesses; and limited familiarity with education

reform issues. Developing sites, with support frominitiative partners and Ford, worked incrementallyand steadily to enhance advocacy, policy and system-building skills and knowledge once they came tounderstand the role shifts initiative-related work requires.

• “Emerging Sites” and “Start-up Sites” — that had tobuild arts education knowledge and/or integrate artseducation into other core capacities required moreresources than had initially been anticipated(additional allocations were made by Ford). One sitewas new to the arts education field, but had strong,relevant experience in community organizing for edu-cation reform. The other had experience in teacherpre-service training, but not specifically in integratingthe arts. In these cases, developing the necessaryarts and education experience required almost twoyears of research, engaging with stakeholders,and testing arts education models.

CASE STUDY: BUILDING A GRASSROOTS MOVEMENTWITHIN PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

Berkeley: Showcasing how the arts can be integrated intothe initial preparation of educatorsThe Arts Education Initiative (AEI) is a professional educationinitiative based at the Department of Education at the Universityof California, Berkeley. It partners with Berkeley faculty and thoseat five other regional higher education institutions to exploreeffective teacher and administrator preparation models for inte-grating the arts into the curricula. Each higher education partnerprovides lessons about a different model for how arts integratedprofessional preparation occurs in different academic contexts.Through presentations, publications, and strategic alliances withteacher organizations and institutions, AEI is building a grassrootsnetwork of teacher arts education advocates. Also, AEI uses theindividual partner models to show how to enhance the quality oflearning using the arts for educators and for the K-12 studentsthey will serve.

FINDING #3: EARLY SUCCESS INDICATORSEarly success indicators of a site’s ability to pursuepolicy change include: the ability to forge rela-tionships with district leaders; a commitmentand capacity to research and navigate theeducational policy process; and resourcefulnessin leveraging current relationships to build newones. Mid-way through the initiative, all nine granteeshad established direct relationships with and access todistrict superintendents, school boards, district

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curricula administrators, and other policy influentials.For over half of the grantees, these were newrelationships.Multiple strategies have been pursued successfully as

part of this relationship-building process, including:

• leveraging existing partnerships comprisingsenior community leaders;

• leveraging the Ford Foundation name and programofficer’s visit to gain access to new school districtleadership;

• strategically recruiting new partner members whohave strong relationships with city educationpolicymakers;

• securing a regular meeting time with thesuperintendent to “keep the issue of arts educationon the district radar”; and

• tapping into pre-existing parent organizing networks.

The most successful grantees are increasingly aware ofhow education policy decisions are made, including thetiming of the policy process and the level at which itoccurs (state, regional, national, etc.). The leaders inthe most advanced sites already possessed the neces-sary policy entrepreneur skills including the ability toscan the political environment for windows of policyopportunity, case-make for arts integration to broadand diverse audiences, and network in appropriatepolicy circles to gain support for their agendas. Othershave become much more intentional about tracking thepolicy environment and knowing which issues are mostimportant to policy leaders. Leaders are becomingbetter at reframing arts education issues for diverseconstituents, drawing upon the messaging platformsdeveloped for initiative participants.

CASE STUDY: NAVIGATING THE SYSTEM

Baltimore: A start-up focuses on developing policyentrepreneurial skillsSoon after taking over the helm of Baltimore’s Arts Every Day,its Executive Director began taking courses in nonprofit manage-ment and advocacy to better navigate the Baltimore SchoolDistrict. She researched the policy reform agenda of the newdistrict administration, and began working closely with a policy-savvy board member to develop an advocacy action plan thatspecifically aligns with the city and state’s broader educationalgoals. As a start-up organization, this policy entrepreneurskill-building has helped the organization position itself as anexclusive arts education broker for the school district.

FINDING #4: DEVELOPING DATA FOR CASE-MAKINGGrantees experiencing early progress havesuccessfully used arts model program data tocase-make for their arts education programs.Most of the sites rely on partners or external evaluatorsto conduct this research. By using quantitative data andillustrative story telling, these sites have been able todocument the impact of integrated arts instruction onstudent engagement, academic performance, andimproved teacher practices. They have used findings toillustrate to district administrators and other stakehold-ers the link between quality arts integrated instructionand school and district goals such as increased studentretention and improved academic performance. Forexample, Cleveland used positive data from a recentevaluation of its integrated arts program to advocatesuccessfully for integrating the arts into the entirethird grade literacy curriculum (see below).

FINDING #5: SECURING STAFFAppropriate and stable initiative staffingcontribute significantly to grantee progress. Sincemany of the grantees were new to this kind of work,identifying, attracting, and retaining the right type ofstaff has been a key challenge. Many of the service-providing grantees initially found it difficult to articulatewhat they were looking for in new hires. Current staffwere appropriate for the program-level work early on.However, their capacity for leading systems-buildingand advocacy work was stretched once the leadershipbegan to focus on policy and advocacy issues. After thedeparture of first hires, staff positions have been moreappropriately defined and filled and include individualswith organizing and advocacy skills.

CASE STUDY: STAFFING UP TO BUILD ADVOCACY CAPACITY

St. Louis: Augmenting staff expertiseTo ensure ongoing support of its arts integration initiatives in theSt. Louis Public Schools, Interchange adopted a multi-facetedadvocacy strategy that includes paid teacher and teaching artistadvocates, in-school family arts activity nights, and state-levelpolicy work in partnership with the statewide Missouri Alliancefor Arts Education. The director expanded his team to include anadvocacy consultant who works on communications and coalitionbuilding to complement in-school collaborative residencies andteacher professional development opportunities. He also hired aparent involvement consultant to assist with advocacy to parentsof students in the St. Louis Public Schools.

