IEA Newsletter for Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Welcome to the Institute for Education and the Arts’ weekly newsletter for September 26, 2007. The newsletter is published each Wednesday to the IEA listserv and archived here on the IEA blog.

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REPORTS
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CREATIVE ECONOMY CONFERENCE REPORT NOW AVAILABLE
Vermont Council on Rural Development
Posted to the Americans for the Arts Cultural Policy Listserv
”The Vermont Council on Rural Development's summer conference, Advancing Vermont's Creative Economy, drew over 250 participants from across the state. They were eager to share their stories, strategies and questions about growing a vibrant economy rooted in creativity, entrepreneurship and Vermont values. The State House event celebrated successes to date. It also provided a framework that allowed attendees to focus on current challenges and recommend specific policies to advance this work in Vermont. Eight working groups looked at different aspects of this emerging sector, covering topics such as agricultural innovation, incubating creative new businesses, using the web as a creative tool, and developing downtown activity. The conference report, including priority recommendations, notes from each working group, a summary of the panel discussion and texts of key speakers is now available."
View the report>>

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ARTS EDUCATION
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STUDY: SCHOOLS HAVE IMPROVED ACCESS TO ARTS PROGRAMS
Michael Rispoli, Gannett State Bureau/Home News Tribune Online, 9/19/07
”Nearly 20 years after arts education in New Jersey barely earned a passing grade, a report released Tuesday shows schools have improved access to programs, but most fail to meet state requirements for instruction and still depend on outside sources for funding. [T]he New Jersey Arts Education Census Project surveyed over 98 percent of the state's public schools on their arts education programs. The report found 94 percent of schools have access to at least some arts education, but over 75,000 students still have none. Almost all -- 95 percent -- of arts teachers are certified arts specialists. Schools mostly offer classes in music and visual arts, with dance and theater significantly behind, the report found.”
Read more>>


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LEGISLATION
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ARTS EDUCATION WORKING GROUP RELEASES LEGISLATIVE RECOMMENDATIONS
Submitted by Americans for the Arts to the Cultural Policy Listserv
”The reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) provides an opportunity for arts education advocates to inform their elected officials in Congress about the academic and social value of arts education for all students, and why it is so important to support arts education in the reauthorization of the law. On Wednesday, September 12, 2007, the Arts Education Working Group, a coalition of national arts and arts education advocacy organizations, released their legislative recommendations for the reauthorizations of NCLB, because research has shown that arts education has suffered as a result of the focus on mathematics and reading in NCLB. The Working Group continues to work with House and Senate committee staff to incorporate these recommendations into the reauthorization drafts. These recommendations fall in positive alignment with much of the … working draft of NCLB … [which] maintains arts education as a core academic subject and reauthorizes the Arts in Education programs at the USDE. The working group's four recommendations are to retain the arts in the definition of core academic subjects of learning, require annual state reports on student access to core academic subjects, improve national data collection and research in arts education, and reauthorize the Arts in Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education.
Download the recommendations>>
Learn more>>

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CREATIVITY AND THE FAMILY
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PBS Parents Guide to Creativity: Appreciate - or Make - a Quilt
Pbs.org
With elementary students, “explore geometric patterns and discuss the art of quilting. Arrange circles in a geometric pattern.”
Learn more>>

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DEVELOPING CREATIVE NEIGHBORHOODS
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GIVING ARTISTS SPACE TO CREATE
Eileen Rivers, Washington Post, 9/15/2007
” A battered two-story warehouse in Northeast [D.C.] will soon undergo a conversion that could have come from the imagination of one of the artists who will live there. Small windows will be replaced with larger ones to give painters plenty of natural light. Offices occupied by a furniture restorer, an engraver and a maintenance company will make way for airy loft-style condos to be filled with easels, studios and rehearsal space. The outside will look different, too: A parking lot will sit where there is now mostly debris. A third story will be added to the warehouse's main structure. Though the property is far from what architect Alexis Smith of Manna, the nonprofit development company that is handling the building's conversion, wants it to be by 2009, about two dozen painters, sculptors and performers applied last month to be among the 41 chosen by the Cultural Development Corporation to buy one of the future industrial work-live units. It's one of a number of projects in the area aimed at making homeownership a reality for low-income artists. By converting rundown property into condominium units, Manna and the Cultural Development Corporation, a District nonprofit group, are pulling artists into a market that several years ago many could not have afforded.
Read more>>

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GRANTS, FUNDING, CONTESTS, AND AWARDS
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT CONTEST
Deadline: 11/15/07
The Association for Career and Technical Education “is searching for budding filmmakers and is looking to the career and technical education (CTE) community to find them! Students will create a 30-second public service announcement to promote CTE Month in February 2008, which has the theme, “Discovering Skills for a Competitive Workforce.” Secondary and postsecondary students in CTE-related film, video, and production classes are eligible to enter.
Learn more>>

LEADERS IN LEARNING AWARDS
Deadline: 1/16/08
“Cable in the Classroom’s Leaders in Learning Awards outstanding educators, administrators, policymakers and other community leaders at the forefront of innovation in education. This prestigious awards program, in its 4th year of operation, is administered by the cable industry and its national education foundation, Cable in the Classroom.
Learn more>>

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