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Partnership DevelopmentPartnership building is a crucial component of theinitiative’s policy-change agenda. Effective policy- andsystems-change efforts require a diverse set of partnersand stakeholders, with a clear vision and buy-in for theagenda. The process also requires the ability to mobilizepartners and networks as necessary, with the ability toassign roles and responsibilities fitting and of interest tothe specific stakeholders. During the initiative’s firstphase, about half of the grantees succeeded in estab-lishing strong partnerships with consistent membership,and meet regularly to work on shared, clear tasks.

FINDING #1: CULTIVATING AND SUSTAININGDISTRICT SUPPORTDistrict buy-in, affirmed through financialsupport, provides a crucial partnership linchpin,which must be pro-actively sustained. Four sites(Alameda, Baltimore, Dallas, and Minneapolis) wereable to secure financial support from their schooldistricts by showing administrators how arts integrationapproaches can be tools to help achieve rigorous aca-demic goals as articulated in the No Child Left Behindact, through standardized testing and other assess-ments. Districts proved willing to provide funding for thearts integration work since it directly served theirbroader educational agenda.Yet, as noted, a significant challenge to partnership

sustainability is the frequent turnover in school districtleadership. Since the Ford initiative began, most of thesites have experienced superintendent change. In threeyears, these partnership leaders have had to establishschool district buy-in, build relationships, and develop aplan with their school district leadership-partners insome cases twice or three times. The Ford granteesand partners have begun to realize that constantrebuilding of the superintendent relationship is part ofongoing business in education improvement. The moresuccessful sites (including Alameda and Cleveland)have developed procedures to quickly approach newdistrict administrators to build new relationships andavoid loss of momentum.

FINDING #2: ENGAGING PARENTSParent engagement is an essential but especiallychallenging aspect of partnership building. Giventhat many parents have not experienced arts in theirown education, a number of sites have used art-makingprojects as a preliminary way to engage and connectwith parents and then enlist them as advocacy partners.Jackson has used Life Shards, a community mosaic-making project for those affected by Hurricane Katrina,as a way to create early parent buy-in for the artsthrough direct experiences. Alameda and Dallas arealso using direct family experiences in the arts as a wayto interest parents in the arts, subsequently recruitingthem as potential community advocates. Sites are alsoleveraging existing parent networks — sometimesfocused on arts education, sometimes more broadlyengaged with issues of education reform and communitybuilding — to extend their reach and deploy resourcesmost effectively.

CASE STUDY: BUILDING A NETWORK FROM NETWORKS

Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership connects withexisting parent groupsEarly on, Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership successfullymobilized parents to lobby on-line for the passage of a statemandate for arts education. Alliance for Arts Learning Leadershiphas continued to mobilize this group, the Arts Active Parents, andrecently developed the Arts Active Parents Leadership Council, apartnership that leverages the membership of existing parentorganizations such as the Parent Education Resource Center, andthe 100 Families Project. These networks provide a membershipbase and infrastructure that can be tapped for program participa-tion and advocacy. The Council allows Alliance for Arts LearningLeadership to use its resources more strategically, in areas suchas communications work and partnership building, rather than onreplicating the efforts of existing parent organizations.

FINDING #3: CREATING TIERED, DIVERSE, ANDDEFINED PARTNERSHIPSEffective partnerships typically have tieredlevels of engagement, with clear accountabilityguidelines. By the three-year juncture, all of the siteshad developed a clear vision for their initiative workamong key partners. Most sites have a strong coregroup of partners with defined roles. These sites alsohave a specified reporting structure, and partners holdone another accountable for various aspects of thepartnership work. The grantee frequently oversees theday-to-day partnership activities and is responsible for

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managing partnership communications, new memberrecruitment, strategy planning, and conflict resolution.The sites that have had more success with partnershipbuilding (including Dallas, Alameda, Baltimore, and morerecently and in a more incipient fashion, Jackson,Berkeley, and Washington) rely on partners not just forarts education model implementation, but also toimplement communications and advocacy activities.

CASE STUDY: TIERED PARTNERSHIPS

Washington, DC: The power of persistence and persuasionThe Executive Director of the DC Arts and HumanitiesCollaborative has not let the constant staff turnover and lowmorale within DC public schools hold back her advocacy work.As soon as the new Chancellor was named, she engaged theFord Foundation and several partners to present the arts integra-tion work to the Chancellor. The Chancellor’s reaction waswelcoming, although no real commitments were made. In orderto keep the arts integration work on the district radar, theCollaborative has continued to meet with district leaders, includ-ing the Deputy Chancellor, the Director for community partner-ships, and curriculum content directors to build and sustain newrelationships. The Chancellor and Deputy Chancellor have alsobeen invited to meetings of the Collaborative. It is hoped that allthis relationship building will pave the road for an easier “policyask” — district funding to expand the Collaborative’s pilotprogram to 20 more schools.

Advocacy and StrategicCommunications

At the initiative’s outset, it was hypothesized that itsoverall success would rely to a considerable degree onthe ability of each of the grantees and partnerships tobuild top-down and bottom-up support for arts and edu-cation, with targeted, strategic communications playingan essential role in this process. As in other aspects ofinitiative work, the more advanced sites, with a morenuanced understanding of the issues and specific con-stituencies that needed to be engaged, were able tomore swiftly engage in problem identification messagedevelopment, and plan implementation. They alsosucceeded in more rapidly and effectively capitalizingon the tools and resources being developed by theinitiative’s national strategic communications partner.The need for more targeted and grantee-specific techni-cal assistance in the area of strategic communicationshas been identified as an important focus for Phase II ofthe initiative.

FINDING #1: IDENTIFYING CLEAR AND SPECIFICPOLICY-CHANGE GOALSThe identification of specific and clear arts edu-cation policy goals facilitates the development ofeffective and targeted advocacy and communica-tion strategies. Many of the grantees initially definedtheir policy-change goals very broadly, without specificobjectives and measures — for example, “increasingdistrict buy-in for arts education.” In such cases, it hasbeen difficult for the grantee to articulate concreteindicators of what such buy-in would look like, or theset of activities necessary to achieve it.In cases where policy goals are clear — for example,

mobilizing the district to pay for teacher professionaldevelopment in the arts (Alameda), or case-making forthe need to hire more arts teachers to achieveequitable distribution of arts instruction (Dallas) — it hasbeen possible for the sites to develop detailed advocacyand strategic communications implementation plansand to track their own success.

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CASE STUDY: TARGETED MESSAGES

Jackson “asks for more”Ask for More Arts, established in 2005, grew out of the uniqueand highly successful Ask for More collaborative established in1999 to strengthen teaching and learning in the Jackson PublicSchool District. The idea of “asking for more” — from teachers,principals, students, parents, and the community — has led to thecreation of arts integration and artist-in-residence programs in 15elementary schools, over a relatively short time period. Over thenext five years, Ask for More Arts plans to expand its initiativeinto most, if not all, of the 38 elementary schools throughout theJackson Public School District, setting clear targets for the“more” it is asking for.

FINDING #2: DEVELOPING SYSTEM-LEVEL DATAArmed with data about the current state of artseducation at the district level, sites can makeconvincing arguments about existing conditionsand what needs to change. Communication andadvocacy efforts have been stymied to some degreebecause most sites have faced challenges in trying tocollect necessary data about the current state of thepolicy goals they wish to address. Without access tosystems-level information about arts education provisionsin their school district, sites have difficulty determininghow much money the school district is currently spend-ing on arts education, how many certified arts teachersare in the systems, which arts providers are workingwithin schools, and the extent of their engagement.This hampers advocacy efforts, since sites do not havea baseline from which to calibrate their progress inchanging these key systems indicators. The challengesthat sites face with regard to data collection are in partthe result of lack of grantee and partnership researchstaffing, and in part a consequence of the generallack of availability of this information at the school-district level.The more advanced sites, which possess such

research capabilities, have been able to mount compellingand convincing arguments that have swayed localpoliticians to lobby for more arts in schools in theirjurisdictions. Linking program distribution and socio-economic data (see below) has proved to be particularlypersuasive.

FINDING #3: ADVOCATING FOR EQUITYIn cases where sites establish policy goals, theygenerally succeed in galvanizing communities byfocusing on issues of educational quality and/orequity. A number of sites (Dallas, Alameda, Cleveland,and Jackson, for example), have used program data toshow that more arts partnership programs exist in mid-dle-income communities than low-income communities,creating a gap in equitable access and omitting largenumbers of lower-income students, frequently inner-citystudents of color. By using a citywide equity framing,sites have been able to move from a fragmented artseducation program demonstration perspective to acitywide, or systems framework, thereby facilitating themobilization of a broader group of grassroots organiza-tions and education policy advocates. This approachhas been central to successful advocacy efforts, as itrecognizes that these programs cannot reach allchildren in public schools without significant public andprivate dollars.To galvanize political support for expanded arts pro-

gramming, Dallas created maps showing inequalities inprogram distribution. These maps were shared publicly,prompting parents and community members to applypressure to elected officials to change the way in whicharts programs were offered across the city. In part theresult of these efforts, the district committed to placing140 new certified arts teachers in schools, and toproviding 45 minutes of visual arts and music to everystudent each week in all Dallas elementary schools.

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FINDING #4: TIMING AND TARGETING MATTERSThe most advanced sites have been able toinform policy decisions at critically-timed juncturesthrough the ready availability of effective mes-saging and data. Effective strategic communicationsoften hinge on timely delivery, and successful sitesregularly monitor budgetary and policy decision-makingtimetables on the local and state level. Alameda, forexample, was able to draw upon existing evaluationresults and anecdotal data from classroom teachersand principals to case-make for the arts as an integralcomponent of a quality education at a time when theyknew that district, county, and state-level budgetallocation decisions were taking place. As a result oftheir timely work, Alameda gained strong district-levelbuy-in and secured district and state-level funding forarts education. Cleveland and Minneapolis have alsorepeatedly used program data to present their qualityeducation solutions and programs to key decision-makers, resulting in considerable success in introducingarts-related curriculum components into the classroom.The work of Douglas Gould and Company (DGC), the

initiative’s national strategic communications partner,has provided resources to shape and target these com-munications. For example, DGC’s research suggestedschool-policy messages need to stress how the artscontribute to the well-rounded student with criticalthinking skills, create students who can compete in thecreative economy, and improve attendance and studentbehavior. Business and industry-focused messages, inturn, can effectively stress creativity, innovation, andcompetitive workforce development. DGC researchalso identified the “arts active parents” as a potentialadvocacy target, and a number of grantees havefocused initial campaigns on this cohort.

FINDING #5: PARENT ENGAGEMENTTo mobilize parents and family members asadvocates, the most advanced sites have createdhands-on arts engagement opportunities. Alameda,Dallas, and Jackson recognized that developing endur-ing parent arts advocacy networks could be facilitatedby first engaging parents directly and actively with thearts — by providing them with the experience of beingcreators of art rather than passive observers. Thisapproach proved to be especially relevant and effectivewhen targeting parents who had not been exposed toarts education during their own schooling.To more successfully engage parents, several of the

sites have experimented with reframing the definitionand term “art” to better resonate with parents. Forexample, in addition to engaging parents in arts immer-sion experiences, one site is defining arts more broadlyto include a wider range of creative and lifestyledomains: the way people dress, decorate their homes,perform folk songs, and participate in generationalstorytelling. Big Thoughts’ efforts to make the arts andarts learning more accessible to diverse communitymembers through this redefining process (see below) isreportedly beginning to unleash local arts engagementin its emerging community arts hubs.

CASE STUDY: STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

Dallas: Redefining “art” to culturally resonate withcommunities and familiesBuilding parent support for arts was central to Big Thought’s Fordstrategy. Early in the work, project leaders thought that prior tosupporting arts as advocates, parents first had to experience andengage in the arts. Preliminary work focused on providing artsexperiences to families in downtown and community arts institutions.

After a pilot and further research, Big Thought realized that thefamilies in their communities already had a wide array of artstalents and rich cultural arts traditions. Big Thought changed itsapproach. Rather than define these experiences as arts, whichwere interpreted as “off putting” and identified with downtowninstitutions, the Big Thought team reframed these local art assetsas community creativity resources. Big Thought began to harnesslocal talents that are more resonant with their local communities’backgrounds and interests. For example, a local Mariachi musicianwas tapped to provide music lessons to neighborhood children.

Also, to better understand the “arts” terminology that familiespreferred and why, Big Thought conducted research in six focusgroups in three communities. There was a strong consensusacross the six groups that “creative activities” was the mostattractive language for describing the array of cultural activities’children might do.

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Integrated Arts EducationProgramming

The scaling up of high-quality arts and education modelsis a hoped for long-term outcome of this initiative.Successful, high-quality arts and education pilots notonly provide experiences for children, they also providecommunities with a track record, deepen programdelivery expertise, and generate data for case-makingto broaden community support for more expansive pro-gramming. Over the initiative’s first three years, siteshave experienced some success with increasing thescale of their arts integrated models. Early conversationsabout quality programming exist in about half the sites.

FINDING #1: INCREASE OF SCALEDistrict-level support has allowed all Ford sitesto modestly increase the scale of their pilot artseducation models. The most rapid expansion andscaling of arts programs has taken place in the moreadvanced sites, where district-level leaders, includingsuperintendents and curriculum supervisors, are strongsupporters of arts integration programming. Along withthe Wallace Foundation’s significant support, the Dallasschool district is committed to adding 140 arts teachersto supplement the work of the Dallas Arts Partnersteaching artists working in 156 schools for the past threeyears. The total investment leveraged for this work tops$30 million of public and private dollars. Through itsstate-level work and county focus, Alameda has securedan additional $16 per pupil for arts education. Over thepast three years, Alameda has grown its model artsprograms from 12 schools to 40 schools in Berkeley,Oakland, and Emeryville districts. Over the sametimeframe, 13 out of the 18 school districts in the coun-ty have developed arts education plans.On a smaller scale, Jackson, Baltimore, St. Louis,

Washington, and Cleveland have been able to scalefrom zero schools to several classrooms across ahandful of schools (zero to 15 in Jackson, zero to 13classrooms in five schools in Baltimore, zero to five inSt. Louis, zero to seven schools in Washington, zero to14 schools in Cleveland). This growth has been facilitatedlargely by individual principal and classroom teacherinterest and support for the arts integrated approach.The majority of sites are currently providing arts inte-

gration professional development to increase current

and future program capacity. Dallas, Jackson,Minneapolis, Cleveland, and Alameda have gotten artsintegration professional development for teachers onthe district academic professional development calendar.Alameda, Minneapolis, and Cleveland have developed aprofessional development curriculum that is an integralelement of their school-based demonstration models.The arts integration professional development in thesesites is offered regularly to all participating school staff(including classroom teachers, arts teachers, andadministrators), and includes expert, in-depth instructionto support teaching practices. For the remainder of thesites, professional development in the arts takes placeperiodically, is limited in scope and content, and isrestricted to a small number of teachers.

FINDING # 2: THEORY-BASEDAND COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAMMINGThe grounding of arts programs in quality, theory-based frameworks and approaches most evidentat sites with a longer track record of artsprogram delivery. Applying a theory-based framework(such as multiple intelligences or different ways ofknowing theories that explore how children learn andinterpret new information) maximizes the likelihood thatthe implemented arts education programs are based onbest teaching and learning practices. Dallas, Alameda,and to some extent Cleveland are pursuing theory-based approaches. Program developers from thesesites work closely with noted national educationalconsultants to develop quality curricula, assessments,and professional development. Sites with no prior artsprogramming at the initiatives’ inception tended tofocus less on theory and more on getting programs upand running.

CASE STUDY: STANDARDS AND ARTS LEARNING

Cleveland: Targeting third grade literacy through the artsThe Cleveland Integrated Arts Collaborative has developed a thirdgrade integrated arts and literacy curriculum called Art isEducation. The curriculum offers a rigorous, standards-based modelwith the potential of being adopted district-wide. In the spring of2007, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District successfullypiloted the curriculum in 19 third grade classrooms in 14 schools.Prior to piloting, arts specialists, classroom teachers, and teachingartists participated in significant professional development.Rather than scale up to all third grade classrooms in the 2007-08school year as initially planned, the program was maintained at amore modest level due to changing school district priorities.

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FINDING #3: PLANNING TIMEInfrequent and sporadic planning time — amongarts teachers, generalist teachers, and teachingartists — presents a significant challenge inachieving the goals of integrated arts education.Ford grantees of diverse institutional types and trackrecords encountered this impediment, which isfrequently cited as a major stumbling block in other artseducation research studies. A key element of success-ful programs — common planning time — allows lessonplans to be shared, coordination of approaches andconcepts to be covered, and alignment of goals of thevarious instructors to be put in place. For the Fordgrantees, common planning time has been difficult tosecure, largely because of over-extended classroomteacher schedules.

FINDING #4: STAFFING AND RESOURCE BARRIERSOnce institutional will and commitment are inplace, the biggest factors inhibiting model scale-up continue to be adequate arts staffing andsustainable funding. Most of the sites operate incontexts where there are some arts specialists inschools, supplemented by visiting teaching artists.However, staffing is rarely sufficient and continues tobe stretched as programs are extended to additionalclassrooms. In some cases, when the program modelincludes one-on-one arts coaches for classroomteachers, as in the case of Minneapolis and DC,coaches are likewise stretched too thin.For the majority of the sites, the funding for the

model arts integration schools is sufficient at the scaleof a few demonstration schools. Currently, it is notsufficient to scale to schools throughout the districts.The exception, Dallas, is significant, because it pointsthe way towards what may be possible for othercommunities as they work toward initiative goals.Increasingly, some sites are beginning to think aboutlonger-term funding and sustainability issues, a processwhich will likely further galvanize and strengthen theadvocacy and communications work that has beenchampioned and supported through the National ArtsEducation Initiative.

CASE STUDY: INTEGRATED ARTS PROGRAMMING

Minneapolis: Relying on an expanded core of arts educa-tion coachesArts for Academic Achievement (AAA) was initiated in 1997 in theMinneapolis Public Schools (MPS) as a joint venture with thePerpich Center for Arts Education, a state agency dedicated toexcellence in arts education. Since 1997, AAA has facilitated highquality artist-teacher collaborations to create arts-rich classroomsfor students in MPS. Using a planning process developed fromthe work of Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe (Understanding byDesign), coaches support work with classroom teachers andartists. This established, integrated, arts education model promotesquality education through a community arts partnership model.Through its new Arts Reach project, AAA seeks to scale up thenumber of schools for integrated arts learning by providingincreased numbers of coaches, focused resources for underservedschools to expand programming, and an advocacy strategy.

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Lessons LearnedAs discussed in this monograph, and summarized brieflybelow, the first half of the Ford Foundation’s NationalArts Education Initiative yields numerous importantlessons about the necessary capacities and workrequired to extend arts learning demonstration programsto all children.

ABOUT GRANTEE OR LEAD AGENCY’S CAPACITY• It took more time than expected for many grantees tounderstand the significant role shift required for themto carry out advocacy and partnership-building work.

• For most sites, significant capacity building wasnecessary as a prelude to taking on initiative work.

• Early success indicators of a site’s ability to pursuepolicy change include: the ability to forge relation-ships with district leaders; a commitment andcapacity to research and navigate the educationalpolicy process; and resourcefulness in leveragingcurrent relationships to build new ones.

• Grantees experiencing early progress havesuccessfully used arts model program data tocase-make for their arts education programs.

• Appropriate and stable initiative staffing contributessignificantly to grantee progress.

ABOUT PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY• District buy-in, affirmed through financial support,provides a crucial partnership linchpin, which mustbe pro-actively sustained.

• Parent engagement is an essential but especiallychallenging aspect of partnership building.

• Effective partnerships typically have tiered levels ofengagement, with clear accountability guidelines.

ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS ANDADVOCACY CAPACITY• The identification of specific and clear arts educationpolicy goals facilitates the development of effectiveand targeted advocacy and communication strategies.

• Armed with data about the current state of artseducation at the district level, sites can makeconvincing arguments about existing conditions andwhat needs to change.

• In cases where sites establish policy goals, theygenerally succeed in galvanizing communities byfocusing on issues of educational quality and/or equity.

• The most advanced sites have been able to informpolicy decisions at critically-timed junctures throughthe ready availability of effective messaging and data.

• To mobilize parents and family members asadvocates, the most advanced sites have createdhands-on arts engagement opportunities.

ABOUT STRENGTHENING AND SCALING ARTSINTEGRATION PROGRAM MODELS• District-level support has allowed all Ford sites tomodestly increase the scale of their pilot artseducation models.

• The grounding of arts programs in quality, theory-based frameworks and approaches is most evident atsites with a longer track record of arts programdelivery.

• Infrequent and sporadic planning time — among artsteachers, generalist teachers, and teaching artists —presents a significant challenge in achieving the goalsof integrated arts education.

• Once institutional will and commitment are in place,the biggest factors inhibiting model scale up continueto be adequate arts staffing and sustainable funding.

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Concluding Observations

Looking AheadGiven the current state of limited public commitment toarts education, the National Arts Education Initiative’sfocus on public will building is appropriate, timelyand very necessary. Supporting the arts education field,locally and nationally, to understand the critical rolethat communication and advocacy efforts play ininfluencing public and private policies provides a newand significant direction for the field. If discretearts and education programs are ever to reach scale,learning how to influence these public and privatepolicy decisions is essential.As the nine sites continue to work on their advocacy

campaigns and develop arts education programs thatcan be taken to scale, their lessons can inform anddeepen the national conversation about what it takesfor communities to build arts education systems. At thesame time, the Ford-supported national strategiccommunications research and dissemination tacticscan be applied and tested in various locales. As initia-tive participants and others reach beyond their baseconstituency to forge partnerships, public support ofthe arts as an important component of an educationalimprovement agenda is likely to increase.The Ford Foundation’s National Arts Education

Initiative holds out a compelling vision for Americaneducation:

Across cities, students will have equitable access toquality arts programs; the majority of schools in thedistrict will have adopted a rigorous arts integrationcurriculum across all grades; and schools will have thenecessary infrastructure to support the implementationof the curriculum, including qualified arts teachersand teaching artists.

To be sure, there is much work to be done to achievethis vision; the National Arts Education Initiative offers acompelling roadmap for working toward this goal.

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As initiative participants and others reach beyond theirbase constituency to forge partnerships, pubic support ofthe arts as an important component of an educationalagenda is likely to increase.

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APPENDIX A:Some Ideas Underpinning the Initiative’s Theory of Change

APPENDIX B:Highlights of Strategic Communications Technical Assistance

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Appendices

APPENDIX A: SOME IDEAS UNDERPINNINGTHE INITIATIVE’S THEORY OF CHANGEThe initiative-wide Theory of Change is drivenby analysis that the Ford Arts Education team madeabout what it would take to build the education andadvocacy infrastructure programs and to changeintegrated arts education policies in the granteecommunities. Key components of this analysis areenumerated below:

The local environment for systemsbuilding and policy change is influencedby community contextContextual factors, such as shifts in public and privateleadership, changes in district and city policy, economicfluctuations, even natural disasters, as was the casewith Hurricane Katrina, have significant implications forcommunities and organizations being able to advancepolicy change. The impact of these changes can bereinforcing in the case of supportive legislature, ornegative in case of budget cuts or natural disasters.

Success requires leadership andorganizational development for policychange — the policy entrepreneurAs the work unfolds, the Theory of Change anticipatesthat Ford grantees become arts and education policyentrepreneurs, or leaders who seek to initiate dynamicarts and education policy change and do this throughproblem identification, networking in arts and educationpolicy circles, shaping the terms of policy debates,crafting arguments in support of arts and educationinnovations, and building supportive arts coalitions.To seize policy opportunities and activate partners,

grantees must have adequate organizational infrastruc-ture and resources to lead and sustain the partnershipand to activate partners as necessary. Grantees also

need data collection, analysis, and presentationcapacities to identify policy challenges, make a case forthem, and advocate for policy. For this initiative,grantees need to describe the current state of artseducation in their district: how many arts providers areworking in schools (number of specialized arts teachersin the schools, ratio of arts teachers to students,availability of professional development opportunities inthe arts, etc.). Equipped with this type of information,grantees and their partners can show the current stateof the district and why and how things should changefor students to be able to access high-quality artsintegrated education.

Partnerships are the vehicles for artsand education systems-buildingand policy-changeAn effective arts and education system is one in whichthe local school district adheres to state arts standardson an equitable basis across all schools, has annualbudget line items for discipline arts teachers for everyschool, and has specific curricula and assessmentapproaches for integrating arts into the curricula. It alsohas an allocated budget for ongoing professional artsand integrated arts development. Effective arts andeducation systems also have a robust set of local artsand culture organizations and teaching artists thatprovide arts education to schools and classrooms.Theoretically, in effective cities, school district and artsand culture organizations’ goals and programswork together to align support for a coordinateddelivery system.Nearly a decade may be required to successfully

implement an arts discipline and integrated program inpublic education for all children with the concomitantinfrastructure.1 However, given evidence from and liter-ature on partnerships in civic agenda-building, bench-marks for partnership development can be identified tounderstand and track progress.2

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1 This estimate is based on the trajectory of Big Thought and Alameda County.

2 See for example: Mattessich, Paul W., Marta Murray-Close, and Barbara Monsey. Collaboration: What Makes It Work, 2nd ed. Saint Paul, MN: Amherst H. WilderFoundation, 2001. Mattessich, Paul W., Marta Murray-Close, and Barbara Monsey. The Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory. Saint Paul, MN: Amherst H. WilderFoundation, 2001. Gray, Barbara. Collaborating: Finding Common Ground for Multiparty Problems. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.

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TABLE 1: ASSESSMENT INDICATORS OF GRANTEE CAPACITY

Grantee CapacityAssessment Area

Intermediate Outcomes

Organizational CapacityIncluding DataCollection

Grantee or partnership has sufficient designated staff and financial resources for daily projectmanagement, data collection for policy case-making, and for implementation of thecommunications plan.

PartnershipManagement Capacity

Grantee has skills in partnership management and capacity for communication,collaborative decision-making, accountability, and conflict resolution.

Policy EntrepreneurSkills

Grantee has ability to reframe arts education and community issues within an education policy framework;able to build arts and education policy networks involving diverse constituents and policy influentials.

Vision andUnderstanding of Artsand Education Reform

Grantee is knowledgeable about the ways arts contribute to excellent education and understandskey issues in education reform; has reframed and/or incorporated this mission as part oforganizational role.

Leadership Grantee is a respected community leader in arts and education.

TABLE 2: ASSESSMENT INDICATORS OF PARTNERSHIP CAPACITY

PartnershipAssessment Area

Intermediate Outcomes

Adequate Networks Effective, deep network relationships exist to disseminate arts and education knowledge and mobilizefor action as necessary.

Process and Structure Members share a stake in process and outcomes; clear complementary partner roles andresponsibilities; existence of evaluation and feedback mechanisms.

Communication Effective formal and informal communication practices.

Staff and Resources Strong leadership, adequate human and financial resources.

Partnership Purpose Shared vision; broad common arts education goals and objectives.

Membership andNetworks

Diverse and appropriate membership (including those delivering education and arts and educationprograms, and community-wide education improvement advocates); members view arts and educationpartnership work as beneficial to their organizational work; partnership is granted legitimacy in thecommunity; partners bring distinct and necessary networks for influence.

Drawing on this research on successful partnershipsand collaboration and on that of policy change, the FordNational Arts Education Initiative postulates that overtime, grantees and their partners will share a vision forthe arts education work and have an effective plan,structure, and resources to carry out the work. Also,partners will need a robust policy-influencing network ofeducational policy influentials and grassroots members,including a set of collaborating relationships at local-and state-levels to work together to frame common artsand education policy issues, set education improvementagendas, and put the advocacy and systems-changework into action. Partners ought to have complementaryskills, roles, and spheres of influence to carry outthe work.

Strategic communications is a powerfultool for advocacy and public will-buildingTo a large degree, it is hypothesized that the success ofthis initiative relies on the ability of each of the granteesand the partnerships to build top-down and bottom-upsupport for arts and education. As savvy policy entre-preneurs, grantees will not only need to identify artsand education policy-change opportunities, but also touse specific strategic communications and advocacystrategies to influence these opportunities.It is assumed that as a result of the advocacy and

communication efforts, sites will begin to see moreawareness of the value of, and more broad-basedcommunity support for, arts integration as a part ofquality education for all children. The results of this willbe policy change advancing arts education. Also, inbuilding increased awareness and support, partnershipmembers and key constituents will likely achieveincreased agreement, or have developed a commonlanguage about integrated arts education programming.As sites implement their advocacy and strategic

communications plans, the value of arts in education forall children, and its inherent systems issues, will beincreasingly visible with key education policymakersand opinion leaders. In time, more champions will exist,and they will take on increased actions.

Quality arts and education models forcase-makingThe scaling up of high-quality arts and education mod-els is a hoped for long-term outcome of this initiative.Successful, high-quality arts and education — often pilotmodels — not only provide experiences for children;they also provide a community with a track record.These deepen program broker, arts and culture organi-zation, teaching artist, teacher, and school expertise todeliver arts and education programming. Also, thesemodels provide a source of rich quantitative and quali-tative storytelling data for effective case-making tobuild broader support in communities. An assumption ofthis initiative is that models will be used to case-makefor systems change; thus, they need to provide dataabout their effectiveness and ultimately be high-quality,sustainable, and scalable.The issue of arts education quality is currently receiv-

ing a great deal of attention. Quality indicators arebeing refined in this initiative and through the work ofSteve Seidel, supported by the Wallace Foundation andthe Arts Education Partnership. Nonetheless, based onOMG’s experience in arts education and CynthiaCoburn’s work on scaling quality education models,several necessary elements may be needed for buildinga high-quality arts integration model:3

• A theory-based approach• Sufficient infrastructure• Curriculum• Student art production• Aligned assessment• Embedded, deep professional development toincrease skill and ownership

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3 Cynthia Coburn, “Rethinking Scale: Moving Beyond Numbers to Deep and Lasting Change,” Educational Researcher, Vol.32, No. 6, pp 3-12.

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TABLE 3: ASSESSMENT INDICATORS FOR ADVOCACY AND COMMUNICATIONS

Assessment Area Intermediate Outcomes

Impact TrackingCapacities

Beginning to establish mechanisms for gauging public response to advocacy work.

Sustainable AdvocacyInfrastructure

Partners have concrete roles in the advocacy efforts and are equipped with the necessary messagingand communications tools; ongoing resources identified.

School DistrictIndicators

Arts education curricula leadership at district level; allocated adequate arts education budget forstaffing at schools; allocated arts education for professional development.

Advocacy Goal and Plan Grantee and partnership have knowledge of issues and trends in local arts and education policyenvironment; they are able to identify an arts and education policy opportunity and near-term goal.

Communication andAdvocacy Plan

A policy agenda and advocacy plan are developed and implemented; strategic communications plan inplace and implemented with identified clear target audiences and specific messaging and tactics;assigned implementation responsibilities.

TABLE 4: ARTS EDUCATION MODEL ATTRIBUTES

Theory Based Approach Model based on research-driven theory — e.g., multiple intelligences, different ways of knowing, etc.;theory evident in all components of the model.

Student Art Production Classroom instruction ought to include making and performing arts, not as a product, but as a process.

Assessment Performance-based assessments are embedded in curricula.

ProfessionalDevelopment

Deep, on-going professional development at the school and district levels is an integral elementof the arts integration model.

Sufficient Infrastructure Supportive school environment that includes implementation support of teachers, principals, andadministrators; schools have qualified arts teachers supported by visiting artists; model is sufficientlysupported financially.

Curriculum Model is standards-based and follows a sequential arts curriculum making connections to othercontent-area curricula through shared concepts and processes.

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Hopes for long-term outcomesIn the long-term, it is hoped that the Ford Foundation’sNational Arts Education Initiative will facilitate thegrowth of local arts and education partnerships andthat the partnerships will diversify, become effectivearts education advocacy entities, and evolve ascatalyzing arts and education citywide educationprogram delivery systems. The partnerships will com-prise community members, parents, business members,education advocates, arts organizations, public andprivate funders, the school district, and other keystakeholders. Arts education will capture widespreadsupport as evidenced by public support for taxallocations for arts programming.

*

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APPENDIX B: HIGHLIGHTS OF STRATEGICCOMMUNICATIONS TECHNICAL ASSISTANCEStrategic communication work is central to the NationalArts Education Initiative’s systems and public will-building strategy. As an aspect of its work on behalf ofthe initiative, Douglas Gould and Company (DGC),conducted national research including public opinionpolls about arts education.Using the research findings, DGC created a series of

messaging platforms for arts education. The messageplatforms identified the problem: “Strong communitiesneed strong schools”; provided a solution: “Strongschools have strong arts programs”; and suggestedaction: “Help grow arts education to grow strongcommunities, schools, and students.” Table 1 providesmore messaging platform detail.Creating message consistency across Ford sites,

DGC also identified a variety of targeted audiences forthis work and targeted messages for them. Keyaudiences include education policymakers, educationreform experts working on the reauthorization of the NoChild Left Behind act, and parents. School policymaker-focused messages stress how the arts contribute to thedevelopment of well-rounded students with criticalthinking skills, create students who are competitive inthe “creative economy,” and improve attendance andstudent behavior. Business and industry-focusedmessages stress creativity, innovation, and competitiveworkforce development. DGC research also identifiedthe “arts active parents,” a cohort of parents acrossthe country who are supportive of the arts and to someextent already engage in arts activities with their children.DCG identified this national cohort as a potential targetgroup for grantees to mobilize as strong advocates forrestoring arts in the classroom.DGC has led site-based and on-line workshops to

assist grantees develop advocacy and communicationsstrategies to mobilize arts active parents and other artsadvocates. These workshops build off of a number ofweb-based tools and training guides including mediatoolkits, letter templates that parents and advocatescan personalize to lobby local decision-makers, campaignstrategy hints, and other resources to encourage actionby targeted arts advocates. Table 2 provides an exampleof some suggested action steps for arts advocates.Also, DGC has created the keepartsinschools.org

website, an information portal that supports the work ofthe nine Ford grantees, and also provides interactive

content for a national audience about how to engage inarts education advocacy. The website highlightsresearch, best practices, action steps for differentstakeholders, talking points, and other advocacyresources. DCG also hosts a listserv to keep a nowemergent broader national group of stakeholdersabreast of advocacy changes in the arts and educationfield. Through the website and national presentations,DCG has contributed to reinvigorating the nationaldiscussion about the role of arts education in qualityeducation. Through this work, DCG has also helped toadvance understanding about the need for arts andeducation systems and public will-building, and aboutsome of the message frames that resonate with parentsand decision-makers. At the site level, DGC has helpedgrantees and their partners develop advocacy andstrategic communication plans that include tactics andspecific messages. DGC has helped prepare pressreleases for most of the sites and has helped createcustomized messages, communication tools, andimplementation plans as deemed necessary.

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TABLE 1: ARTS EDUCATION MESSAGING PLATFORM

Problem Strong communities needstrong schools

• Everyone in the community benefits when public schoolssucceed; and schools can’t succeed without strongarts programs.

• Schools need to focus on turning out well-rounded individualswho are ready to take their place as citizens, workers, andresponsible members of the community.

• Sadly, too many school districts are cutting out the arts andrisking our children’s futures. This has to change.

Solution Strong schools have strongarts programs

• The real purpose of education is to help shape well-roundedindividuals and to educate the whole child and this requiresintegrating the arts into the curriculum.

• Schools need to help students demonstrate creativityand express themselves: the arts are the best way to makethis happen.

• Sure English, history, math, and science must be a highpriority for schools, and by integrating the arts you will seebig improvements in these areas, too.

Action Help grow arts education togrow strong communities,schools, and students

• Arts education makes children whole.

• Teachers must help draw out the individual in every child andthey want and need more training to be effective in this area.

• Ensure quality education for all kids by ensuring a strong artsintegrated curriculum.

1 Find out the arts education situation in your own community.

2 Speak out at your local school board meeting.

3 Get on local TV and radio to spotlight arts education in your community.

4 Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.

5 Expand the advocacy efforts in your local community.

TABLE 2: FIVE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO KEEP ARTS IN SCHOOLS (WWW.KEEPARTSINSCHOOLS.ORG)

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